I am not now, nor have ever been, a moral relativist.

[alixtii]

1. Libraries as represented by the ALA oppose filtering. Libraries which filter in order to preserve government funds are indeed giving in to the Man and cooperating with a moral evil--although in very many cases the lesser moral evil, i.e. it's better to give in to the Man in the short term than keep people who need information from it completely (works of mercy get in the way of social action), and this should not be read as a direct criticism of those who have to make this or other difficult decisions. Making it easier for libraries to censor should not be paraded as a moral good, however.

2. Private corporations can censor. Think of a television station--who are the people who make sure you don't say bad words on the air, even if it's cable? Yep, they're called censors. It's not a freedom of speech issue when private entities censor--or rather, it is a freedom of speech issue but not a first amendment issue, and we have don't have a right to freedom of speech from private entities. That said, private entities whose sole function is to provide people with a platform for otherwise undifferentiated communication and still engage in the curtailment of free speech within their area of control may still be engaged in a moral evil. Just because something's legal doesn't make it okay.

3. It is not illegal to make protected speech available to minors on the internet. I could be wrong about this: certainly Congress seems to be passing a new law, and the courts striking it down, every six months or so. IANAL, but my talking point is that it is not illegal, and insofar as it is illegal (which it very well may be this week) the laws making it so are unconstitutional. That's not saying much--I'm a card-carrying member of the ACLU and there are a whole lot of laws I think are (or should be) unconstitutional, and for the most part I just have to suck it up and abide by them anyway, because the battle was lost back in 1847 or something. But there's some indication that at least in previous years some courts, including the Supreme Court, have actually agreed with me on this issue. And if this is true, people engaged in certain types of moral evil cannot even have the excuse that it was legally compelled of them.

4. As said in #1, cooperating with moral evil by obeying an unconstitutional law can be absolutely necessary--morally required, even--if you are Rural Village Public Library which absolutely depends on federal funds to give poor children access to reading material. Not so much if you're a million-dollar private corporation out to make a buck. Just saying.

5. Sex being separated from other things which are "adult" (whatever that means), like having a job or caring about politics or falling in love, as something from which children need to be protected is, without a doubt, a form of misogyny, which is a moral evil.

6. I'm wondering if using the terms "NC-17" and "R" to rate fic according to sexual explicitness and other spectra is cooperating with a moral evil. It certainly isn't intended to mean "No children under 17" or "Restricted" when I use them, but that is their etymology and that meaning is out there and there is the (mostly) value-neutral alternative (if less precisely graduated, if you can get less precisely graduated than the MPAA system) "Not work safe" available. I'm thinking no--etymology isn't destiny--but it is food for thought.

Comments

[slashfairy.livejournal.com]

oh, well said! well said indeed! *applause* may i link?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Of course!

[fairestcat]

This is the best single post I've found that articulates how I feel about this whole situation. Thank you.

The difference between what's legal and what's moral and ethical is something a lot of people seem to forget about these days and that scares me a lot.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

The difference between what's legal and what's moral and ethical is something a lot of people seem to forget about these days and that scares me a lot.

Agreed, and in both directions. It's worrisome when people assume the law will uphold any righteous activity, and worrisome that people will assess the righteousness of an activity based on its legality.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

This is the best single post I've found that articulates how I feel about
this whole situation.

Aw, thanks.

The difference between what's legal and what's moral and ethical is something a lot of people seem to forget about these days and that scares me a lot.

Well, it's always easier to let someone do one's thinking for oneself, as it doesn't require the courage to stand up for what one believes in.

#5

[amyheartssiroc.livejournal.com]

I don't really see how not wanting kids to read porn means you hate women.

Re: #5

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Singling out sex in particular, from the very large range of adult concepts of behaviors (no one gets upset about reading about paying income tax) means that one has particular hang-ups with sex and embodiment--things which traditionally have been, and in the cultural conscious still are, gendered female. Wanting to ignore, hide, or obscure the fact that, yes, we have bodies and are sexual beings is an attempt to eliminate difference, to erase femaleness.

Or an argument along those lines.

Re: #5

[amyheartssiroc.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I really don't see that. Sorry.

Re: #5

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Okay, so then why do you not want kids, defined as any person under the age of 18, to read about sex?

Re: #5

[amyheartssiroc.livejournal.com]

I don't have any problem with children knowing that sex exists, but reading about sex is very different than reading porn, defined as sexually explicit material created with the intent to arouse.

