War on Porn

[Sasaki Kojiro]

National Coalition for Sexual Freedom

October 20, 2005 - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has announced that his office will specifically target "bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior" in pursuing new obscenity prosecutions. The Department of Justice began recruiting in late July for a new anti-obscenity squad to pursue obscenity prosecutions, and the FBI announced in September that it was forming an anti-obscenity task force to crack down on pornography.

Any website that has content containing "bestiality, urination,
defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior" should be forewarned that prosecution is possible. Additionally, Federal sentencing guidelines state that any obscenity-related punishment should be "enhanced for sadomasochistic material."

Forty people and businesses have been convicted of obscenity since 2001, and 20 additional indictments are pending according to Andrew Oosterbaan, chief of the Justice Department's child exploitation and obscenity section. There were only four obscenity prosecutions during the eight years of the Clinton administration.

Though adult content is, in theory, protected by the First Amendment, only a jury can determine if a work is obscene or not under the subjective set of standards that vary from one community to the next established in the 1973 Supreme Court ruling, Miller v. California.

Text is not inherently more protected than images when it comes to obscenity charges. The erotic fiction website Red Rose Stories is facing obscenity charges after federal agents raided the owner's home on October 3rd, taking computer equipment and diskettes that contained all of their files and site information.

The Department of Justice is clearly hoping that websites will self-censor or remove their content entirely. Midori, a fetish model and SM educator who teaches classes on bondage, has removed her website, BeautyBound.com, citing fear of obscenity prosecution. The owner of three SM websites, known as GrandPa eSade, removed his websites from the Internet. SuicideGirls.com also announced they are
self-censoring their materials over concerns about a possible
obscenity crackdown.

Recent prosecutions of obscenity on websites include: A former police officer in Lakeland, Florida, was arrested on October 7th on over 300 obscenity-related charges for the sexual content posted on his website. The same day, webmaster Chris Wilson, owner of amateur website NowThatsF*ckedUp.com, was raided on charges of obscenity by a local Sheriff's office.

"I think it's crucial for us to stand up for consensual sadomasochism and other alternative sexual practices," says Barbara Nitke, fetish photographer. "This is a battle worth fighting, and I hope everyone who can will just censor out the most provocative material from their websites, but keep them up. I also appeal to the lawyers in our community to help us find ways to keep people's websites up."

Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF) have proactively challenged federal obscenity laws as applied to the Internet, arguing that obscenity laws based on "local community standards" are too vague and their existence burdens protected speech, resulting in self-censorship due to the fear of prosecution. A district court three-judge panel in New York ruled that while Nitke and the NCSF members were at risk, more proof was needed that
obscenity laws cause otherwise protected speech to be restrained through acts of self-censorship. The case is currently on appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

"The effect of silencing alternative lifestyle speech was exactly why we brought the lawsuit," says attorney John Wirenius, lead counsel for NCSF. "The self-censorship we are seeing underscores the importance of supporting our ongoing obscenity challenge."

To contribute to the appeal of the CDA lawsuit, go to:
www.ncsfreedom.org/donations.htm

National Coalition for Sexual Freedom - www.ncsfreedom.org
Barbara Nitke - www.barbaranitke.com "

This has to be one of the most whacked up things I've heard. Notice it isn't going after child porn, but after S&M porn...who the hell thought this one up? At least the FBI has lots of agents and resources to spare, right?

[Steppe Merc]

I saw this in Rolling Stone magazine. This is so dumb. Who cares? We are in the middle of a real war that we are not winning, and we focus on pornography? Thats even stupider than the war on drugs!

[lancelot]

Forty people and businesses have been convicted of obscenity since 2001

Wow, a whole 40 people in 4 years!! Never mind the untold robberies, thefts and shootings every day in the states...

You yankees have the most messed up set of priorities on the planet!

Never mind the fact that a government agency is now trying to tell people what they should and shouldnt find obscene...some people do have a nerve.

