Attorney General John Ashcroft has made it clear in the last few days and weeks that he is taking the fight to the pornographers in ways that have not been seen since 1992.
In a memorandum dated May 7, he asked all 94 United States Attorneys from around the country to participate in an "obscenity law enforcement symposium" in early June to develop "a national obscenity strategy for aggressive federal prosecutions" in obscenity cases.
On April 16, he announced a key step toward that new strategy, the elimination of a "lockout provision" in the U.S. Attorneys' Manual. That provision, put into the Manual in 1998, had prevented prosecutors from the Department's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section from investigating obscenity cases anywhere in the country without first receiving permission from the local United States Attorney.
Mr. Ashcroft's April 16 statement also outlined the Department's plan to prosecute child pornographers despite the Supreme Court's rejection of key parts of the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996. "To avoid the dismissal of cases brought under the two provisions that the Supreme Court has struck," he said, "we will amend [the charge] where possible and pursue general obscenity charges against those who have victimized children by producing or procuring child pornography."
On May 1, Mr. Ashcroft issued a strong statement in support of Pornography Victims Awareness Month. In it, he described pornography as "steps down a path to the degradation and, too often, the real abuse of predominantly women and children." He said, "The Department of Justice is dedicated to prosecuting those who illegally distribute adult obscenity materials and child pornography. These prosecutions are a priority for this Department, and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section and the 94 United States Attorneys across the country stand committed to enforce the federal statutes in this area... Those who illegally distribute obscene material will be prosecuted aggressively."
Demonstrating a firm grasp of the obvious, The National Research Council reported May 2 that there is no easy way to protect children from porn on the Internet. The NRC also noted that the Clinton-Reno Justice Department's failure to enforce the obscenity laws is part of the problem. That's hardly news, either, but hearing it from a federal agency is refreshing.
In a news release accompanying the report, the NRC said, "Aggressive enforcement of existing anti-obscenity laws can help reduce children's access to certain kinds of sexually explicit material on the Internet" but also said, "There is uncertainty about the effectiveness of enforcing obscenity laws, due to the limited number of obscenity prosecutions during the last decade and the increasing amounts of sexually explicit material in all media..."
The NRC offered mostly hopeful advice. The report talks at some length of providing incentives for Internet service and content providers to "behave in a more responsible manner with respect to protecting children on the Internet, such as taking greater care to differentiate between adults and minors before granting access to sexually explicit content." We'll just rely on the porn peddlers to be careful. Right.
The report is full of common sense points about the importance of education for all concerned, not just the children. Parents need to gain a basic understanding of what is on the Internet and how it works. Children should be educated in Internet safety as much as they are taught about physical safety. They need to know how sexual predators and hate-group recruiters approach young people online. Filters reduce but do not eliminate risks, so children must learn "how to deal with inappropriate material."
The connection between Internet porn and sex crime grows clearer with time.
A psychiatry professor at the University of California at San Francisco, Dr. Lynn Ponton, writes in her new book, "The Sex Lives of Teenagers," that the abusive treatment of women portrayed on most porn sites can become sexual triggers for teenagers who become addicted to cyber sex. For them, she says, sexual arousal is impossible without that violent trigger.
In Scotland, The Sunday Herald reported in February that, "A strip club which plans to open five 'sex multiplexes' in Scotland is part of a pornography empire which is peddling paedophilia, violent date-rape, abduction, drugs and the torture of pregnant women" through its online pornography. The company is U.S.-based Spearmint Rhino. Dr. Mairead Tagg, a psychologist with Scottish Women's Aid, told the newspaper, "This is the most insidious, sinister, misogynistic, dehumanizing material I have ever seen. It is quite simply terrorism directed against women and children... Men who expose themselves to this type of pornography are basically messing with their sexuality. They will equate arousal with the degradation of women and children... Normal, decent men don't want to hurt and degrade women and children."
In New York, a headline in the Daily News of March 14 underscored the scary message: "Rape Cases on rise and so is brutality."
Bestiality is so far from normal behavior we'd rather not even think about it. But not playwright Edward Albee and the audiences watching his new play, "The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?" at the Golden Theater in New York. The play is all about a middle-aged man who is a very successful architect and is happily married to an attractive woman. But he has a problem. The man has fallen in love with a female goat - Sylvia. Albee would have the world believe the man is not merely engaging in a sick adventure; he says it's real love, the romantic kind. Reviewers reported audiences have reacted with what seems to have been tolerance. Moral lethargy might be closer to the mark. Or maybe they were just stunned.
Switch to London, now. The Sun, a garish tabloid with an online edition that sells photos of nude women, reported that a 23-year-old homosexual man was arrested for having sex with a goat. A female goat. In public. In plain view of passengers on a commuter train going by. The passengers had the decency to be "horrified." No doubt they saw the grotesque reality that Albee keeps hidden.