I also think that 18 is an arbitrary cutoff date that is probably too high, but it's useful in that some cutoff date is necessary.

Re: #5

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Fandom's definition--and thus the usage which may appear in my journal--of "an intent to arouse" is, I think, very complicated, with the line between sexual and other types of arousement/pleasure being very blurred (that's what slashers do, blur that line), and insofar as sexual arousement can be separated from, say, "literary" arousement, the word "porn" doesn't seem to be used to apply only to the former.

Re: #5

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Why do you think some cutoff date is necessary? Shouldn't this be a decision individual parents make about their own individual children (except in cases of abuse and neglect)? What is so very damaging about sexual material that it has to be kept locked up that isn't damaging about non-sexual material? When I had nightmares from seeing things I couldn't handle as a young child (under 10) it was always violence, not sexual material. I didn't *get* most sexual material until I developed my own sexual feelings. So why the concern about sexual material? Children too young to understand it usually ignore it.

And when you define sexually explicit material as porn based on the author's intent you skirt perilous territory. I have written things that people were very aroused by when I was just telling a story and wasn't particularly aroused by the sex scene (commonly this happens when my characters have kinks I don't, or like things I don't). I would define it based on a lack of characterisation and plot, myself.

Re: #5

[amyheartssiroc.livejournal.com]

A cutoff date is useful for legal purposes; for example, restricting the sale of such material or the admittance to theaters. Certainly it's important to know your child and what they can handle, but kids get into things on their own, so I think it's useful to have some kind of rating system that prevents them from seeing things unless their parents let them. (I'm talking about young children here, not all children under eighteen--by the time you're a teenager you should be able to start making those decisions on your own--but some cutoff date is still useful.) I don't think kids should be shown explicitly violent material, either. Neither explicit violence nor explicit sex is really comparable to explicit tax paying.

I think it's more useful to define porn as something with the intent to arouse because, as you say, different people are aroused by different things. If I have a foot fetish, and I get aroused by a scene where one character rubs another's feet, that doesn't make the scene inherently pornographic. If, however, the scene was written with the intent to arouse people with foot fetishes, it's pornographic even if I don't personally find it arousing.

Re: #5

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

In other words, what's different about sex as compared to violence, non-violent death, taxes and other things that bore or shock children, that you don't trust individual parents (and individual older children) to make the decision for themselves about what they can handle and feel that society should control this?

Re: #5

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

This thread does an excellent job of summing up my complicated thoughts about the way people in fandom, and myself, tend to use the term "porn."

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

Misogyny? I don't know about that. But singling out sex as a restricted topic displays a hugely skewed sense of priorities. At least in the case of the MPAA ratings, misanthropic even, if you consider the implied comparisons and rankings (beating someone is more acceptable than having consensual sex with them?). To avoid associating ourselves with those "values", I'd be very happy we refrained from using the MPAA's terms (don't they have those trademarked, or something? I thought I remembered some controversy).

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I'd still argue that being anti-sex involves being implicitly anti-woman, but yes, exactly. There's a whole lot wrong with the MPAA rating system, but I do think the way we've appropriated the system has very little to do with it, partly because our values are so different than the MPAA (so we don't rate gay sex higher than equivalent het sex) and partly because the demands of the medium are so different (explicitness in fic is not a function of what gets shown for how long).

The MPAA sent out a flurry of C&D letters a couple years ago, and there was an article in the New York Times about it, but iirc everyone agreed they had no legal case and AFAIK they haven't been heard from since on that issue. Most of the more visible targets like FF.net switched, though.

[thirdblindmouse.livejournal.com]

I do think the way we use MPAA's set of term is problematic, because I think it is inherently wrong to calculate explicitness of sex together with that of violence, abuse, or other factors. If I see a fic labelled as 'NC-17', that label could be telling me one of two very different things about its content. It could be extreme darkfic, and the NC-17 could be a warning about the amount of disturbing material, or it could be fluffy PWP and the NC-17 could be an indicator of the level of explicitness in the story's sexual content. It could also be a slightly disturbing PWP. It could also be an extremely violent and disturbing hate!sex PWP. Although warnings are the most informative way to handle information about the appropriateness/desirability of content, I know that it's nice to be able to sum things up with a short code and not bother with details. However, uncritical use of the MPAA format -- even if details of implementation (for example, equalizing gay and het) differ -- means we are still treating sexual encounters and violence as analogous. That sickens me.