[Strike For The South]

GAH I say GAH this money could be spent on aids reasearch

[Kanamori]

IMO, Miller v. California and the other obscenity cases before it have been some of the worst in the Court's history. In Roth, they found that the First Amendment was meant to protect speech which had any value at all -- intent can be a questionable IMO too -- and so that obscenity, which encompassed the idea of being totally w/o value, could be regulated. Then, they totally scrapped that definition of obscenity, but hold that it can still can be regulated because of precedent... talk about BS, from our so-called "constructionalists".

This has to be one of the most whacked up things I've heard. Notice it isn't going after child porn, but after S&M porn...who the hell thought this one up? At least the FBI has lots of agents and resources to spare, right?

Child porn is regulable for other reasons. Under the standards of obscenity in law, the Miller test, there would be depicitions of things like children masturbating or what have you that wouldn't necessarily qualify. In Ferber, they ruled that such depicitions were under the state's "compelling interest" in children's safety, and since it falls under that interest, it is not protected by any stretch of the First Amendment, even though it would not be considered obscenity. Although, I would largely agree that the state's interests are grossly misplaced when it comes to going after porn which may be obscene under the Court's (awful) definition.

I think Douglas summed up obscenity law well: "DOUGLAS, J., Dissenting Opinion

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

413 U.S. 15
Miller v. California
APPEAL FROM THE APPELLATE DEPARTMENT, SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF ORANGE
No. 70-73 Argued: January 18-19, 1972 --- Decided: June 21, 1973

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting.

I

Today we leave open the way for California [n1] to send a man to prison for distributing brochures that advertise books and a movie under freshly written standards defining obscenity which until today is decision were never the part of any law.

The Court has worked hard to define obscenity and concededly has failed. In Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476"]354 U.S. 476, it ruled that "[o]bscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest." Id. at 487. Obscenity, it was said, was rejected by the First Amendment because it is "utterly without redeeming [p38] social importance." Id. at 484. The presence of a "prurient interest" was to be determined by "contemporary community standards." Id. at 489. That test, it has been said, could not be determined by one standard here and another standard there, 354 U.S. 476, it ruled that "[o]bscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest." Id. at 487. Obscenity, it was said, was rejected by the First Amendment because it is "utterly without redeeming [p38] social importance." Id. at 484. The presence of a "prurient interest" was to be determined by "contemporary community standards." Id. at 489. That test, it has been said, could not be determined by one standard here and another standard there, Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 194, but "on the basis of a national standard." Id. at 195. My Brother STEWART, in Jacobellis, commented that the difficulty of the Court in giving content to obscenity was that it was "faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable." Id. at 197.

In Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413, 418, the Roth test was elaborated to read as follows:

[T]hree elements must coalesce: it must be established that (a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; (b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and (c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value.

In Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463, a publisher was sent to prison, not for the kind of books and periodicals he sold, but for the manner in which the publications were advertised. The "leer of the sensualist" was said to permeate the advertisements. Id. at 468. The Court said,

Where the purveyor's sole emphasis is on the sexually provocative aspects of his publications, that fact may be decisive in the determination of obscenity.

Id. at 470. As Mr. Justice Black said in dissent,

. . . Ginzburg . . . is now finally and authoritatively condemned to serve five years in prison for distributing printed matter about sex which neither Ginzburg nor anyone else could possibly have known to be criminal.

Id. at 476. That observation by Mr. Justice Black is underlined by the fact that the Ginzburg decision was five to four. [p39]

A further refinement was added by Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 641, where the Court held that "it was not irrational for the legislature to find that exposure to material condemned by the statute is harmful to minors."

