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Post-scriptum: Guys i wish i had more time, but i have a plane to
catch (vacation for me, 1 week, no emails ;) ). This draft is not
finished (but was too much advanced that i would not send it), and i
hope i can engage on it with some of you in the very near future.
Sorry if it cuts short the whole of my thought experiment, which was
to pit various tld-regulating scenarios against their probable
porn-outcome, and thus finish with the practical. As is, this is
merely the philosophical introduction to what i would have liked to
say. So here goes: <br>
<br>
Dear Caroline, Nuno, all<br>
<br>
This is a surprisingly civil and engaging exchange/debate, for a
subject that is potentially passionately felt, and i commend you
both for this. Before engaging it, i will not hide my opinions and
will say that i am in near-total agreement with Nuno, as well as
with Andrew. But I have no wish to pretend that only opinions
similar to these are receivable. Indeed, we are ourselves *and* our
circumstances, and our moral sensibilities are by no means
universal. I will engage this with complete disregard to all the
very good arguments that can be made with regard to the deleterious
effects of censorship, and i will thus humor only Caroline's points.
<br>
<br>
But first:<br>
Franklin's comment about "he who sacrifice a little liberty for a
little security deserves neither and will lose them both" has always
rang true to my heart, and my head. Privacy is a prime example where
the wisdom of this axiom can be understood: Privacy isn't just
a liberty-type asset, it is also a security-type asset (lets think
about it in the context of a scenario ― our worse RFID nightmare,
where everyone, police and thugs, have access to our whereabouts in
real time ― how secure do we feel? and how free?). Hence, when you
sacrifice a little privacy for a purported increase in your
security, you have not only depleted your privacy, but your liberty
and security as well (or are on your way to). <br>
<br>
Now i'll readily grant that this is no blanket reason to adopt a
hands-off approach with regards regulation of everything and
anything.<br>
<br>
back to pornography:<br>
I find most pornography to be an inesthetical social phenomenon (i'm
an unrepentant relativist, and never uses the "moral" category ―
this may offend some of you but bear in mind that it enables me to
respect your reasonned outrage towards this unrepentant relativism,
with, perhaps, more open-mindedness and understanding towards your
foundations than are usually shown mine). There is something deeply
repulsive about seeing sexual labour, of all labour, being forced
onto someone (lets face it, it is mostly women) by circumstances. When
those circumstances are mould by shaddy characters, it is all the
more repulsive. <br>
<br>
But if I say i find "most" pornography thus repulsive, of course, it
is because the issue of defining pornography arises when we attempt
to reason on the subject. I would not lump all graphic sexyness,
some of which of definite good taste, into the "bad" bucket. Indeed,
when i think about the history of my own little place on earth, i am
able to form the opinion that, without a doubt (for me), one of the
great gains brought about by many feminists battles is that my
sisters, my mother and my nieces can dress freely, engaging in
sexyness without fear if they so wish, are able to wear a swimsuit
without generating massive droolings by men or being frowned upon by
whole communities, and like-liberties are thus theirs. With respect
to the contrarian opinion, i prefer my daughter to be able to
express herself, sexualy and otherwise, freely, and I feel that one
of the most important stepping stone of feminists gains has been
that which liberated their body from generalized norms of
righteousness that have their whole array of social consequences.
That's how i "feel it". <br>
<br>
"Now surely", Caroline may object, "i can't find anything up there
that would warrant objecting to my proposition of forcing it all in
the same place by law (or one of its global derivative) for the
purpose of regulating its access, even if i grant that some freedom
of sexyness is something important that we women should not lose".
But i do. The reason for it basically being that it doesn't help one
single bit, and mostly serves to throw more blame around, more blame
onto some people that might not be all that deserving of it. <br>
<br>
For all its distastefullness, sexual exploitation is here to stay.
