rb@cci632.UUCP (Rex Ballard) (10/03/86)
In article <1597@felix.UUCP> daver@felix.UUCP (Dave Richards) writes: > > mat@mtx5a.UUCP (m.terribile) writes: > >[description of porn as having pictures of people being tortured, nipples or >penises pierced, etc.] > >>> This is not what I think of when I think of pornography. I have not >>>been exposed to this type of material, although I'm sure it exists >>>for those willing to spend the effort to find it. You must not have looked in an "Adult Bookstore". This type of pornography does exist, not in abundance, but in sufficient quantities to be accidentally purchased. There are two or three types of "bondage" porn. One type is more like a "fashion magazine", featuring women in suggestive costumes made of leather, satin, and silk. Another is the "gentle bondage" group, which has the same "high fashion" with a man or woman restrained in the background, often also wearing unusual attire. Then there is a third group where the victim really is tortured but gently, for the purpose of sexual pleasure. A fourth type, where the victim is savagely tortured, not enjoying it, often seriously hurt. This last type is extremely rare, but exists, and is carried by many bookstores. All four types look nearly identical on the outside. Video tape covers, magazine covers, and film covers, usually show the "high fashion" in front, with advertizing on the back. >>....... one of the few types of direct research that the Commission *did* >>undertake was a survey of materials available at ``adult bookstores''. The >>methods included taking the title of every nth current magazine or book that >>had any sexual reference on the cover. In this type of survey, I am surprised they found hard core bondage magazines, unless they were looking for them very hard. >>Various materials were also purchased, Under what conditions? >>and other materials siezed by law enforcement officials were provided. I am sure this would give a very distorted picture. Law enforcment officials normally only sieze materials in which a crime has been filmed. This would lead to lot's of "Hard Core" with little balance. >Unfortunately, that type of survey ("every nth current") does not say much >about the relative volume, or popularity of each type of pornography avail- >able. Using the same survey technique in a supermarket, one could infer >that a person is just as likely to buy a bottle of tabasco sauce as they >are to buy a potato, because they are both equally available. The false >conclusion is that the demand for all items is equal. There may be some accuracy in assuming that "bondage" is quite popular. Gentle bondage especially, is very popular among both men and women in the older age brackets. Many in this same group, however, are offended by the "Very Hard Core" pain and torture stuff. >Obviously I'm guessing here, but I would imagine that the largest volume of >porn is that which is in Penthouse, Playboy, Playgirl, and so forth, simply >because of the multitude of convenience stores that sell them. So who can >really say what PERCENTAGE of porn sold is of the violent, sadomasochistic >or torture type. Let's say that this 'violent' porn amounts to 1/100 of >the total pornography market. I don't think that is cause for concern. >Of course it may be more. Did the commission examine that issue? Or did >they merely say that 'some exists'? >Dave >>Mark Terribile >>>Dave Actually, many publications frequently run surveys of their audience, publish the results, and even track trends. Readers, subscribers especially, tend to get more sophisticated in their tastes, but newer magazines will bring newer readers along based on their level of interest. Circulation figures are available to anyone interested in purchasing advertising, and certainly could have been requested or subpoenaed by the commission. A worthwhile issue to point out here is the percentage of "porn within the porn". Playboy has a very small percentage of it's magazine dedicated to erotic pictorials, a similarly small percentage of the printed matter is sexually oriented. The goals of the Meese commission seem unclear at this point. Were they attempting to look at the market as a whole, the worst abuses within the market, the trends toward abuses, or the effects based on the trends? They did a terrible job in the first case, an fair job in the second, a terrible job in the third, and a terrible job on the fourth. The report in no way reflects even a random sampling of the market. This might have been excusable in the absence of any research data, but porn is one of the most carefully monitored types of material published. There is a thin line between boring, erotic, and offensive. Publishers must stay within those lines or lose readers. They did an adequate job of revealing possible and actual abuses by a small segment of the market, though they often cited what appeared to be abuses as actual without providing evidence to support the claims. While there might be evidence of a trend toward bondage and other assorted "kinks", this could be attributed to factors ranging from an aging population, especially the "baby boomers", increased exposure to socially acceptable violence, or the decline of "fetish material" due to the lack of restrictions on total nudity (fetish material has always been popular, even since the days when Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson exchanged materials (following Jefferson's wife's demise). Reguarding the "effects of porn". They provided some evidence that some readers/viewer of porn suffered adverse effects. Several studies which proved (inconclusively), that violent depictions may adversely effect behaviour was used to imply that sexually violent depicitons may effect behaviour. The material used in the cause/effect research only included sexually suggestive, rather than explicit material, violently explicit, rather than suggestive material, and a plot where the antagonist was someone to whom the protagonist was was sexually attracted. The shoddy research, deceptive use of studies, and distortion of the few facts obtained, make this study useless even as pornographic liturature. One person on the net wondered why I didn't testify, or at least suggest avenues of evidence. I wasn't asked, informed of the study until after it's completion, and would not be considered a desirable witness. It appears the same applies to anyone else with significant information. How much money did this little investigation cost?