But even those members of this Court who had created the new and changing standards of "obscenity" could not agree on their application. And so we adopted a per curiam treatment of so-called obscene publications that seemed to pass constitutional muster under the several constitutional tests which had been formulated. See Redrup v. New York, 386 U.S. 767. Some condemn it if its "dominant tendency might be to ‘deprave or corrupt' a reader." [n2] Others look not to the content of the book, but to whether it is advertised "‘to appeal to the erotic interests of customers.'" [n3] Some condemn only "hard-core pornography," but even then a true definition is lacking. It has indeed been said of that definition, "I could never succeed in [defining it] intelligibly," but "I know it when I see it." [n4]

Today we would add a new three-pronged test:

(a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards," would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, . . . (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Those are the standards we ourselves have written into the Constitution. [n5] Yet how under these vague tests can [p40] we sustain convictions for the sale of an article prior to the time when some court has declared it to be obscene?

Today the Court retreats from the earlier formulations of the constitutional test and undertakes to make new definitions. This effort, like the earlier ones, is earnest and well intentioned. The difficulty is that we do not deal with constitutional terms, since "obscenity" is not mentioned in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. And the First Amendment makes no such exception from "the press" which it undertakes to protect nor, as I have said on other occasions, is an exception necessarily implied, for there was no recognized exception to the free press at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted which treated "obscene" publications differently from other types of papers, magazines, and books. So there are no constitutional guidelines for deciding what is and what is not "obscene." The Court is at large because we deal with tastes and standards of literature. What shocks me may [p41] be sustenance for my neighbor. What causes one person to boil up in rage over one pamphlet or movie may reflect only his neurosis, not shared by others. We deal here with a regime of censorship which, if adopted, should be done by constitutional amendment after full debate by the people.

Obscenity cases usually generate tremendous emotional outbursts. They have no business being in the courts. If a constitutional amendment authorized censorship, the censor would probably be an administrative agency. Then criminal prosecutions could follow as, if, and when publishers defied the censor and sold their literature. Under that regime, a publisher would know when he was on dangerous ground. Under the present regime -- whether the old standards or the new ones are used -- the criminal law becomes a trap. A brand new test would put a publisher behind bars under a new law improvised by the courts after the publication. That was done in Ginzburg, and has all the evils of an ex post facto law.

My contention is that, until a civil proceeding has placed a tract beyond the pale, no criminal prosecution should be sustained. For no more vivid illustration of vague and uncertain laws could be designed than those we have fashioned. As Mr. Justice Harlan has said:

The upshot of all this divergence in viewpoint is that anyone who undertakes to examine the Court's decisions since Roth which have held particular material obscene or not obscene would find himself in utter bewilderment.

Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. Dallas, 390 U.S. 676, 707.

In Bouie v. City of Columbia, 378 U.S. 347, we upset a conviction for remaining on property after being asked to leave, while the only unlawful act charged by the statute was entering. We held that the defendants had received no "fair warning, at the time of their conduct" [p42] while on the property "that the act for which they now stand convicted was rendered criminal" by the state statute. Id. at 355. The same requirement of "fair warning" is due here, as much as in Bouie. The latter involved racial discrimination; the present case involves rights earnestly urged as being protected by the First Amendment. In any case -- certainly when constitutional rights are concerned -- we should not allow men to go to prison or be fined when they had no "fair warning" that what they did was criminal conduct.

II

If a specific book, play, paper, or motion picture has in a civil proceeding been condemned as obscene and review of that finding has been completed, and thereafter a person publishes, shows, or displays that particular book or film, then a vague law has been made specific. There would remain the underlying question whether the First Amendment allows an implied exception in the case of obscenity. I do not think it does, [n6] and my views [p43] on the issue have been stated over and over again. [n7] But at least a criminal prosecution brought at that juncture would not violate the time-honored "void for vagueness" test. [n8]

No such protective procedure has been designed by California in this case. Obscenity -- which even we cannot define with precision -- is a hodge-podge. To send [p44] men to jail for violating standards they cannot understand, construe, and apply is a monstrous thing to do in a Nation dedicated to fair trials and due process.

