A View from Riverside Drive
Commentary by Ed Hynes
November - December 2003 issue
Culture war?
Our so-called culture war is more than a clash of sensibilities, and it is certainly not a contest between equally worthy opponents. The pornographers and their fellow travelers in the entertainment and fashion industries are attacking moral standards and norms of behavior that most people live by. That's what barbarians do.
If you think that overstates the case, try listening to the rappers' words, the gosh-awful mantra flooding the heads of impressionable adolescents every day. Look thoughtfully at the fashion ads and the celebrity spreads in the newspapers and magazines we all read. Consider what's on television and in the movies. And check your e-mail.
Here's a shortlist of what the "cultural" barbarians at our gates our up to.
- They have gone from 14 million pages of Internet porn in 1998 to 260 million today.
- They play bait and switch with web site names to get vulnerable adults and children into porn.
- They bludgeon porn spam fighters into surrender.
- They're selling perfume and clothing brand-named FCUK.
- They're teaching women to strip tease at a department store in Paris.
- They're selling books for homosexual pedophiles at Amazon.com.
- They've cooked up a "porn star" reality TV show.
There's more, of course, but you get the idea.
Typosquatter looks for profit by corrupting children
A cyberspace bait and switch operation, allegedly run by a man named John Zuccarini, reportedly tricks children into entering pornographic web sites. According to the online magazine CircleID, the man has registered thousands of Internet domain names that closely resemble popular domain names registered by others. The magazine explained the scheme: "His registrations anticipate users' common typing errors - glitches like doubling a letter, replacing one vowel with another, or transposing two adjacent consonants - 'typosquatting,' as it has come to be known. Due to Zuccarini's registrations, users reach Zuccarini's sites instead of error pages or the web sites they had in mind." In this scheme, "Disney," for example, became "Dinsey."
Zuccarini's arrest in September was the first to be made under the new Truth in Domain Names Act. The Act provides that, "Whoever knowingly uses a misleading domain name with the intent to attract a minor into viewing a visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct on the Internet shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both." The fact that such a law was needed at all is a measure of what we're up against in this business called the "culture war."
James B. Comey, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, nailed it when he said, "Few of us would imagine that there was someone out there who was, in effect, reaching through cyberspace to take that child by the hand to one of the seediest corners of the Internet... Children make mistakes... to take advantage of those mistakes to direct those children to pornography sites is beyond offensive... We cannot imagine a better way for this law to be used for the first time."
Mr. Comey did not explain why no charges were brought under federal obscenity laws.
Spammers use zombies to force a war-zone surrender
A notice posted to an anti-spam Internet bulletin board on September 22 reads like a dispatch from the front in a war zone: "It is with deep regret that I must announce that by 12:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time tonight, September 22nd, 2003, all anti-spam services and information that are now, or that have been provided by MONKEYS.COM to the Internet community will be terminated." Rob Guilmette, proprietor of Monkeys.com, was hoisting a white flag where the enemy could see it.
His software company had been knocked off the Internet for ten days in August and a few more days in September, and he couldn't take it any more. He believes the attacks were launched by spammers he had targeted for blacklisting by Internet service providers. He said he had been hit with a "concentrated onslaught from thousands of separate zombie machines at a time. I would be the first to say that it is a damn shame that the bad guys have won yet another round ..."
COMPUTERWORLD magazine (September 26) reported that Mr. Guilmette's corporate e-mail address was "recently spoofed and used to send pornographic images and sex-related messages to about 1 million e-mail accounts, prompting angry responses from recipients…" The magazine also reported that two other companies had shut down their anti-spam blacklists, one because it had suffered similar attacks and the other because it feared it would be attacked soon.
Merchants are selling 'License to FCUK' cards for Christmas
FCUK is an acronym for French Connection United Kingdom, so we are to understand that the vile word that pops to mind in place of FCUK is our problem - we must all have dirty minds, you see. The company's "holiday" promotion calls for stores to issue cards stamped "License to FCUK." Another key phrase for the company's marketing department is "scent to bed."
The people in charge no doubt think all this is clever and funny and catchy and attractive to their intended market. That would have to be adolescents and some really young adults, among whom many, in their immaturity, are likely to think the same thing - it's just funny, man. (Cosby calls it brain damage, and he may be right.)
But it isn't funny, of course. It's offensive and destructive. The consequences of teenage sexual activity include AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, depression that sometimes becomes suicidal, girls turning to prostitution for spending money, babies born to poverty or killed in the womb, and lost opportunities to lead truly wonderful lives.
The American Family Association has led a consumer protest that has so far caused Federated Department Stores and others to drop the FCUK line, and convinced key teen magazines to refuse the company's ads. Cheers to AFA!
Outre? You bet
In Paris, "'porno-chic' has gone mainstream," the New York Times reported November 6. The department store Galeries Lafayette opened a new lingerie shop with attractions that included a "street of temptation" named "Le Red Hot Boulevard" lined with "80 different brands of 'strings' (the French word for 'thongs')," and other items of women's underwear. According to the Times, the store also offered "free half-hour lessons by professional striptease artists so that 'women can familiarize themselves with the art of revealing their new lingerie.'"