With that in mind, let's split the rest of this thought experiment
between two groups, 1) women who engage in pornography and 2) the
society that receives pornography.<br>
<br>
1) In the abstract, people with good intentions often end-up beaten
on the very persons that are deemed to be the first and foremost
victims. We see this with tough laws against prostitution, which are
(re)enacted with complete disregard to the actual evidence that
suggests that we are harming women even more, and not stalling the
phenomenon in the least bit. It is as though, in effect, we are not
trying to protect them at all and are more concerned with keeping
the neibhorhood up to a certain esthetical standard. With respect to
forcing pronography into a .xxx, i will grant that this objection is
unwarranted. Women will probably not be worse off afterwards. The
women that do engage in it because of circumstances (but lets also
grant, please, that no matter how distasteful this might sound to
some of you, some women active in the wide adult industry are very
much proud of what they do, and if you did it, wouldn't you be?),
might very well feel a little ostracized, but nothing huge. Will
this have an impact on the industry, no. On the women, no. But it
still serve to show that the principle of banning something that is
here to stay, is a bad principle, in the abstract. e. g. I strongly
believe that prostitutes would be better off with an accountant and
a doctor than with a pimp, if we must chose. Again, even though you
who read this may be a women, please don't ascribe to the women who
indulge John's everywhere the incapacity to choose, as i don't
defend the phenomenon solely on their purported capacity to chose.
Let's all agree, please, that there is some choice and some
circumstances, and the discussion will be enhanced.<br>
<br>
2) I have to take issue with assertions that, in my opinion, are a
bit fast with regards to ascribing root cause to some other
phenomenon. Causality is, unfortunately, a bit too freely ascribed
with regards to some of the worlds woes and problems, and similarly,
some of the worlds "problems" are very much multi-faceted, as i
tried to show briefly above. <br>
<br>
2-a) on the impact of pornography on society: <br>
<br>
I can see very little harm *caused* to society by the presence of
pornography (and since i have to leave this conversation early, i
will wait for others to precise what harms are brought about by it).
In short: I do not accept as fact that pornography is "freely
accesible" to children. Pornography is best filtered by parents, not
nations. But again, wish i had more time.<br>
<br>
2-b) on how to diminish circumstances that might quite
inesthetically force sexual labor: <br>
<br>
Attacking a phenomenon isn't the same as attacking its root causes.
Poverty, wealth gap, drug trafficking and addiction, and many other
things again, are amongst the causes for the most inesthetical
aspects of this phenomenon, the aspects that go to exploitation or
that see circumstances outweighs choices and liberty. I would dare
venture, though, that the cultures that are the most closed to
sexual expressiveness are causing comparatively more sexual labor
than the ones that are more open. And so, ironically, one of the
root causes of the phenomenon might well be the very righteous
generalisations that are brought up as reasons against pornography
(or access to). <br>
<br>
Again, as i am thin on time, i will come back to 2a and 2b if there
is some interest to discussing this further. And i would also hope
to show <br>
<br>
3) the likely effects of various regulating scenarios (revolving
around "forcing" pornography on a specific TLD) would have on the
phenomenon.<br>
<br>
<br>
In the mean time, i bid you all a good week end, and i'm off to some
sunny shores. <br>
<br>
Nicolas<br>
<br>
<br>
Dear Nuno,
<blockquote
cite="mid:D475F685-F5D5-463B-97A9-6569194EF149@FRENCHPARENTS.NET"
type="cite">
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Maybe not, but I do think your views that one should <b>not
take a moral stand</b> on pornography or anything else are-
<div><br>
</div>
<div><i>and</i> <i>you in all honesty allude to that- </i>tainted
by who you are, and probably by the fact you're a man.</div>
<div><br>
<div><br>
<div>You don't feel it<b> in your guts</b> like I may, as a
woman, that it actually <b>is</b> a violation of the bill
of rights the way women ( AND MEN actually!) </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>are treated and portrayed in pornographic material and
the impact such material has on those viewing it,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>especially those with psychological difficulties, not
to mention kids!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>At some point, not seeing it as a problem that this
material is freely accessible to<b> anyone</b> in the name
of ' moral neutrality' is equal to </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>endorsing free access to this controversial material.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>> Pretending domain names do NOT have a <b>moral,
political and sociological</b> impact is akin to digging
your head in the sand.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>> Pretending <b>education</b> will suffice to
offset this unlimited freedom of publishing online
material is naive. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Otherwise why not give us all guns to defend ourselves,
just in case, and just educate us all NOT to use them to
kill </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>those we dont get along with?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I feel there <b>should be a .xxx extension</b>, and
that all porn s<b>hould be made to use that</b> and <b>only
