New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | January 27, 2006

Nick Gillespie, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Pamela Paul, Robert W. Peters, and Brooke Gladstone debate the merits of ubiquitous smut.

Comments

dhex|1.27.06 @ 3:21PM|#

ms. brussel sounded really nervous.

"bob" the anti-porn guy was...yeah.

|1.27.06 @ 3:52PM|#

Nick,

Which NJ papers did you report for?

|1.27.06 @ 5:00PM|#

I am well respected in my community (executive position; no criminal record; volunteer work with the homeless, etc.). I also enjoy on-line porn (ocassionally, not often ). Have for ten years. What's the problem?

Gimme Back My Dog|1.27.06 @ 6:44PM|#

Has Reason reviewed the Paul book?

Warren|1.27.06 @ 11:01PM|#

Holy crap. Listening to that pair of culture fascists has put me right off my food. I'm crawling into my bottle and I don't want to come out till the Flint administration.

|1.28.06 @ 12:00AM|#

That was kind of long, and stopped just when it was seemed like it was starting... Here's my sum up.

Pamela Paul: I studied this, I found that it's bad, I wrote a book, and I'm right. Porn hurts...

Nick: I'm funnier then the rest of you. I did read Pamela's book. Life is good. Leave people alone. I didn't look at the pictures in Playboy.

Robert Peters: The states should be able to write laws against porn, until they don't, then the fed should do it. It's OK for such laws to be written against porn, the Supreme Court said so.

Ms. Bussel: They didn't say there'd microphones and cameras, but... I disliked porn until I saw it, and now I think it's pretty fun.

Thomas Paine's Goiter|1.28.06 @ 2:26AM|#

I don't have time to listen to that whole thing - there's porn to get to.

|1.28.06 @ 4:25AM|#

That Pamela Paul chick was full of herself. Only Ted Kennedy can give her a run for the chief gasbag title. She read whole passages from her book as if it was the most wonderful thing in existence. Like all good statists, she has way too much faith in the ability of the gov't to control things she doesn't like. You have a better chance of banning air and water than preventing porn from being available on the web. If the US bans it, we'll just get it from Europe.

The Robert Peters guy... uh, so, in 1930s and '40s, the US Supreme Court had reservations about obscenity? I seem to recall a dude called Flint who won at that level. Times and precedences change. Get over it. What a fucking dipshit.

Warren|1.28.06 @ 10:19PM|#

TWR,
You nailed it.

|1.28.06 @ 10:23PM|#

Nice job, Nick G. You clearly had the crowd on your side, and won the debate imo, with just the statistics alone. I find it odd that someone like Pamela Paul, who's so interested in the "impact of porn" has no idea how the crime (and casual sex) has dropped over the past couple decades. And when when comes right down to it and she's challenged a little then she acts like she doesn't even believe what's in her own book. The mod could have controlled her a little better, that would have helped.

There should be no obscenity laws at all. It should all be based on consent of the people in the video, pictures or whatever.

|1.29.06 @ 7:45AM|#

Actually, I think Pamela Paul made the most sense. It's sometimes amazing to me how close-minded other libertarians can be. You may not want to hear her message, but you should. And I don't doubt that some of you (probably those who aren't on the porn 24/7) will find yourselves agreeeing with her. As for the crime statistics, she makes it clear in her book that she doesn't find those convincing in either direction. People who use the crime statistics aren't accounting for all the other variables out there that affect those results. The crime stats are a kind of pathetic fallback for those who don't want to have to put together a convincing, factual argument. But hey, pornies, you aren't going to be convinced by sense. Afraid the penis speaks louder than the brain...

|1.29.06 @ 2:53PM|#

Nick, excellent job.

I actually respect where Pamela Paul is coming from, and I think that if libertarians are going to win this debate over the long run (assuming markets don't resolve the matter for us), it's people like Ms. Paul whom we have to convice. The dangers of creeping censorship are key, and Nick did an excellent job of highlighting that.

On the other hand, people like Bob Peters are never going to be convinced, but on the upside they have to dig back to the 1930s to find intellectual support for their oppressive views. Peters was right to bring up the case law he did (especially the more recent cases), but he completely ignored the real legal issue for the courts in regulating pornography. The problem that courts (and society) have with obscenity is defining it.

For better or worse, the law is pretty clear on the idea that obscenity enjoys no first amendment protection. However, the legal test for obscenity requires, among other things, that obscene material be devoid of any literary, political, scientific or artistic value. Most pornography, I would argue, has some value, and as much as men like Peters would love to be the sole arbiter of what expression is of cultural value, it is not for them to decide. In a free and open society, it is for the market to decide, and the market has spoken. Porn is a multibillion dollar a year industry, and I fully expect that in another generation the views of Peters will be seen as quaint and anacrhonistic.

|1.29.06 @ 3:12PM|#

Lucy, at the risk of arguing with a strawman, can you articulate your position regarding what you agree with Ms. Paul on? This would make for an interesting discussion, and I'd prefer to address actual statements instead of guessing at what I think you're saying.

|1.29.06 @ 9:12PM|#

Nick, you were really good (and funny), but I wish you could've gotten a few more words in. Anyone do a word count on Pamela? She got half the time and the other 3 the rest, if that.

Anyway, I downloaded the talk on my MP3 and listened to it during my morning run. I burst out laughing a few times from your comments, Nick. The one about "...not screwing people...unless they want it" and the "I started having sex in the 90's to get Macarena out of my head." Classic. You were the only one with a sense of humor, although the Family Values guy sort of tried, but you could tell he was sort of faking it. Did he look like Falwell's son?

dhex|1.30.06 @ 10:21AM|#

ms. paul is right in that there's far too much mean-spirited porn out there, but that's more a matter of taste than "obscenity."

|1.30.06 @ 10:49AM|#

...that's more a matter of taste than "obscenity."

Isn't that the problem? Obscenity appears to be a matter of taste.

|1.30.06 @ 4:55PM|#

Good suggestion, kmw. Hopefully, Lucy wants to have an actual discussion beyond trolling penis comments. Actually she sounded more like a sock puppet than a straw man. Even the empty rhetoric sounded way too much like Pamela Paul's. (And we libertarians know our sock puppets, we've got John Lott, Jr.)

Was Bob Peters just a pro-porn plant playing an extended and boring joke on the audience? I mean, really, "Bob" "Peters". That can't be a coincidence!