Conference turris::womannotes-v1

        I'll leave the early opinions at least to the women, but two
        small bits of fact. First, Guccione is the publisher of
        Penthouse etc. Hustler is published by Larry some-one-or-other
        (Flint?). I've no idea which one took out the adds you're
        referring to. 
        
        Second, there seems to be scientific evidence that depictions of
        violence can change people's attitudes and either incite
        aggression in children or perhaps get them "keyed up" and
        excited which would cause the incidence of aggression to go up
        along with other activities. There is not yet any evidence that
        violence or violence and sex contribute to the incidence of
        violence or sexual violence.
        
        The only study that the pornography commision used to support
        their contention that sexual pornography contributes to sexual
        violence didn't support that opinion according to the preson who
        conducted it. Rather, it showed that violence or sexual
        explictness combined with violence changes attitudes towards
        sexual violence, but mere sexual explicitness does not.
        
        JimB. 

    at the risk of making this seem to be a men's topic, I'll also add
    a few words.
    
    Bob Guccione is the publisher of Penthouse and all of it's spinoffs
    as well as a new magazine called NEW LOOK which seems to be a kind-of
    European LIFE magazine. (european in that it has photo spreads of
    nudes, but is not a "men's magazine")
    
    Guccione is behind an anti-censorship campaign ( I don't know about
    the full page newspaper ads) but the ads I've seen are like this.
    red paper, gold hammer&sicle emblem, line "censorship can make the
    world a better place" (or some such) the text underneath goes on
    to extol the advantages of censorship, clearly in a satirical light.
    (is this what you saw in the paper?)
    
    I've heard it said that pornography is one of the prices we pay
    for the right to speak freely. Just as the search and siezure laws
    will allow some known criminals to go free is the price we pay for
    the privacy of the innocent. Ever hear of "I don't agree with what
    you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."?
    
    I don't like "pornography" (in the extreme sense), but giving the
    government the right to ban one form of literature (even if you
    do consider it filthy offensive trash) is like the story of the
    arab and his camel (okay you're going to get the story whether you
    like it or not)
    	An arab made camp for the night and tied his camel outside.
    	The night became cold and the camel began to suffer. The Arab
    	took mercy on the camel and allowed the camel to put his nose
    	under the wall of the tent. The camel was still cold, so the
    	arab allowed the camel to put his head in. so on and so on until
    	the camel was entirely in the tent and the arab was forced out
    	into the cold.
    Once you allow one form of literature to be banned, all other forms
    become vulnerable. (remember SEXCETERA?)
    The real problem,as stated before, is not the pornography, but the
    NEED for pornography in some men. And it is not at all even remotely
    suggested that violent pornography will entice someone to perform
    a rape. Rape is a crime of violence, not sex. I don't think that
    becoming sexually excited by portrayals of rape will induce someone
    to actually rape another. (I have no proof, I don't hold this statement
    as TRUTH).
    Should we also ban all the Jason movies and the Texas Chain-Saw
    Massacre? How about Das Kapital, Mein Kampf, and others that undermine
    the very principals on which this country was founded.
    WHERE DO YOU DRAW "THE LINE"?
    
    I am sorry I've rambled on longer than I intended, but my freedoms
    are very dear to me, and if, in order to keep those freedoms, I
    must allow someone to exploit those freedoms, then so be it.
    I find violence and exploitation just as offensive as every other
    "right thinking"( ;-) ) American, but I believe that it IS the price
    we pay for our own freedoms.
    (and please don't mis interpret me, I am NOT saying that rape and
    violence is that price, just the right to publish offensive material
    is the price. When it can be proven that they are one and the same,
    then I will have to think about it some.)
    
    for what it's worth,
    
    sm(all town news)
    
    (--@^@--)
        '
      # = #
       ###

    i don't thing pornography is a swell thing. however, it is a puzzling
    issue for me.  where is the fine line between erotic and pornographic?
    at what point does the pornography become morally unacceptable --
    hal didn't even mention kiddie porn. is it all right that the library
    of congress has recently refused to provide playboys in braille
    (sans centerfold)?  is it ok that tom sawyer and huck finn are banned
    in some places?

        Basically, I suspect that it comes down to "erotic" is what
        you like, and "pornography" is what you *don't* like.  According
        to the dictionary (hell, it's convenient!)
        
        	erotic:
        	1. Of, concerning, or tending to arouse sexual desire.
        	2. Dominated by sexual desire.
        
        	pornography:
        	Written or pictorial matter intended to arouse sexual
        	feelings (from the Greek pornographos, "writing about
        	prostitutes")
        
        In other words, the dictionary doesn't make much distinction,
        except that pornography is limited to written or pictorial
        forms of eroticism.
        
