Surprised to see no comments here. Though not my academic field, I have made a lifelong study of media effects and also of the impact and regulation of sexual imagery. Here is the problem. There is no way to define "porn." It's not a real category. What today we call porn has origins in the illustrated menus of old brothels; and of erotic art. Marshall McLuhan famously described all of photography as The Brothel Without Walls.
I am sensitive to imagery and of images of women in particular. In terms of what I find erotically interesting, many seemingly garden variety YouTube videos posted by young women are far more exciting and enticing than what is called porn. I see plenty of ads in the NY Times that are darned sexy, better styled, more evocative, and far more interesting than "porn." So why is that advertising and not art; why is that not porn? The purported purpose? Well, they're sellng pussy. That should count.
Is anyone familiar with the film behind the Potter Stewart quote, "I know it when I see it?"
Stewart was referring to the 1958 French film Les Amants (The Lovers), directed by Louis Malle, in his concurring opinion for Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). Stewart argued that while "hard-core pornography" is difficult to define, he knew it when he saw it, and The Lovers did not fit that description.
So I hunted down a copy of the film, and watched it with great interest. It's your basic French romance and does not have a single sex scene. I was waiting eagerly! It was just a bunch of rich people in France having a little drama. And yet it was the subject of a criminal prosecution. This is the problem. Anything can be subjected to prosecution usng the foggy concept of "porn."
In living memory the Sears Catalog was a suspect. And after the Drowkin laws got passed in Canada, one of the first publications censored was the lesbian publication ON OUR BACKS and Bad Attitude along with works by lesbian authors like Jane Rule and Anne Cameron.
So there is no way to discuss sex and sex culture without risking being categorized as porn, and it would seem that shutting down the discussion we are having here would be the main point.
Scotus has bequethed us with the Miller Test, which says that something qualifies as obscenity when it meets a diveristy of standards that are impossible to fulfill at once (puririent, patently offensive, lack of cultural value). But if something lacked cultural value, it would not be discussed by the culture. As soon as there is a discussion, it has cultural value. And if you have to potentially commit the crime to show the jury the pictures, that's just stupid. Nobody is killed during a homicide trial. If the prosecutor commits obscenity by copying the item that is on trial, there is an inherent contradiction. (Please read the book The Brethren for some funny scenes of Scotus justices watching stag flicks in the Supreme Court basement as part of their job.)
I think we need to go deeper when understanding the cultural impact of sexual imagery and the impact on individuals. As a student of McLuhan, I would offer that digital porn is no different from other forms of digital content, incuding A.I. companions (argulably far worse due to their persuasive and "personalized" nature). Once human relations are projected into the transactional world of the digital environment, the effect is had. I would argue that Tinder and Grinder are every bit as pericious in their effects as any "obscene" literature, as we immediately enter the world of user as content.
Are you aware that in California, $3000 per minute is spent on OnlyFans? $350m in 2025. Are we going to argue that those presenters have no right to use their body, voice and ideas to make a lving? This is not my thing. I want my companionship in person and I'm not into transactions, only into making dinner. The issue here is the very notion that someone has to do something about something that in the end is not their business.
Surprised to see no comments here. Though not my academic field, I have made a lifelong study of media effects and also of the impact and regulation of sexual imagery. Here is the problem. There is no way to define "porn." It's not a real category. What today we call porn has origins in the illustrated menus of old brothels; and of erotic art. Marshall McLuhan famously described all of photography as The Brothel Without Walls.
I am sensitive to imagery and of images of women in particular. In terms of what I find erotically interesting, many seemingly garden variety YouTube videos posted by young women are far more exciting and enticing than what is called porn. I see plenty of ads in the NY Times that are darned sexy, better styled, more evocative, and far more interesting than "porn." So why is that advertising and not art; why is that not porn? The purported purpose? Well, they're sellng pussy. That should count.
Is anyone familiar with the film behind the Potter Stewart quote, "I know it when I see it?"
Stewart was referring to the 1958 French film Les Amants (The Lovers), directed by Louis Malle, in his concurring opinion for Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964). Stewart argued that while "hard-core pornography" is difficult to define, he knew it when he saw it, and The Lovers did not fit that description.
So I hunted down a copy of the film, and watched it with great interest. It's your basic French romance and does not have a single sex scene. I was waiting eagerly! It was just a bunch of rich people in France having a little drama. And yet it was the subject of a criminal prosecution. This is the problem. Anything can be subjected to prosecution usng the foggy concept of "porn."
In living memory the Sears Catalog was a suspect. And after the Drowkin laws got passed in Canada, one of the first publications censored was the lesbian publication ON OUR BACKS and Bad Attitude along with works by lesbian authors like Jane Rule and Anne Cameron.
So there is no way to discuss sex and sex culture without risking being categorized as porn, and it would seem that shutting down the discussion we are having here would be the main point.
Scotus has bequethed us with the Miller Test, which says that something qualifies as obscenity when it meets a diveristy of standards that are impossible to fulfill at once (puririent, patently offensive, lack of cultural value). But if something lacked cultural value, it would not be discussed by the culture. As soon as there is a discussion, it has cultural value. And if you have to potentially commit the crime to show the jury the pictures, that's just stupid. Nobody is killed during a homicide trial. If the prosecutor commits obscenity by copying the item that is on trial, there is an inherent contradiction. (Please read the book The Brethren for some funny scenes of Scotus justices watching stag flicks in the Supreme Court basement as part of their job.)
I think we need to go deeper when understanding the cultural impact of sexual imagery and the impact on individuals. As a student of McLuhan, I would offer that digital porn is no different from other forms of digital content, incuding A.I. companions (argulably far worse due to their persuasive and "personalized" nature). Once human relations are projected into the transactional world of the digital environment, the effect is had. I would argue that Tinder and Grinder are every bit as pericious in their effects as any "obscene" literature, as we immediately enter the world of user as content.
Are you aware that in California, $3000 per minute is spent on OnlyFans? $350m in 2025. Are we going to argue that those presenters have no right to use their body, voice and ideas to make a lving? This is not my thing. I want my companionship in person and I'm not into transactions, only into making dinner. The issue here is the very notion that someone has to do something about something that in the end is not their business.
edited.