III

While the right to know is the corollary of the right to speak or publish, no one can be forced by government to listen to disclosure that he finds offensive. That was the basis of my dissent in Public Utilities Comm'n v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451, 467, where I protested against making streetcar passengers a "captive" audience. There is no "captive audience" problem in these obscenity cases. No one is being compelled to look or to listen. Those who enter newsstands or bookstalls may be offended by what they see. But they are not compelled by the State to frequent those places; and it is only state or governmental action against which the First Amendment, applicable to the States by virtue of the Fourteenth, raises a ban.

The idea that the First Amendment permits government to ban publications that are "offensive" to some people puts an ominous gloss on freedom of the press. That test would make it possible to ban any paper or any journal or magazine in some benighted place. The First Amendment was designed "to invite dispute," to induce "a condition of unrest," to "create dissatisfaction with conditions as they are," and even to stir "people to anger." Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1, 4. The idea that the First Amendment permits punishment for ideas that are "offensive" to the particular judge or jury sitting in judgment is astounding. No greater leveler of speech or literature has ever been designed. To give the power to the censor, as we do today, is to make a sharp and radical break with the traditions of a free society. The First Amendment was not fashioned as a vehicle for [p45] dispensing tranquilizers to the people. Its prime function was to keep debate open to "offensive" as well as to "staid" people. The tendency throughout history has been to subdue the individual and to exalt the power of government. The use of the standard "offensive" gives authority to government that cuts the very vitals out of the First Amendment. [n9] As is intimated by the Court's opinion, the materials before us may be garbage. But so is much of what is said in political campaigns, in the daily press, on TV, or over the radio. By reason of the First Amendment -- and solely because of it -- speakers and publishers have not been threatened or subdued because their thoughts and ideas may be "offensive" to some.

The standard "offensive" is unconstitutional in yet another way. In Coates v. City of Cincinnati, 402 U.S. 611, we had before us a municipal ordinance that made it a crime for three or more persons to assemble on a street and conduct themselves "in a manner annoying to persons [p46] passing by." We struck it down, saying:

If three or more people meet together on a sidewalk or street corner, they must conduct themselves so as not to annoy any police officer or other person who should happen to pass by. In our opinion, this ordinance is unconstitutionally vague because it subjects the exercise of the right of assembly to an unascertainable standard, and unconstitutionally broad because it authorizes the punishment of constitutionally protected conduct.

Conduct that annoys some people does not annoy others. Thus, the ordinance is vague not in the sense that it requires a person to conform his conduct to an imprecise but comprehensive normative standard, but rather in the sense that no standard of conduct is specified at all.

Id. at 614.

How we can deny Ohio the convenience of punishing people who "annoy" others and allow California power to punish people who publish materials "offensive" to some people is difficult to square with constitutional requirements.

If there are to be restraints on what is obscene, then a constitutional amendment should be the way of achieving the end. There are societies where religion and mathematics are the only free segments. It would be a dark day for America if that were our destiny. But the people can make it such if they choose to write obscenity into the Constitution and define it.

We deal with highly emotional, not rational, questions. To many, the Song of Solomon is obscene. I do not think we, the judges, were ever given the constitutional power to make definitions of obscenity. If it is to be defined, let the people debate and decide by a constitutional amendment what they want to ban as obscene and what standards they want the legislatures and the courts to apply. Perhaps the people will decide that the path towards a mature, integrated society requires [p47] that all ideas competing for acceptance must have no censor. Perhaps they will decide otherwise. Whatever the choice, the courts will have some guidelines. Now we have none except our own predilections.

1. California defines "obscene matter" as

matter, taken as a whole, the predominant appeal of which to the average person, applying contemporary standards, is to prurient interest, i.e., a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion; and is matter which taken as a whole goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters; and is matter which taken as a whole is utterly without redeeming social importance.

Calif. Penal Code § 311(a).

2. Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 502 (opinion of Harlan, J.).

3. Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463, 467.

4. Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (STEWART, J., concurring).