I'd be interested to hear you elaborate on your reasoning for considering anti-sex anti-woman.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I do think the way we use MPAA's set of term is problematic, because I think it is inherently wrong to calculate explicitness of sex together with that of violence, abuse, or other factors.

I'm not sure how often we do that, though. I think we ignore a whole lot when we rate fic: how often do we see a fic with a high rating for action-adventure violence, drug/alcohol use, or curse words? It all comes down to sex.

Non-con gets rated more highly than consensual sex of equal explicitness, granted, but I'm not 100% sure there's not a coherent spectrum along which such a judgment is taking place, even if it's not as simple as mere "explicitness"--unlike the vague mishmash of continua along which the MPAA seems to be doing its rating (insofar as one can detect any rhyme or reason whatsoever).

Is there a value judgment at work here? If so, I might (at first I said I would, but you've created doubt in me) argue that it's our values, insofar as we can be said to communally hold any values as a fandom (and I think we do) that are at work, not the MPAA's. But I think the judgment might ultimately just be a practical one: noncon parent/child fic with breathplay is more likely to get you in trouble at work than vanilla fic is.

As for anti-sex=anti-woman, it's not something I'm sure I can elaborate upon further than I did for Amy above (or for Grace on the IJ mirror of this post). If we assume systemic injustic exists, it does so (I say? feminist theorists say?) by associating certain characteristics with oppressed groups and devalorizing them. So men are pure, rational, almost sexless beings, and women are icky and embodied and sexual and emotional--and if you've never heard these tropes before, I can find plenty and plenty of instances of them, but of course I can't "prove" it's systemic. It is simultaneously the case that a) these are bad things because they are stipulated to describe women, and b) women are inferior because they are characterized by these bad things. Taking part in the devaloring of traditionally female/feminine characteristics like sexuality and physicality is being partially co-opted by this system of patriarchal oppression.

And, arggh, I'm so not describing it well, but in large part it's one of those things that seem so frankly obvious to me I flail when trying to argue it.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if using the terms "NC-17" and "R" to rate fic according to sexual explicitness and other spectra is cooperating with a moral evil. It certainly isn't intended to mean "No children under 17" or "Restricted" when I use them, but that is their etymology and that meaning is out there and there is the (mostly) value-neutral alternative (if less precisely graduated, if you can get less precisely graduated than the MPAA system) "Not work safe" available.

"Not work safe" covers a much wider territory than NC-17, though. In terms of fanart, anything rated PG-13 through R through NC-17 could be NSFW depending on the workplace (in some places, just two people making out would be frowned upon, regardless of whether they're naked or not). That said, as someone who frequently websurfs in campus libraries, I appreciate cut tags and warnings for art a lot.

In terms of fic, how about something like "Contains Explicit Sex", which is essentially what NC-17 is used to mean?

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

"Not work safe" covers a much wider territory than NC-17, though.

That could be either a bug or a feature, and I'm not sure which. On the one hand, ratings are sort of like spoilers (although less so than warnings); on the other hand, they are fairly useful in deciding whether to read fic or not.

But yes, if we want to keep the rating structure basically the same while avoiding the implication that the purpose is to protect children from the truth about their own bodies, "Explicit" could be a good choice.

[cesperanza.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if using the terms "NC-17" and "R" to rate fic according to sexual explicitness and other spectra is cooperating with a moral evil.

I think it is, and I've decided I really hate them--they're bad (and sloppy enough) for film, but the sliding of film to text leaves us all saying things that we wouldn't, I think, "really" say if we meant it, i.e. that people under 17, or 14, shouldn't be allowed to READ certain stuff. As a marker for commercial film, yes, fine, maybe; it's also harder to just walk out of a film than it is to put a book down, i.e. if you're in over your head in a movie theatre, it's not the same as getting in over your head in a book, because reading is a participatory act to a greater extent than watching a film is. But I'm really against this metaphor we've decided on that says this is appropriate for text.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering, though, if "this metaphor we've decided on" isn't a dead metaphor at this point, especially if we're "saying things that we wouldn't, I think, 'really' say if we meant it" (if I'm reading you correctly).

[ignazwisdom.livejournal.com]

This is a beautiful, brilliant post, and I think you've explained your arguments really well in the comments (especially #5). I'm going to be thinking about the last issue for a while; I like Elspeth's suggestion of "explicit" as an alternative.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Thank you. And yes, "explicit" is a really good value-neutral alternative, much better than "not work safe" (which is problematic for its own host of reason) even.

I knew #5 would be controversial when I wrote it, but there really isn't any doubt in my mind that it's true.