that</b>, by law, </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>just the way this material is not accessible to all in
the physical world.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Make the techies make that possible, dont let them tell
us it's not " technically feasible" just because they dont
care about</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>controling access to it.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Best'</div>
<div><i><br>
</i></div>
<div><i>Caroline</i></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div>
<div>
<div>Le 14 janv. 11 à 10:49, Nuno Garcia a écrit :</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
<blockquote type="cite">I hope that in the end I do
not sound like a Hulstler or Playboy stockholder or
subscriber (I am neither of these), but this is
really what I believe in, and probably my opinion is
relevant for the mailing list. <br>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote"> On 14 January 2011 03:00,
Dwi Elfrida Martina S <span dir="ltr"><<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:dwi.elfrida@depkominfo.go.id">dwi.elfrida@depkominfo.go.id</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt
0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204,
204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;"> hi rudy,<br>
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
<div>(snipped) </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt
0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204,
204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">I agree with you,
there is no country who already TOTALLY success
to do<br>
process 'filter'. But, still we have to do our
best to place "pornography"<br>
in good order, means there is certain
regulation, term & condition. so, we<br>
can protect country from decreasing of
morality:)<br>
</blockquote>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>As I think we have made clear from previous
statements, Morality (as well as public order)
ARE NOT an issue that concerns this constituency
and these considerations should therefore be
left out of discussion and encouraged to be left
of all the discussions in ICANN.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>(long parenthesis: I'm sure Dwi was
formulating a wish for its own country, and it
this case, it's perfectly ok to do so. I must
recall the list that Morality is an extremelly
complex issue, much more than paedophilia, which
is generally defined as crime in most western
and southern countries, but, in contrast, it is
indulged by some other countries (e.g. asian),
and was not at all a crime before 1950 in most
of the countries I know. When these issues dig
deep in our cultural backgrounds and in our
religious or belief points of view, it is best
to rely on the system of values that we know is
transversal to all Mankind and are best
described in the Charter for Human Rights, that
I think best summarizes the values we must guide
for. End of long parenthesis.) </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In conclusion, and having the Charter for
Human Rights as a working bench, I say that the
arguments for discussing this or that issue (but
not for the .XXX which is long due), should
never be issues on liberty, or censorship, let
alone competencies or policies for governments. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We, as an informed and knowledgeable
community, must put forward our opinions having
in view the larger and greater good of our
fellow Internet users, oblivious to where they
sit in working days or in holidays or in Holy
days. All of us deserve an Internet that _does_
_not_ _limit_ our rights as persons and promotes
the values engraved in the Charter for Human
Rights.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>We cannot say much regarding the different
civilizational issues of different countries.
For me, I know that in my country we still have
a long way to go. But this is my belief,
probably some of my fellow citizens do not agree
with me, and therefore this is not an issue to
discuss here.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I have the greatest of respects for all
cultures, religions and civilizations, and I try
hard to not let my personal beliefs to stand in
the way of my professional beliefs, so I expect
others to do the same.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Of course, I stand perfectly aware that, as
Ortega y Gasset once said, I am myself and my
circumstance, and thus my points of view will
always be tainted by the fact that I was born
and raised here.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So to conclude, for me the purpose of this
constituency is not to place pornography or
capitalism or comunism or _______ (fill in with
you word of choice) into order. </div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>It is to make sure that we provide ICANN with
valueable and wise opinions. And we should do
our best to do so. For our own good and the
benefit of all mankind.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I leave you all with two thoughts, one from
Ben Franklin who once said "He who gives up a
liberty to achieve a temporary security deserves
neither and will loose both" (and there are
plenty of historical examples of this), and the
other, from a greek philosopher whose name I
cannot remember "the best way to prevent a
damage to society is to educate the children".</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>With my personal and sincere excuses if my
points of view have offended anyone (was not my
intention), I wish you all a nice week end,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Nuno Garcia</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
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</blockquote>
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