5. At the conclusion of a two-year study, the U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography determined that the standards we have written interfere with constitutionally protected materials:

Society's attempts to legislate for adults in the area of obscenity have not been successful. Present laws prohibiting the consensual sale or distribution of explicit sexual materials to adults are extremely unsatisfactory in their practical application. The Constitution permits material to be deemed "obscene" for adults only if, as a whole, it appeals to the "prurient" interest of the average person, is "patently offensive" in light of "community standards," and lacks "redeeming social value." These vague and highly subjective aesthetic, psychological and moral tests do not provide meaningful guidance for law enforcement officials, juries or courts. As a result, law is inconsistently and sometimes erroneously applied, and the distinctions made by courts between prohibited and permissible materials often appear indefensible. Errors in the application of the law and uncertainty about its scope also cause interference with the communication of constitutionally protected materials.

Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography 53 (1970).

6. It is said that "obscene" publications can be banned on authority of restraints on communications incident to decrees restraining unlawful business monopolies or unlawful restraints of trade, Sugar Institute v. United States, 297 U.S. 553, 597, or communications respecting the sale of spurious or fraudulent securities. Hall v. Geier-Jones Co., 242 U.S. 539, 549; Caldwell v. Sioux Falls Stock Yards Co., 242 U.S. 559, 567; Merrick v. Halsey & Co., 242 U.S. 568, 584. The First Amendment answer is that, whenever speech and conduct are brigaded -- as they are when one shouts "Fire" in a crowded theater -- speech can be outlawed. Mr. Justice Black, writing for a unanimous Court in Giboney v. Empire Storage Co., 336 U.S. 490, stated that labor unions could be restrained from picketing a firm in support of a secondary boycott which a State had validly outlawed. Mr. Justice Black said:

It rarely has been suggested that the constitutional freedom for speech and press extends its immunity to speech or writing used as an integral part of conduct in violation of a valid criminal statute. We reject the contention now.

Id. at 498.

7. See United States v. 12 200-ft. Reels of Film, post, p. 123; United States v. Orito, post, p. 139; Kois v. Wisconsin, 408 U.S. 229; Byrne v. Karalexis, 396 U.S. 976, 977; Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629, 650; Jacobs v. New York, 388 U.S. 431, 436; Ginzburg v. United States, 383 U.S. 463, 482; Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413, 424; Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, 72; Times Film Corp. v. Chicago, 365 U.S. 43, 78; Smith v. California, 361 U.S. 147, 167; Kingsley Pictures Corp. v. Regents, 360 U.S. 684, 697; Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 508; Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 446; Superior Films, Inc. v. Department of Education, 346 U.S. 587, 588; Gelling v. Texas, 343 U.S. 60.

8. The Commission on Obscenity and Pornography has advocated such a procedure:

The Commission recommends the enactment, in all jurisdictions which enact or retain provisions prohibiting the dissemination of sexual materials to adults or young persons, of legislation authorizing prosecutors to obtain declaratory judgments as to whether particular materials fall within existing legal prohibitions. . . .

A declaratory judgment procedure . . . would permit prosecutors to proceed civilly, rather than through the criminal process, against suspected violations of obscenity prohibition. If such civil procedures are utilized, penalties would be imposed for violation of the law only with respect to conduct occurring after a civil declaration is obtained. The Commission believes this course of action to be appropriate whenever there is any existing doubt regarding the legal status of materials; where other alternatives are available, the criminal process should not ordinarily be invoked against persons who might have reasonably believed, in good faith, that the books or films they distributed were entitled to constitutional protection, for the threat of criminal sanctions might otherwise deter the free distribution of constitutionally protected material.

Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography 63 (1970).

