Droopy wrote:Want a serious answer?
Don't knock yourself out.
What should be legal is one thing. That should include any pornography that involves only adults and the production of which does not physically harm or violate the basic rights of the individuals involved.
On the other hand, just as tobacco use is frowned upon and discouraged, so it should be with pornography that overtly celebrates aggression or violence toward women. There are grey areas of course since apparently healthy individuals can fantasize about what they would never wish for in real life. This is how it works for non-pornographic movies also (such as Kill Bill type stuff).
It is also the case that we must not tolerate pornography that targets children as consumers.
Another consideration is community standards. This must be balanced against personal freedoms and this is not expected to be an easy task. Small town Utah is clearly different from downtown LA. Perhaps a community has the right to maintain a certain consensus standard on these matters.
Finally, it must be recognized that no precise formula can be given for what should be tolerated and the debate will be ongoing with many borderline cases to be considered as they arise. Notice that this is also how it works with medical ethics. New challenges and ethical puzzles will continue to arise.
So then, this is pretty much the standard liberal/leftist position over the last 40 years or so, which is basically that all pornography, except that which involves coercion, violation of civil rights, and which promotes or glorifies "aggression and violence" towards woman, is, in some sense legitimate.
Yes. Note that this is thinking in terms of what should be legal or not. You yourself said that you oppose democracy to the extent that it becomes a mobocracy. This is why we must make things as open as we can stomach in terms of allowing people to decide what they think is valuable or moral. I personally think the erotic is a basic value--though one of the trickier ones as it occupies a place near the edge so to speak.
Polygamy was deemed immoral and illegalized. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned from looking at that.
Suppose a person actually puts something erotic at the center of their own upstart religion? Is it obvious that this person has no right to freely practice such a religion? What happened to the idea that my rights extend right to up the point that they infringe on another's right to pursue their own version of happiness?
Why does it seem that you become more "statist" and less libertarian exactly when the issue becomes one of sexual taboo? At times it seems that aversion or fear of the sexual lies at the hidden center of your thinking. Otherwise how can we explain the weird anti-libertarian attitude toward sexuality coexisting with your fairly libertarian stance on other more economic issues?
I'm just curious about a few things. Do you have a problem with bikinis, lipstick, dirty dancing, high heels and miniskirts? How about hula dancing or belly dancing? Do you worry about tight dresses, push up bras or tight jeans. How about sexy beer commercials or shirtless men in Calvin Klein ads?
Could you possibly just be constitutionally "up tight"?
If so, fine. But why do you wish to push this on the rest of us?
when believers want to give their claims more weight, they dress these claims up in scientific terms. When believers want to belittle atheism or secular humanism, they call it a "religion". -Beastie
yesterday's Mormon doctrine is today's Mormon folklore.-Buffalo