Paul Delaoutre, who may be the most aptly named person on the planet, is president of the store. The Times quoted him as saying, ''Seduction is important to our clientele. We want to be on the cutting edge. Your American stores are often so banal.''
That's a relief.
Selling pedophilia at Amazon.com
Amazon.com has been carrying literature describing, explaining and largely defending child molesters. The latest is "Drum Beats: Walt Whitman's Civil War Boy Lovers," published by Gay Sunshine Press. Abraham Lincoln is named as one of the "boy lovers."
Until three years ago, Amazon.com sold a book called "Varieties of Man/Boy Love: Modern Western Contexts." Others in this category at Amazon.com have included "Child Loving," "Erotic Innocence," "Pictures of Innocence," "Pleasures Taken," "Return to Innocence," "My Sweet Life," and "Loving Boys."
Recently there was "Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers" - published by Safe Haven Press, which sponsors "International Boy Love Day." Writing about this book, Forbes in October 2002 said Amazon.com was "digging in its heels, refusing to take down a book being criticized as encouraging child molestation."
Amazon hid behind the tired old absolutist spin that could have been copyrighted by the American Civil Liberties Union. Amazon's spokeswoman said, "There are no plans to take this book down. We believe that providing open access to written speech, no matter how controversial or ugly, is one of the most important things we do." This is the slippery slope rationale at work.
Slippery slopes tilt every which way
The ACLU will defend awful speech at the margin of First Amendment protection - or beyond the margin - in order to avoid any precedent that might be used to threaten speech with a better claim to protection. But slippery slopes can tilt in all kinds of directions, and there's the rub. Protecting awful speech at the margin creates a precedent envelope pushers in the pornography and entertainment industries and elsewhere use to defend more of the same, and worse, and each new case of awful speech seems to set new precedents for more, and worse.
Look to the BBC for a current case in point. Trying to weather a storm of protest over an outrageous oral sex scene in a dramatic series, the BBC is making the argument envelope-pushers always make. BBC's Head of Drama Jane Tranter put it this way to The Express on Sunday November 9: "I think the scene is completely in context with the period and doesn't push the boundaries any more than Tipping The Velvet did on BBC2." Tipping The Velvet caused an uproar for showing lesbian sex scenes. That's the slippery slope the ACLU doesn't talk about.
Speaking of slopes
Trashy "reality" shows on television, and "adult entertainment" in general, set the precedent for a news release issued by Silhouette Productions that ran under this headline on PR Newswire November 3: "Production Begins on the Ultimate Reality Show, 'Can You be a Porn Star?'"
The release opened, "Spinning the wheels of imagination for a genre that has created an entire generation of voyeurs…" So, you see, trash is now a "genre."
The announcement continued: "New York-based Silhouette Productions has announced the start of principal photography in Los Angeles on an audacious pay-per-view reality series, 'Can You Be A Porn Star?'… A natural evolution of MTV's 'Real World,' 'Paradise Hotel' and 'Temptation Island,' 'Can You Be A Porn Star?' is the first reality show to push the content limits of the adult film business with uninhibited nudity and sizzling sexuality ...
"Television has already shattered boundaries with such series as HBO's 'Real Sex,' and porn stars from Traci Lords to Mary Carey have been able to parlay their public recognition into other opportunities. 'Can You Be A Porn Star?' simply codifies the increasingly mainstream acceptance of adult entertainment..."
This statement was attributed to "show producer and Silhouette Productions CEO Harry Feingold," who seems not to have noticed the polls that show "mainstream acceptance" is an illusion fabricated by the porn racketeers to advance their cause. How would he explain the failure of Skin and Coupling to survive more than a few episodes on prime time television? And what does Mr. Feingold conclude when he reads that family friendly movies outsell - by a lot - movies that have a lot of sex, nudity, vulgarity and gratuitous violence?
He got closer to the truth when he used the word "addictive" in the following wishful statement: "This series offers viewers a fun, behind-the-scenes look at the star-making process in a multi-billion dollar industry. We think 'Can You Be A Porn Star?' will become an enjoyable, addictive series not just for men, but for wives and girlfriends who enjoy both reality TV and adult entertainment."
New York magazine: even 'nice' guys are hooked
CyberAtlas, an online source of information on Internet trends and statistics, reports that, "One-quarter of total daily search engine requests, or 68 million, are for pornographic material, where 40 million Americans are regular visitors."
We wonder how anyone could determine that 40 million different Americans are "regular" visitors, but unquestionably the number is large.
New York magazine may or may not have noticed this activity but they picked up on its impact among men in New York City. The magazine reported (October 20) on the addictive effect of Internet porn in a story under this headline: "Not Tonight Honey. I'm logging on." This was the sub-head: "Internet porn is everywhere; even 'nice' guys are hooked. So where does that leave their girlfriends?" No mention of wives or the federal laws that prohibit the distribution of hardcore pornography on the Internet, as elsewhere. Reporter David Amsden described Internet porn as "raunchy wallpaper" and (quoting one of his sources) "the vortex of self-hatred."
