Censorship? Just say "No!"
by
Avedon Carol
For me, the question of censorship was simplified a long
time ago when I noticed that pro-civil rights activists
were being censored in the United States on the grounds
of "obscenity". Given the complex sexual
mythology that has always haunted American racial
relations, it struck me as a sneaky trick to make part of
the back-room ideology of racism impossible to confront
in a public forum.
It wasn't new, of course. The first uses of the obscenity
laws in America had been blatantly political, and the
blues had been banned in Memphis as part of the
suppression of black culture.
But the problem became increasingly obvious as the
women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and early
'70s was subjected to one anti-obscenity campaign after
another. The primary targets seemed to be traditional -
as always, pro-censorship forces were quick to go after
material dealing specifically with women's health and
reproductive issues. But everything from lesbianism to
orgasm was up for discussion in the women's movement -
all had been mythologised, and all played a role in the
difficult relationships between men and women - and
repressive politicians wanted to make sure we couldn't
talk about those very things. The excuse was that those
things weren't really "political" - they were
"obscene".
Obviously, people want to talk about sex, think about
sex, play with sex and understand sex. Not just the
mechanics of reproductive acts, either - we're after the
whole nine yards. In the 1960s, the people who most
wanted to talk about these things were teenagers and
young adults, and our parents really didn't want us to. A
lot has been said about how baby-boomers "think they
invented sex", but the truth is that in a culture
that never really talked about the subject in any
substantive terms, our generation really did have to
start from scratch in many ways. We're still inventing
sex as a subject for public discussion.
Sex continues to be the first and most compelling point
of attack for moral rightists and career repressives. But
as they found they couldn't evoke the pavlovian fear
response to mere mentions of sex anymore, they stepped up
the rhetoric to smear sexual media with charges of
violence and abuse of children. It's no
longer sex, but "sex-&-violence"; no longer
sexual acts, but "torture"; no longer porn, but
"child porn".
It's a phoney dodge.
When feminists first brought up the
subject of domestic violence and abuse, the American
moral right was adamantly opposed to any movement to
stamp these things out. Violence, they said, was a matter
for families, not the state. Yet they are eager to see
the state, control non-abusive, consensual behaviour.
British moral rightists now unabashedly assert on
national television (Newsnight, BBC2), that if people
practice sado masochistic (SM) sex they become child
abusers. Merely "looking at explicit erotic
media" (pornography), they say, turns men into
abusers. Embarrassingly, our media presenters are too
ignorant to question those claims.
In a highly-politicised debate where one side gets to
control the discourse by censoring the subject at hand,
they can say anything they want. If people never really
get to see pornography, they won't know that it is less
violent than other media, so the moral right can get away
with claiming pornography is more violent. In this
climate, it becomes difficult to point out that half a
century of research and accumulated data conclusively
proves that sexual openness and explicit media are not
the problem. Question the moral
right's position and they call you a child abuser.
If you look at the backgrounds of serial killers and
child molesters, you rarely find that their parents were
free love-practising hippies or porn-reading SM fans.
They aren't gay rights activists or free speech
advocates. The material they quote
from isn't pornography or The Blade....It's the Bible.
Sex and sexuality are fundamentals of the relationships -
and confusions - between men and women. But it's only one
example of a subject where problems have been made
intractable by suppression of one side of the discourse.
A closer look at problems related to crime and drugs
shows that in most cases the sensible options have been
discarded before the public debate is even permitted to
take place. Our educational methodology has slipped where
creative solutions have been thrown out. Our approaches
to racial issues and economic policies are stagnant to
the point of self-destruction because some things just
cannot be said. We no longer feel free to question the
received wisdom.
The beauty of the internet, for me, is that it creates a
place to express - and expose - all those suppressed
views and ideas. It's a resource where students can
examine a multiplicity of positions and arguments and
sort them out for themselves. It invites you to think.
Ironically, however, the academic servers in Britain were
the first to succumb to the fear of such debate and to
impose censorship on Usenet groups. It won't surprise me
if similar controls end up being imposed on web searches.
It will be a true victory for the most powerful and
repressive forces if this tool, with all its potential,
is crippled for those who want and need it most.
But then, keeping people from thinking is exactly what
censorship is really for.
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It's no
longer sex, but
"sex-&-violence"; no longer sexual acts,
but "torture"; no longer porn, but "child
porn".
Question
the moral right's position and they call you a child
abuser.
The
material they quote from isn't pornography or The
Blade....It's the Bible
|