A new law in Pennsylvania requires internet service providers that have customers in that state - regardless of where the ISP is located - to block access to child porn sites identified by the Pennsylvania Attorney General. The reach beyond Pennsylvania is a bold stroke. Attorney General Mike Fisher was meeting in late April with ISPs and others to decide how the new law would be implemented. Pennsylvanians will have a key role since they are asked to identify child porn sites that come to their attention and report them to the Attorney General.
The law does not require ISPs to monitor their services but it does require them to eliminate sites identified by the Attorney General or a district attorney. Penalties for non-compliance with court orders to remove such sites run from $5,000 for a first offense, to $20,000 for a second, and $30,000 plus up to seven years in jail for third and subsequent offenses.
The law reportedly even has the blessings of the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. The American Internet Service Providers Association was negative, however, on familiar grounds - ISPs, they say, are only conduits and cannot control where their customers go on the Internet and what they see.
The London Register reported in April that "the European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to oppose the use of 'blocking' as a way of regulating content on the Internet." Louisa Gosling, President of the European Internet Services Providers Association (EuroISPA), called the decision a "forward looking and informed decision." She said blocking "is not only a technically disastrous solution, but also raises significant free speech and democratic concerns." It almost sounds noble.
In Dusseldorf, Germany, however, the district council called on ISPs to block sites with extreme right wing (read neo-Nazi) or violent content, and the 80 ISPs in that part of Germany have taken steps to comply. When it comes to blocking undesirable web sites, it seems, where there's a will there's a way.
The Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland - www.ispai.ie - runs a hotline that accepts, and acts on, complaints of child porn. The Irish association asks the ISP involved in a complaint to remove the child porn source if the source is located in Ireland; if the illegal material is not hosted in Ireland, the Association says it will contact "the relevant international hotline."
The drugged look is still considered chic in some fashion circles. An ad for Versacce jeans in the New York Times of Sunday, March 30, shows a young man and a young woman suffering from a) terminal boredom or b) an overdose of something illegal. Each is slumped on a velour couch, barefoot, eyes closed, hands pushing their Versacce jeans down past their hips. They don't look happy. Of course. The look of people in such ads typically is nearly expressionless, bordering on anger, angst, simmering lust, or whatever the arbiters of fashion think will look glamorous. People in the target market, of course, are expected to want the life style implied by the look and thus want the clothing. The two in the Versacce ad are trying hard to project erotic ecstasy and sell jeans at the same time. It's scary to think there must be a market for that image and the message it sends.
Another jeans maker caught a publicity break in the Wall Street Journal (3/14/02) with a story in the advertising news column running under this headline: "Lee's Naked Ambition: Buck Classic Image." The fact is that Lee Jeans has a new ad campaign in Europe that features this tagline: "Bottoms feel better in Lee." In support of the point - that if "bottoms" could make the choice, everyone would be wearing Lee jeans - the ads make liberal use of naked derrieres. The target market are relatively unsophisticated 17- to 22-year-olds. It's like taking candy from babies... worse, a flasher taking candy from babies.
A few weeks after D-Day in June 1944, my brother-in-law, Francis X. McGrail, caught up with a platoon of 2nd Armored Division tanks in the French countryside. He was the platoon's new commander, a replacement for one who had been killed or wounded in action. Along with the usual implements of war, my brother-in-law carried one special piece of non-GI gear: an incredibly comfortable down-filled sleeping bag from the Abercrombie & Fitch store on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Francis, and the sleeping bag, survived the war.
Lots of families, like mine, have very personal reasons to think fondly of Abercrombie & Fitch. But that was then, as they say, long before A&F began using sexually explicit articles and photos of nude young men and women in its quarterly catalog. After a pause for decency this winter and spring - following a storm of protest - A&F has gone back to soft porn in the summer catalog, which went on sale April 20.
The Illinois State Senate adopted a resolution calling on "the public, and parents especially, to boycott" A&F, and urging stockholder action "against the marketing techniques promoting an obscene lifestyle, until advertising of this nature ceases." The resolution notes that the "Summer 2001 catalog begins with 121 full pages of explicit photographs of nude and semi-nude, and provocatively posed young people... Advertisements for clothing do not begin until page 122..."
Buying elsewhere ought to be easy. There are lots of good alternatives. But let A&F know what you're doing. Here's the contact information: Michael Jeffries, President, Abercrombie & Fitch, 6301 Fitch Path, New Albany, OH 43054
Phone: 614-283-6500
Web site: www.abercrombie.com
Illinois Lieutenant Governor Corinne Wood's web site features an invitation to join the A&F boycott she began in 1999. The site is www.state.il.us/lt.gov/Index.htm
Do teenagers and very young adults need to get their ideas about life and living from steamy fashion ads and the rest of our sex-obsessed pop culture? Hardly. About a million 15- to 19-year-old American girls become pregnant each year, married or not, according to data compiled by the March of Dimes. Only about 485,000 of these girls give birth to their babies, and three million boys and girls in this age group are "affected" by sexually transmitted disease annually.
