Maxine's Journal

I have seen a couple of articles recently with a very similar theme: Porn is bad because well... it's bad, mm'kay. And also kids might see it.

I'm not going to address the question of whether porn is 'good' or 'bad' for adults (I think the answer, as with so many things, is somewhere in the region of 'it depends'), but I made a couple of comments on facebook in discussion about these articles specifically regarding children's access to pornography that I wanted to retain for later use, so I'm going to publish them here to refer back to.

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[Comment one]
Critiquing the existence of porn by objecting that children might see it is like criticising the existence of cutlery because toddlers might hurt themselves on it*, or of horror films because underage children might see those too. Yes, it happens, and sensible folks should take precautions against it happening, but kids are not the target market for porn in the same way that toddlers are not the intended market for knives, or for horror movies.

On the whole the folks who make porn are also in agreement that it's not intended for children, and take steps to avoid it. The people who make porn easily accessible for children are the people who steal it/share it/pirate it, and not the people who make it. Nobody is making porn with the *intention* of kids seeing it, so I think that 'what about the kids who see this?' is not a terribly useful criticism of its content, or of the industry itself, only how it's distributed - and again, that's usually more down to folks other than the makers and publishers of said porn. I think most folks would quite rightly be annoyed at someone leaving knives around where kids can get at them, without blaming the person who made the knife, or trying to ban the manufacture of knives outright. We can accept that there is an appropriate place for knives, and for horror films. Why is the same standard not applied to porn?

On the other hand, I'd far rather kids were watching people having a nice time with each other than, for example, people being beheaded - which is apparently perfectly acceptable in mainstream TV, even before the watershed, while images of naked people enjoying themselves are not."

*By comparing porn with knives, I am not saying that I think porn is 'dangerous', just that neither is a tool intended for children (and it was the first analogy that sprang to mind)

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[Comment two]
Coming back to this after pondering for a few more hours, it follows that tightening up on copyright infringement would probably have a far more pronounced effect on reducing children's access to pornography than any newly created obscenity laws, but to do so in a way overtly linked to porn would probably be political suicide as the government would be accused of protecting the pornographers' interests. Bah. Politics is rubbish.

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So is that the answer to kids accessing material not intended for them? Tightening up on copyright infringement? It's already 'wrong', but currently it's a civil lawsuit and not a criminal one. What would be the impact of making copyright infringement a criminal offence, and would it be effective without international cooperation? Would a public organisation chasing down incidents of copyright infringement help or hinder artists? Would it cost more or less than hunting down 'obscene' materials? Who would get caught up in the collateral damage?

What other ways exist or could exist that might be more effective in preventing children from accessing material not intended for them?

I don't have the answers, only lots more questions, but I think these are more important and relevant questions to be asking than simply 'Why don't we ban EVERYONE from watching porn in case children also see it'. Or you know... while we're at it, we could ban kitchen knives, alcohol, all prescription drugs ever, heavy metal music, horror films and the manufacture of cars, too. After all, everyone knows that children shouldn't have access to those...

I was introduced to the concept of the Self-Evident Epiphany by a friend of seinneann_ceoil over a large pot of tea one afternoon. The example she gave was the realisation, several weeks before, that on days when she went out wearing a sweater, she felt warmer. Astonishing!
I introduced her to another on the spot: that the phrase 'Self-Evident Epiphanies' not only has a poetic elegance to it, but also has the most perfectly apt abbreviation: SEE!

Every one of us put our heads to one side, and let out a sigh of delight at the beauty of this newly formed acronym. Ah, the sweetness that is the love of geeks for wordplay.

So the Self-Evident Epiphany, or SEE, is a thought, or a realisation that is perfectly obvious in hindsight, but somehow your brain had failed to register it until just now. A favourite one of mine, which despite its obviousness often fails to stick in my mind: if I keep my room tidy, I don't have to spend so much time Looking For Stuff. I realise this on a fairly regular basis, and it surprises me every time!

What Self-Evident Epiphanies have you had, or heard about?

Last night, I'm up at silly o clock in the morning, trying to draw, but distracted, and I come across mention of a woman online with a tattoo on her arm. It reads 'strap-on' and pictures a naked woman straddling a tool, and I find myself thinking 'that's a bit tasteless, what if she regrets it when she gets older?'

Then I realised there were a lot of things wrong with that thought.
First, who appointed *me* queen of taste? I'm an artist, yes. That gives me a perspective, not the whole rule book.
Second, what has it got to do with me what she wants to do with her body?
Third, what kind of hypocrite am I, forgetting I have my own tasteless tattoos (just because they're in latin doesn't make them any less tacky, does it? Maybe a little?).
Fourth, what's this obsession with people changing their minds?
I realised a whole lot of that response was about my having internalised attitudes straight out of the western media. Good old family values type journalism in which y'know, everybody could maybe have a future as a politician, or a respected public figure, and you wouldn't want to jeopardise that with a silly tattoo now, would you?
Worse still, I realised that if it was a man, I probably wouldn't have had the thought at all - but society tells us that women in particular are prone to changing their minds.

I've been thinking a lot about life choices lately. Decisions are often a hard thing for me. It's not that I lack confidence in the choices I make, on the contrary, when I actually do make a decision, it sticks. It's just that I rarely feel strongly enough about anything for me to want to make the choice. Often, the decisions I've made were based on what gave me the most options farther down the line. I realise I'm always, always thinking 'but what if  I change my mind?' There comes a point though, when choices have to be made. One can't remain in the bud forever.

I recently volunteered to run an event called Polyday (http://www.polyday.org.uk) - a day of workshops, entertainment and social meeting point for Polyamorous people from across the UK. I thought long and hard about the decision before I made it - not so much because of the work involved, or about taking on the responsibility, but about making the declaration "I am poly" to the world. It would be rather ridiculous after all, to run a national level event and have any thoughts about remaining in the closet. And closets, like overstuffed suitcases at the end of a holiday, are notoriously hard to go back into. I considered the possible repercussions all the way into the future, and found that I cared far less about any possible negatives to myself, than about the sad image of a future where events like this didn't exist.

But it wasn't really until last night that I realised there's been a part of me still waiting to decide what I'm going to be 'when I grow up', and always thinking about the 'what-ifs', without ever really focusing on the what I AM.

I'm probably never going to have a career in politics. If at any point I do though, it would be against who I am to try to hide behind a screen of assumed 'virtue'. I have accepted myself, and have no dirty secrets, they're simply a part of who I am. Sex-positive, perpetually curious and wanting to explore everything the world has to offer. I have a past, which of course has made me who I am today, and I'll wear the marks, and the scars, with pride.
I realise now I'm thinking about it that I'd rather have some people running the country with a little colour, some character, some history than the dull grey figures we have today, as career politicians. The idea that the people running the country ought to be pristine married-when-virgins, never modified their bodies, not even an unusual hair colour, never experimented with anything out of the straight and narrow, never had any *fun*... it's crazy. No wonder it's hard to live up to the standard, and all the political parties seem to be the same.

So back to Ms. Strap-on, I want to make her a little apology - sorry about my patronising response earlier. Congratulations on having the courage of your convictions. If you should happen to run for some sort of public office in my area (and your views aren't totally off the wall crazy), then you just got my vote.