9. Obscenity law has had a capricious history:

The white slave traffic was first exposed by W. T. Stead in a magazine article, "The Maiden Tribute." The English law did absolutely nothing to the profiteers in vice, but put Stead in prison for a year for writing about an indecent subject. When the law supplies no definite standard of criminality, a judge, in deciding what is indecent or profane, may consciously disregard the sound test of present injury, and proceeding upon an entirely different theory may condemn the defendant because his words express ideas which are thought liable to cause bad future consequences. Thus, musical comedies enjoy almost unbridled license, while a problem play is often forbidden because opposed to our views of marriage. In the same way, the law of blasphemy has been used against Shelley's Queen Mab and the decorous promulgation of pantheistic ideas on the ground that to attack religion is to loosen the bonds of society and endanger the state. This is simply a round-about modern method to make heterodoxy in sex matters and even in religion a crime." LII, courtesy of Pindar how long ago

[Kanamori]

Oh, and my biggest problem w/ the obscenity definition is that it is almost necessarily ex post facto, because of a lack of fair warning in most cases.

P.S. sorry for the length, but a good read.

[Byzantine Prince]

"bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior"
You mean those things are considered obscene?!?

"Additionally, Federal sentencing guidelines state that any obscenity-related punishment should be "enhanced for sadomasochistic material.""

[Papewaio]

So how do you punish a S&M performer?

We are going to treat you nice until you beg for mercy?

[ShadesPanther]

"bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior"
You mean those things are considered obscene?!?

You see really the thing is what is considered obscene?
Some may think Sodomy is or oral sex or any number of different things.


TBh this really does seem like a total waste of resources. I mean who really cares? If they want to do those sorta things to each other fine by me.

edit:typo

[Kanamori]

You see really the thing is what is considered obscene?

Well, to answer your question.

(a) whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’ would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value

Oh wait, that doesn't really help does it... nobody knows until the flaming jury comes back; what a disgrace to justice. Whatever it is, it isn't protected speech.

[AntiochusIII]

This is so horrible. I can't believe the American government can be this stupid.

It is a disgrace that this nation, throughout history, seems to be struggling to survive as a proper democratic "free" nation against the efforts of its own government.

War on Porn? If it goes like the war on Drugs (which was, no matter what one's opinion is, far more legitimate), we'd expect porn to be utterly "rampant" by this time 20 years later.

I guess one war is not enough; oh wait, two wars, counting the forgotten Afghanistan.

Edit: Gah. Three wars; forgot the War on Terror.

[Alexanderofmacedon]

GAH I say GAH this money could be spent on aids reasearch

Or your buddies war...

You yankees have the most messed up set of priorities on the planet!

That's just Bush and his cronies...

Not everyone is worried about this crap...

[Sasaki Kojiro]

That's just Bush and his cronies...

Not everyone is worried about this crap...

I find it hard to believe that a politician would initiate this kind of thing...there's no way it will be popular. It would have to be some special interest group, but I don't know which one.

[ShadesPanther]

Yeah but which would have enough influence to start this political suicide war?

[Kanamori]

Churches.

[bmolsson]

So there will be a Patriot act against masturbators ???

[Kaiser of Arabia]

I saw this in Rolling Stone magazine. This is so dumb. Who cares? We are in the middle of a real war that we are not winning, and we focus on pornography? Thats even stupider than the war on drugs!

1. What war? I can't think of one that we're losing.
2. Yes it is quite stupid.

[GoreBag]

Figures. What nonsense.

[solypsist]

there are few things conservative fundamentalists hate more than consenting adults.

but the bestiality has got to go.

[GoreBag]

there are few things conservative fundamentalists hate more than consenting adults.

but the bestiality has got to go.

What, you hate consenting animals?

[AntiochusIII]

What, you hate consenting animals?

Ah. But we never know whether or not one party, the non-human animal one, consents or is enslaved and forced into such practice, eh?

[Byzantine Prince]

Ah. But we never know whether or not one party, the non-human animal one, consents or is enslaved and forced into such practice, eh?

But the non-human animal cannot make a choice, so it's always enslaved.
Also considering that it's a male animal and female human that usually go at it, it cannot be rape.