        I really don't see how pictures of naked women (or men) are
        any more degrading than classical nude statues or paintings.
        At least, when we're talking about the generally well
        photographed Playboy type pictures... I never saw much artistic
        merit in the typical Penthouse type of "crotch-shot".
        
        As for X rated movies... I've seen two or three, and I can't
        say I considered them sexually offensive.  They were, however,
        extremely offensive artistically.  Nudes I don't mind, or
        even nudes having sex.  But when I watch a movie I like to
        have some script, photography, maybe even a little acting.
        I suppose the lack is inevitable when treating the people
        as objects.  *That's* what's degrading, not what those objects
        happen to be doing on screen.
        
        The same goes for violent movies, actually.  Although I don't
        really like blood-and-gore movies, I don't object when it's
        relevant to the story, when there's a purpose, when *people*
        are involved.  It's this "humanoid object tears apart other
        humanoid objects and gee isn't this fun" attitude which is
        offensive and degrading, not the violence in and of itself.
        
        Of course, there should be fewer flames on this set of opinions
        than on anything else I've said here, because nearly everyone
        is just PF3'ing over my notes now, right?!  :-) :-) :-(
        
        	/dave

    I think the distinction that makes the most sense t'me is:
    
    	Erotica:  portrayal of consensual activities
    
    	Pornography:  portrayal of exploitation.
    
    I know, I know, it's very hard to tell the difference sometimes, and it
    leaves certain minorities (e.g., S/M practitioners, who enjoy
    fantasised/play exploitation) unfairly on the proscribed side of the
    fence. I'm not too sure what to do about that...but I'm real clear that
    coercing children into sexual activities, or portraying people
    (particularly women) as deserving of violence or degradation is
    Not Good.
    
    (Lemme struggle into my riot gear before you start flinging brickbats,
    okay guys?)
    
    					=maggie
                                       

        OK, Maggie... although those obviously aren't the "real"
        definitions, I think that's a reasonable statement of what
        most people think of when they hear the words, and I'm willing
        to accept them for the purposes of this discussion topic.
        
        Your definition, incidentally, makes the vast majority of
        X rated movies safely "erotica" rather than "pornography"
        (well, at least all of the few *I've* seen, and most that
        I've heard of)... and makes a number of R and even PG movies
        safely "pornography", including many which don't depict any
        explicit sex.  Most all, however, include explicit violence.
        
	Sounds good to me.
        
        Oh yeah, one possible point of dispute: "portraying people
        (particularly women) as deserving of violence and degradation is
        Not Good"... If you mean that it's somehow better to portray
        non-women as deserving of violence, I'd have to make severe
        flames against your parenthesized comment.  If, on the other
        hand, you merely meant that people seem to portray women thusly
        more often than non-women, then I've got no comment, since
        it's true.
        
        	/dave 

    Going after Playboy and other such magazines isn't where the effort
    should be.  The following types of pornography are already *illegal*
    and the perpetrators should be gone after and prosecuted: kiddie porn
    (abducting a minor), snuff movies (murder), and pimps who abduct
    women and force them into (basically) slavery (remember Linda
    Lovelace?).
    
    So whenever I hear about censorship of "pornography", I have to
    wonder *why* the most severe, dangerous, and illegal forms of
    pornography (obviously not the mainstream stuff in 7-11's) are not
    already being vigorously prosectued by law officials.

    By the way, where do all those children you see on milk cartons
    go?

re:  movies -- I don't know if I'd agree that X-rated movies are "erotica".
I'd modify Maggie's definitions beyond consensual vs.  exploitative to
include the intended audience:  even if something shown in an X-rated movie
appears to be an activity between 2 consenting people, it's likely to be
exploitative in intent, and aimed at an audience that expects that.

There's a lot of nudity in mainstream movies.  That's ok, because there's a
lot of nudity in life, too.  Sometimes it's reasonable to expect nudity in
a particular scene, but much of it is just gratuitous.  Even that would be
okay, except that it's mostly gratuitous female nudity.  (Name the last 2
times you saw a man nude, shown from the front, in a movie, especially an
American movie!)  After awhile one gets to expect to see clothed men and
naked women.  I guess I'd include this in a broad definition of
porn, in that it lowers women to the status of objects to be shown off,
instead of characters in a story (and at another level, instead of people
playing characters).