But there's good news, too
The New York Sun of September 15 carried word that "The Bush administration is launching a 'historical' crackdown on makers and distributors of material deemed to be obscene, after nearly a decade without prosecutions." John Malcolm, deputy assistant attorney general for the criminal division of the Justice Department, told the Sun that there have been 19 federal obscenity-related convictions during the last year, and indictments have been brought in eight other cases. Currently, the paper reported, "At least 49 makers and distributors of pornography are under investigation, and indictments are expected over the next few months."
Reports from Morality in Media, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the Federal Trade Commission have helped the Justice Department build the criminal obscenity database supporting the investigations, indictments and convictions. Morality in Media operates a special web site, www.obscenitycrimes.org, as a hotline to the Justice Department for anyone who wants to report what looks like obscenity on the Internet. Obscenitycrimes.org was launched in June 2002 in consultation with the U.S. Justice Department. In its first year, the hotline generated more than 30,000 reports from people in all 50 states.
The Associated Press and others reported in mid-September that a U.S.-led child pornography investigation dubbed "Operation Predator" had resulted in the arrest of more than 1,000 suspects worldwide, including Americans who traveled abroad to have sex with minors, people charged with molesting mentally impaired children, and people who smuggled foreign children into the United States to work as prostitutes. About 400 of the arrests were on charges of manufacturing or distributing child pornography on the Internet.
The Federal Communications Commission imposed a fine on 13 radio stations owned by Infinity Broadcasting, instead of just one of the stations, for airing indecent material on the "Opie and Anthony Show." The levies added up to $375,500, a much larger fine than usual, though still short of the license suspensions one member of the Commission wanted.
Microsoft has asserted control over its chat rooms. Microsoft announced in September that it will close down its chat rooms in 28 countries - in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and most of Latin America - and that those in the United States, Canada and Japan will be placed on a paid subscription basis requiring personal identification and credit card information.
Microsoft said, "This change is intended to help protect MSN users from unsolicited information such as spam and to better protect children from inappropriate communication online… The increase in abuse of the Internet, such as the massive growth of spam and the increase in unsolicited and inappropriate material, particularly with regards to children, has led us to this decision."
Internet service providers would like the world to believe they can't block or control anything passing through their portals. Clearly they can and have, as Yahoo U.K. demonstrated in 2001 when it blocked access to adult chat rooms in the United Kingdom, and when it blocked access from France to Nazi-related items on Yahoo's auction site. In both cases, Yahoo acted to meet legal requirements.
Norway has banned the transmission of pornography on cable TV networks from Sweden. The TV channels Canal+ and TV1000 have aired pornography from Sweden, but pornography is illegal according to Norway's General Civil Legal Code. Norway therefore has the right to restrict re-transmission of such programs in Norway. The Christian association Family & Media argued the case for enforcing a ban. Geir Magnus Nyborg of Family & Media commented, "We see a growing conflict between the freedom of expression and the freedom of the family and we must secure the home as a place where parents are free to raise their children in a sound environment."
Connecting the dots ... or not
Chicago Sun Times columnist Mary Mitchell told her readers on September 28 that if President Bush had only read a certain story in Newsweek magazine or seen a preview of Oprah Winfrey's September 25 show he would have been better prepared for his speech to the United Nations on September 23. It was a busy week.
Ms. Mitchell wrote, "I was stunned to hear Bush bring up the teenage sex trade in third world countries - in which young girls are either bought, sold or forced across world borders to engage in sex with adult men." She contended that the president "really shouldn't have brought up the sexual exploitation of girls in third-world countries as if America has conquered this problem."
That view was at odds with a quote from the president's speech that Ms. Mitchell herself reported elsewhere in her column. The president said, "This problem has appeared in my own country, and we are working to stop it. The Protect Act, which I signed into law this year, makes it a crime for any person to enter the United States or for any citizen to travel abroad for the purpose of sex tourism involving children. The Department of Justice is actively investigating sex tour operators and patrons, who can face up to 30 years in prison."
Ms. Mitchell was stunned anyway.
She supported her view with this: "Oprah's explosive interviews with three middle-class teenage prostitutes were a follow-up to an equally shocking Newsweek magazine expose on teenage prostitution published last week."
Twice earlier this year Newsweek ran stories involving America's multi-billion-dollar pornography racket without reference to the fact that the production and distribution of hardcore obscene pornography is illegal, that pornography is addictive and harmful to marriages and families, and that it is used by sexual predators to seduce children. In January, Newsweek reported that adult porn web site operators were going to award "good housekeeping seals of approval" to porn sites that don't carry child porn so "visitors know there's nothing illegal on the site" - Newsweek's words. In July, Newsweek ran a story about the porn racket suggesting, as its one-word headline put it, that porn is "XXX-ceptable" to the American public, ignoring evidence to the contrary.
Anyone reading those Newsweek stories would conclude that porn is okay so long as it's not child porn. Now Newsweek, for whom the pornification of our culture is not a problem, wants us to understand that we have a problem: Some teenage American girls are prostituting themselves.
What we have here is a failure of Newsweek to connect the dots.
Ditto Mary Mitchell.
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