rheaitis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
toujours_nigel) wrote2018-12-05 12:15 pm
toujours_nigel) wrote2018-12-05 12:15 pm
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All this is reminding me of exactly how much I adore ![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png)
denise even apart from her incredible fannish production.
In response to RW shock-and-horror about pornography!how could you!
I love her so much. I always have.
denise even apart from her incredible fannish production.In response to RW shock-and-horror about pornography!how could you!
We sure do and we sure are!
That sounds like I'm being flippant, but the question of "what is pornography" has been, for hundreds of years, the tool used by societies, governments, and corporations as an excuse to censor and suppress anyone who doesn't match the societally-accepted attitudes on gender, gender presentation, sexuality, and sexual expression. Because of how "societally-accepted attitudes on etc etc" are formed, "pornography" as a label falls disproportionately on minority populations and their cultural practices and the cultural, social, and legal penalties for producing "pornography" follow.
US judicial precedent, for years, defined obscenity primarily by the classic "I'll know it when I see it" -- that is, personal, subjective opinion. (Today's definition of obscenity that's replaced it is less pithily-summarized but equally personal and subjective; one of the three elements for a judicial ruling of obscenity specifically includes community standards, although nobody has ever defined the "community" involved, and so it is equally subjective and equally inequitably-enforced; in practice, it's been impossible to get a conviction for obscenity in the US in years, precisely because of the vagueness of the definition.) Our goal from the beginning was to remove as many subjective judgement calls from ToS enforcement procedures as we could, because subjective judgement calls, especially on adult-content related issues, lead to the burden of enforcement primarily landing against those who are gender/gender-identity/gender-expression and sexuality minorities, such as LGBT folks, trans folks, gender non-conforming folks, sex workers, and the like.
We sidestep all that by saying, flat-out, that with certain limited exceptions that are necessary to preserve the quality of the service for everyone, such as spam cleanup, it's okay to post here unless it's inherently illegal under US law. This undoubtedly includes a lot of content that people think shouldn't be allowed to post, but everyone's line for "people shouldn't be able to post this!" falls differently, and by outsourcing our particular definitions to "inherently illegal under US law", it lets us have a single standard that involves very few subjective elements.
That sounds like I'm being flippant, but the question of "what is pornography" has been, for hundreds of years, the tool used by societies, governments, and corporations as an excuse to censor and suppress anyone who doesn't match the societally-accepted attitudes on gender, gender presentation, sexuality, and sexual expression. Because of how "societally-accepted attitudes on etc etc" are formed, "pornography" as a label falls disproportionately on minority populations and their cultural practices and the cultural, social, and legal penalties for producing "pornography" follow.
US judicial precedent, for years, defined obscenity primarily by the classic "I'll know it when I see it" -- that is, personal, subjective opinion. (Today's definition of obscenity that's replaced it is less pithily-summarized but equally personal and subjective; one of the three elements for a judicial ruling of obscenity specifically includes community standards, although nobody has ever defined the "community" involved, and so it is equally subjective and equally inequitably-enforced; in practice, it's been impossible to get a conviction for obscenity in the US in years, precisely because of the vagueness of the definition.) Our goal from the beginning was to remove as many subjective judgement calls from ToS enforcement procedures as we could, because subjective judgement calls, especially on adult-content related issues, lead to the burden of enforcement primarily landing against those who are gender/gender-identity/gender-expression and sexuality minorities, such as LGBT folks, trans folks, gender non-conforming folks, sex workers, and the like.
We sidestep all that by saying, flat-out, that with certain limited exceptions that are necessary to preserve the quality of the service for everyone, such as spam cleanup, it's okay to post here unless it's inherently illegal under US law. This undoubtedly includes a lot of content that people think shouldn't be allowed to post, but everyone's line for "people shouldn't be able to post this!" falls differently, and by outsourcing our particular definitions to "inherently illegal under US law", it lets us have a single standard that involves very few subjective elements.
I love her so much. I always have.