http://www.libertarian.co.uk/multimedia/2012-11-05-porn-sig.mp3
Sean Gabb, Director of the Libertarian Alliance, speaking on BBC Radio Leeds on the 5th November 2012.
The question was whether newspapers should be banned from showing pictures of naked women for the tittilation of their readers – ie, “Page Three Girls” in The Sun.
Sean argues these points:
- That, if some women want to take their clothes off to show their bodies to men, and men want to look at their bodies, this is a matter of association between consenting adults. No one else has the right to step in and prevent this kind of association.
- That anyone who claims such association is “demeaning to women” is claiming a moral authority over the entire female sex – an authority obviously rejected by nude models, and perhaps by most women.
- That, after sixty years of often obsessive research, there is no proven link between consuming erotica and crimes of sexual violence.
- That there is a much better-established link between reading The Koran and blowing yourself up in a coffee bar, or between reading the works of Karl Marx and becoming a mass-murderer. Does this mean anyone has the right to ban these works?
- That those who argue that “porn leads to rape” are arguing in the wrong direction. No doubt men who commit crimes of sexual violence also consume erotica. This does not prove that the later causes the former. We might as easil6y say that, because most rapists wear trousers, wearing trousers cause rape, or that buying carving knives cause knife crime.
In general, Sean says that there should be no controls on the production or distribution of any sexual imagery that is created by and for consenting adults.
Where do the get the idiot presenters?. He sounds working class but parrots all the usual middle class leftist bullshit.
You could have challenged his tripe about us “living in a society full of abuse” also. His script was prob written by the NSPCC. Also the point that being looked at an d desired by a man = demeaning to a woman?. Again, standard femmicommisar hatred.
One amusing (in a dry sense) thing about the Savilocalypse is that all the allegations are of behaviour which occurred when there was no porn to speak of, and many of them before even Page 3.
But, no rational arguments will do much good. We’re entering Victorianism 2.
It’s worth adding that any time a Leftie blames “conservatives” for all this, one must just remind them that conservative arguments against social and sexual liberty were, by the 1970s, dead in the water; and have been entirely revived by hard Left aligned feminists and their exploitation/patriarchy/abuse narrative inventions.
The LeftoNazis invented sex in 1963, so of course page 3 must, post-dating it as it does, be their fault if it causes sex.
I don’t think page 3 causes sex or rape. Apart from anything, the women are usually in Spain or Morocco or somewhere too hot for sex, and which is where people have to fly to (so it takes a decision and some time – so rape probably does not feature as you have had to queue at Gatwick for hours first).
Also, they are weaing silly hats and too many beads (which get in the way of sex) and their breasts are too small, so sex probably is not “on the menu”, seaking as a man: a man is a specific sort of machine for passing on DNA that is designed to respond to “sex signals”. No signal? No sex.
You might also consider that they are being photographed inside “holiday parks” and near expensive pools: so I guess rapists wouldn’t get past the bouncers.
No, I have decided that page 3 nudes don’t cause sex crimes.
Also, Sean, I am very dubious that porn causes harm to underage children. I mean viewing it (I’m not talking about child abuse). For example, where a 15 year old boy sees porn on the Internet – where is the harm? Such boys are “underage” only in legal terms, I might add. There is a concerted campaign arguing that children are seriously damaged by viewing pornography. Actually children regard it all as a bit of a laugh.
I wouldn’t like the State to ***go out of its way*** to sexualise children, which is why the way sex education is carried out in schools and condoms handed out to children (schools abetting what is statutory rape) is repulsive to me. But children will always and have always found out about life from various sources.
DjWebb, you may be interested in this counter-argument about potential damage being done by internet pornography.
I am not swayed either way so strongly enough to have an argument over it, but I think there is something in what he is saying.
I only bring it up for your attention because you may not be familiar with the other side of the argument being put forward, and what wider effect (potentially serious effect) it may be having on individuals and society, especially the much more ‘internet addicted’ younger generation we have already had for about 12 to 15 years.
Regards,.
I exposed myself to quite a lot of porn from the age of thirteen onwards – the Latin classics have never been censored. It did me no harm!
“Porn Addiction” is another feminist trope hoarily (hey –a pun) re-introduced time and again as a means of demonising men. What it amounts to is that men who watch porn might get to want women who enjoy or are even enthused about having a shag as opposed to real life women who (mostly) have it on ration as a bargaining chip in a the business transaction that they call “relationships”. You know–“Buy me a Magnet kitchen and perhaps you’ll get some”.