You have to wonder what motivates Hollywood. The Christian Film and Television Commission reports that movies with strong moral content grossed just over $48 million in 2001, an average of more than twice the earnings of movies with sexual content and nudity. The report is based on analyses of 266 top movies released in theaters in 2001. "Movies released in 1999 and 2000 showed pretty much the same results as the movies in 2001," the commission said in its report.
The dictum "sex sells" dies hard.
USA Today ran a story on April 12 excitedly telling the world about "A no-holds-barred, shock-'em-till-they-scream Cameron Diaz comedy called 'The Sweetest Thing.'" Co-star Christina Applegate is quoted as saying, "This is a testament to women finding love. I don't think it's right to have overly promiscuous characters unless they are finding themselves." So, Ms. Applegate, it's okay to be overly promiscuous when finding oneself, right? But then you may lose the audience, and a whole lot more.
Newsday on March 15 wrote about a movie whose Spanish title translates into gutter talk: "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (And Your Mother Too!). In this one, a "ribald but touching road movie," two teenage boys are taught about life and sex by a married woman related to one of the boys.
Two recent news stories are instructive on the real meaning of a life well spent.
The Chronicle of Philanthropy on April 18 wrote about the short life of a courageous and accomplished "all-American boy," and contrasted him with some better known "potential role models... Young athletes who don't graduate from college... Britney Spears ... President Clinton... corporate CEOs..." The boy, Daniel Whitehead Treanor, had died of brain cancer a few weeks earlier at age 15 after battling the disease for more than five years. He had a full life, brief as it was. The Chronicle reported that Daniel was a Baltimore Orioles fan, played Little League baseball, was a voracious reader, and a student of history. Daniel was also a successful entrepreneur who started a business known as Buttons 4 U, which provided custom-made buttons and badges for a wide range of customers. As a result of that accomplishment, he was named Entrepreneur of the Year by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship two years ago. At Children's Hospital in Washington, he organized a drive to obtain more than 300 videos suitable for teenagers. Young Daniel was a comfort to the boys and girls hospitalized with him, and an inspiration to all who knew him.
And then there was the story in the New York Press (April 10-16, 2002) by Jonathan Ames, describing in graphic detail the sordid day he shared with his father on the set of a porn movie in production. The younger Mr. Ames was invited by "Vivid Video, Hollywood's leading producer of porn," to be "guest-director" for the day so he could write about the experience and give Vivid "some publicity." His father, Max Ames, "happened to be visiting L.A. at the time." The senior Mr. Ames, "a porn fan and senior citizen," wrote a short sidebar to the main story, titled "Going to Work with My Son." He managed somehow to sound nostalgic, recalling how his own father had taken him to work. "If you live long enough some of your dreams are fulfilled, and being a guest on a porn set was one of them for me." Imagine that. How touching.
How do women's magazine editors come up with the stories to back up those lurid cover headlines about orgasms and such? Women's magazine editors nodded in agreement during a panel discussion when one of them said they lied, they made it up. The story appeared in the Columbia Journalism Review in March and was quoted in the Los Angeles Times (3/25/02).
A Study Finds More Links Between TV and Violence
Youths' Behavior Observed Into Adulthood
- New York Times 3/29/02
The study, led by a Columbia University psychiatrist, followed children in more than 700 families in upstate New York for 17 years.
CBS bleeps up
- New York Post 4/12/02
An offensive expression for "deep trouble" slipped past the censor on the CBS program "48 Hours."
Speechless over MTV sex
- New York Post 4/7/02
The sister of Senator Tom Daschle's speechwriter was caught on "MTV's night-vision camera" in bed with "a friend of a roommate in town for the night."
It was historic weekend of TV cursing
- New York Post 3/14/02
Cause of it all: ESPN's "A Season on the Brink" and CBS's "9-11" documentary; both made liberal use of the "F" word and other crudities unbleeped.
Faded celebs take one more shot at fast buck
- New York Post 3/14/02
It was Paula Jones versus Tonya Harding in Fox's "Celebrity Boxing."
Prez: Terrorists saw too much Springer
- New York Post 3/13/02
So, Who's Your Daddy? In DNA Tests, TV Finds Elixir to Raise Ratings
- New York Times 3/19/02
Daytime talk-show hosts Maury Povich, Jenny Jones, Ricki Lake and Montel Williams discover that on-air DNA paternity tests boost ratings.
Green light for 'Blue'
- New York Daily News 2/14/02
NYPD Blue will move to 9 p.m. at the start of its tenth season next fall.
Oof! Pro Wrestling's Primal Scream
- New York Times 3/17/02
You know the story.