					-- hs

Re: .9:
    
    Could the fact that there is more female nudity than male nudity
    be because women are less 'body conscious' than men?
    
    In my (admittedly limited) experience, men tend to be much 'shyer'
    than women in such matters.  No I am *NOT* trying to make a statement
    that women are 'looser'.  But I do believe women have fewer inhibitions
    about nudity.  I think that men tend to have a closer identification
    of nudity and sex i.e. men are more likely to be 'turned on' by
    nudity.
    
    I think that, in general, men are more attunned to outward symbols
    than women, which could help explain why the vast majority of
    pornography is aimed at males instead of women.
    
    Dirk

    re .10:
    
    	I think that there is more female nudity than male is that women's
     bodies are nicer to look at than men. (yes i know that's sexist)
    Men like to look at women's bodies. I've seen conflicting statements
    about whether or not women like to look at nude males. The movie
    industry is male dominated. Until that changes, we will continue
    to see more nude females than nude men.
    
    a side point to /dave's statement about violence. The Meese commision's
    "star witness", the psychologist whose work was used as the evidence
    against pornography, clearly states that it is the *violence* that
    lowers ones attitudes toward women. That is show the same movie
    without the sex, you get the same effect, show the sex without the
    violence, and you get *no* effect. From the news I've read about
    the report, this statement was ommitted from the report.
    
    sm

    re .10
    After living with one husband and three sons (and also 2 daughters)
    for a number of years I would have thought that men were less body
    conscious than women. All of my boys will wander about in their
    skivies and my daughters would never think of it. My husband used
    to wander about in a good deal less than that until the kids came
    along but I am extremely uncomfortable walking around with nothing on.
          
    I had always assumed that men were more comfortable undressed than
    women. Perhaps because they take group showers after gym, go skinny
    dipping as young boys (at least some used to), and manage to go to the
    bathroom publically.                              
                              
    Since you have three daughters, Dirk, perhaps your experiences with this 
    have been different.
    
    I have long felt that nature made women's bodies prettier than men's
    - at least the parts we normally keep private (I'm not talking about
    a man's well muscled chest here). Perhaps it was do to natural
    selection. After all - over the history of the human races - more
    men have done the chosing than women.

    RE:  Relative modesty of people
    
    From my experience it has seemed that whether you run around naked
    or not is more related to the family / community in which you were
    raised.
    
    I love nothing more than the time and place (appropriate) to skinny
    dip and have been caught more than once sitting around naked on
    a hot day reading at home (ever see a flash of white go behind a
    chair as you approached someone's door? (-: )!
    
    Don, on the other hand, while occaisionally skinny dipping is not
    at all comfortable without at least gym shorts on....
    
    It takes all kinds,
    			Audrey

        It's interesting that showing even a *drawing* of a penis
        (e.g., Fritz the Cat or Zardoz) is a instant and automatic
        R rating on a movie.  A real one is an X.  Period.  The only
        alternative is to remain "unrated", which means most theatres
        won't show the film.
        
        On the other hand, R movies can show full female nudity,
        and even PG can show only slightly restricted female nudity.
        I believe a PG rating can include full rear nudity for both
        sexes.
        
        When a PG movie can show people getting graphically blown
        up and torn apart, this rating system seems---to say the
        least---a bit skewed.
        
        Of course, I've always wondered why people object to women
        walking around topless, too...
        
        	/dave

	The fact that more women are shown nude than men in "X" films
	is pure sexism against women.  I have noticed that even when
	the men are completely nude, the camera tends to avoid shots
	of the male genitalia.  Shyness has nothing to do with it
	since they can always find "actors" that are not shy.  

	I also feel that society has dictated that women are the better 
	looking half (notice the large amt. of advertisement for female 
	beauty products).
	All human bodies are beautiful (as long as they are reasonably fit).
	I've seen some pretty good looking legs on men.  (Don't get
	uncomfortable fella's I'm not looking! :-) ).

re: .10
>    ...I think that men tend to have a closer identification
>    of nudity and sex i.e. men are more likely to be 'turned on' by
>    nudity.
>    
>    I think that, in general, men are more attunned to outward symbols
>    than women, which could help explain why the vast majority of
>    pornography is aimed at males instead of women.