“What Dr Sean Gabb said was offensive.”
I’m astonished at the stupidity I heard whenever Sean stopped speaking. These people are unbelievable.
Well, I watched the TED video up to the point when my dopamine levels were urging me to throw a brick through the screen. He’s basically peddling this modern fashionable theory that discovering the mechanical processes by which the brain decides it is interested in things and likes things and wants to do them again is proof of a coming brain-apocalypse.
The same arguments could be used to demonstrate smilar pleasure-reward cycles in reading books, playing golf, watching Star Trek, walking the dogs, anything. The idea is peddled simply by saying “brain changes” as if the brain- a dynamic system- is ever static.
It is really just getting fucking tiresome listening to the claptrap these campaigners come out with. Anglo society’s persistent terror of wanking knows no end. One might even wonder if some kind of reinforcement cycle in the brain causes it!
Just as I was about to post this, a bell went off in my head and I googled this guy and, as I thought, I had a brief argument with him over at the Good Men Project (a sort of false flag Rad Feminist website that tries to convince men that being “good” means being what a Radical Feminist wants men to be). He peddles this claptrap professionally with dubious anecdotal statistics.
Basically, 40 years ago the Rads warned of a rape epidemic that would result from porn. It never happened, so now they’ve switched to a “porn means men are losing interest in women” argument, which is even more pathetic. The harsh reality is that porn just isn’t so big a deal. It doesn’t matter much, and doesn’t affect anything very much. It’s just an entertainment. It doesn’t make people better, or make them worse. It merely is. But it’s just beyond our glorious moral masters to accept that. Hence this kind of nonsense.
It’s also worth mentioning that the same “addiction” narrative is being peddled by a broader coalition who are trying to prove we are addicted to modern life in all its forms- tasty food, “the internet” itself, and so on. Everything new is bad, apparently. Makes one want to weep, so it does.
I’m astonished at the stupidity I heard whenever Sean stopped speaking. These people are unbelievable.
You’ll find that’s generally the case when Sean is on the wireless.
Anyway, what do these buggers mean when they say “porn”?
It seems to consist of a lot of things, of which women removing their clothes seems to be the most inconsequential of all. Nearly all women remove their clothes probably at least once a day, in my experience, so what’s the huge deal?
As to the different types of “porn” (and yes, it’s fairly easy to find stuff if you know ehere to go) nobody, to my knowledge, forces anybody to lokk at anything in particular. if you go to some webpage or other, and find stuff you don’t like, or that does not rock your boat much, or that looks revolting, you just click off and go elsewhere….don’t you…?
Anyway, what certain middle-eastern countries do to “condemned people” in public, I would have thought is much much much more revolting, and worse, that watching some headshaved tattooed bugger rogering some nude woman who’s pretending he’s the best thing since sliced bread.
“Should Page 3 Nudes be banned”.
No they should not be banned.
End.
David-
Anyway, what do these buggers mean when they say “porn”?
Well it seems to me, a very broad definition, even broader than under Victorianism I. It’s any depiction of a woman that may arouse, basically. Which is much broader than the old “deprave and corrupt”; it basically excludes any other interpretation of the pictorial representation of women, or of nudity. It’s much more Puritan-American than Liberal-European.
It really is worth remembering that even in the tightly censored bad-old-days, there were exploitable exceptions such as “nudism” movies and so on. Indeed, the whole reason in Britain that Page 3 occurred was that it was not legally “pornographic”.
But, they’re determined that there will be no exceptions and “loopholes” this time around under Victorianism II. If it’s nude, it’s porn. No “artistic merit” defence; no “deprave and corrupt” test. Just a total ban.
Sooner or later, I suspect children will be banned from looking in the Greek galleries in the British Museum – that, or the fig leaves will go back on!
Should nudes be banned, what are lunatics at it again, it is a basic and
most funamental right that woman be able to make their own decisions on what they do with their bodies or assets, whats wrong with the Victorian
inbred head cases, I see they are having another dig at X rated films, one
council employee was sacked last month for watching one in his own
time. people now have more freedom in China, what the hell as gone wrong
with Britain and the fruit cake government. Where are the men in white coats
to take them away. Karl Fenn.
Many Victorians were not in favour of banning nudes.
Even Queen Victoria herself is supposed to have asked Boney III (on a visit to Paris – where he had gone fig leaf mad before showing her round statues and paitings) “do you know how many children I have given birth to?”