Well if the boys can have Inter-blog Gun Wars, why not Inter-blog Porn Wars? And contrary to what one e-mail said, I do not write these things just to wind people up…
…well, I must confess I do rather enjoy seeing Kevin leap up and down every time the subject comes up again.
But in truth I do think the issue lies on the edge of some very fundamental questions about human society and what makes it work, or not. Kathy Kinsley has joined the battle, giving William Sulik a forceful handbagging. I agree with Kathy and digging out my Oxford dictionary find a much more straightforward definition of pornography:
pornography n. 1 the explicit description or exhibition of sexual activity in literature, films, etc., intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings. 2 literature etc. characterised by this. [Gk pornographos writing of harlots f. porne prostitute + graphos write]
As Kathy also mentions, it is interesting to find that women seem to be the ones who tend to the ‘pro-porn’ side of this argument. Last time I wrote about this issue and, as has also been the case this time, generated a big spike in e-mails, women overwhelmingly agreed with me whereas men were more evenly divided.
Also I do address the matter of the more extreme forms of porn in my latest pro-porn frolic. Like many others I have poked around the Internet and seen some of the more alarming stuff but I cannot help thinking that it is much less significant that many seem to insist. It is a fact that people are capable of astonishing brutality and cruelty, but having seen that first hand on a large scale, I cannot see how people can then conclude when the same things happen on a small scale elsewhere, it must be due to pornography. Why not vodka or anything else you care to think up?
I will try to make some time later to answer more of the e-mails and bloggings on the subject that have sprung up overnight. I have a feeling these issues are going to have a long shelf life.