	You may have something in that statement.  But I think it's
	more of society expecting men to be more visual, and women
	to be more "doing it for love".
	I personally get uncomfortable watching X films, but maybe that's 
	because I start getting mad at the film because of its sexism.  
	I think women can get 'turned on' by nudity just as much as
	men.  We just try to deny it.

...Karen

	P.S.  Why is it "erotic" to see two women making love, but
		you never see two men making love in X films?

Unfortunately, Hollywood makes movies for the majority of movie-goers: young 
heterosexual men (this determined by one of those surveys).  And they like 
to see naked women, so most nudity tends to be of women.

If you go outside of Hollywood to see others, such as the so called "art"
films,  you often see different kinds of nudity, without the exploitation.
For example, a recent movie, Desert Hearts, had a very erotic scence between two
women, without much nudity, all filmed naturally (no soundtrack, no roving 
cameras sweeping the bedroom).  Another, a few years back, called The Fourth
Man, began with a man getting out of bed completely naked, and the camera stayed
with him for a while---all very natural, too.

So, in movies, and in theatre, the kind of nudity, I think, depends mostly on
the target audience, and to some degree on the director (you don't see very 
many directors who are women, which is too bad; the director of Desert Hearts 
was a woman, by the way).  I don't think nudity in movies has much to do with 
how men or women feel about being naked; feeling comfortable naked seems to 
be more of a personal thing that differs widely within each sex, rather than
an attitude you can attribute to one sex or the other.

-Rob

        Part of the reason you see more female nudity---and more
        females (in whatever state of dress) on ads and such---is
        that advertisers have proven (to themselves, anyway), that
        both men and women would rather see women than men.
        
        Supposedly, men don't like looking at other men, whereas men
        like to look at women (for both esthetic and, I suppose, sexual
        reasons), and women are supposed to like looking at pretty women
        and imagining it to be themselves. 
        
        Since the same sort of distribution seems to occur in movies
        (particularly with regard to nude or seminude scenes), I
        suppose the movie people must be listening to the ad people.
        The fact that movies can make themselves appear "racier"
        by showing unclothed women (because they can show more under
        lower movie ratings) may also be a factor.
        
        The whole thing sounds pretty dumb to me, and I'd be happier
        if the entire concept of "advertising" had never been invented.
        As for movies: show anything necessary, but don't tack on
        violence (or even sex) just for the hell of it.
        
        	/dave

re: .9

> (Name the last 2 times you saw a man nude, shown from the front,
> in a movie, especially an American movie!)  After awhile one gets
> to expect to see clothed men and naked women. 

Here's one!  I just saw "Room with a View", a non-rated movie at
the Nickelodeon in Maynard.  And there were THREE "men running
around naked" -- literally.  The women retained all "Victorian 
modesty" at all times.

Yes, I was surprised at the apparent switch -- delighted, too.

Seems that .16 hit the nail on the head and .18 is the exception that
proves the rule.  "Room With a View" (if my circuits aren't completely
fried) is not a Hollywood movie, but came out of the U.K.  Our movie
industry has a reputation (deserved?) for selling out.  Adolescent
Heterosexual boys in our society (adolescents period) are not known for their
inclusive world view so movies that cater to that "I'm a human, you're an it"
mentality are not too surprising.

Pornography - That which treats people as objects (Movies, governments, 
etc. . .)?


"A Room With a View" had a head start in that it came from a very good
book.  The Male_body/Female_Body_in_sight mix was straight out of the book.
Anybody remember when the book was written?  Could be fuel for the note on
whether things have gotten better or worse. 

-Byron

    
    Egads, dare I jump in and shyly suggest that if the "target audience"
    for porno flicks are men, that the lack of "frontal" nudity may
    be because it may "turn" off the man if he doesn't like the "end
    results" :`)  after being "forced" to compare his genital size to 
    another man's, with whom he is trying to emulate and/or identify 
    with???  
    
    BTW - regarding banning pornographic material I too am in full
    agreement that many precedents about freedom of the press and freedom
    of speech is in jeapordy if one begins to censor!  It is pretty
    scary to think that someone, or some group can dictate what is
    acceptable or what is inflamitory ... Nazi Germany and book-burning
    comes to mind.  I also agree that kiddie porn is not of the same
    category - it is a CRIME.  Government tends to forget the real issues
    and go for the "popular" vote! ...Thanks for letting me spew a bit... 
    
    			-jlgillperson-

One other reason one seldom sees male nudity on screen is that, because
of the way the plumbing is arranged, it is a lot easier for women to
fake arousal then it is for men.

Martin.