[Lemur]

Also considering that it's a male animal and female human that usually go at it, it cannot be rape.

Wha-wha-wha-what?

[Kaiser of Arabia]

But the non-human animal cannot make a choice, so it's always enslaved.
Also considering that it's a male animal and female human that usually go at it, it cannot be rape.

Unless your in scotland
*plays bagpipes*

[Soulforged]

This is so horrible. I can't believe the American government can be this stupid.

Stupid? Ha! Far from it. When the government iniciates this kind of cases ex professo, it's all but stupid. It has the single and only purpose of deflecting vigilants, citizens and press (real free press) opinions. It's just another show, in wich the people will do well not to involve.

It is a disgrace that this nation, throughout history, seems to be struggling to survive as a proper democratic "free" nation against the efforts of its own government.

As long as there's a government, like state, you'll never be free, nor I.

War on Porn? If it goes like the war on Drugs (which was, no matter what one's opinion is, far more legitimate), we'd expect porn to be utterly "rampant" by this time 20 years later.

First, no. Non of those are legitimate, taking by base the same fundamental logic, the free speech. The interpretation of that amendment should be extended to actions and associations. So non of this are legitimate, but the persons tend to beleive that it's, because they confuse moral with rights and with law, and make it a ball of absurdity, that generates only absurds.

Another thing that always intrigues me: Why is that you gringos always think on matters from the expenditure point of view? Do you know that justice and society values are not reduced to economics, right? If it's wrong to persecute a person, it's not because you must waste more money, it's wrong because it's a person...Just a curiosity...

[AntiochusIII]

But the non-human animal cannot make a choice, so it's always enslaved.

Thus, if we're to presume as such, then the conclusion is that one party is not and never will be consenting; thus making bestiality a one-sided sexual assault, even rape. Where's the PETA when you need them?

Also considering that it's a male animal and female human that usually go at it, it cannot be rape.

It's the other way around, from what I heard. And that makes more logical sense, considering males' ability to satisfy themselves sexually through "holes", allowing men lunatics to pursue their course easier than women lunatics. While women need the opposite. Unless, of course, you take the old "large as a horse" comment seriously.

Aha! I managed to bring a War on Porn topic towards Bestiality discussion.

[yesdachi]

I find it hard to believe that a politician would initiate this kind of thing...

They are some of the biggest offenders!


This is pretty stupid. There about 100 other people or groups that should be attacked, leave the freaks alone.

[Aurelian]

They're just picking up where the Reagan-Bush White House left off. Ashcroft actually had a huge anti-porn crusade ready to go just before 9/11. So, in a weird way, the terrorists saved our porn. At least for a little while.

It's weird that they have decided that they are going after particular kinks: "bestiality, urination, defecation, as well as sadistic and masochistic behavior". I guess they must have taken a poll at the local mega-church and found little public sympathy for those particular practices. Of course, we know that in private some of those churchgoers are probably the ones beating themselves over the head with urinating horse members. Sorry for that image, but we all know that conservative politicians, judges, reverend's daughters, Catholic school girls, priests, televangelists, and the like frequently turn out to be a little freaky deaky... And I, for one, would like to make sure that they have access to the best internet porn that the United States of America (and Amsterdam) can produce.

At this point, I was going to include a list of the practices that the Attorney General has decided not to target (just so we all know what is safe); but I'll refrain from that and just point out that the Ralph Reeds of the world would like to ban "Playboy" and similar tame fare. They're just starting with the minority kinks to drum up business.

[Mouzafphaerre]

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As a moderate consumer of porn myself all those piss/scat/bestiality bullshit really disturbs me. So, that's good news. But I'm afraid it turns out counterproductive. This part added ten minutes after the original post: In fact, war against such nonsense is war for porn. Thinking twice, it may not be what the crusaders are intending at all.
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[JAG]

Porn is the root of all evil and is clearly immoral, think of all those terrible things they teach people to do. I applaud this brilliant moral crusade for God and country.