Seriously, what's the argument for porn being speech and expression? What is the message it's trying to convey?
Edit: Guys, I'm asking if it's speech/expression and, if so, how. Most of the comments in support of it aren't answering the question, just showing their support for free speech and expression, in general. Only one guy has made a case for it, comparing it to car shows and art. And, even though I have reservations about labeling it as art, I appreciate that he's making a case for it and not just side-stepping the issue.
I guess they could argue that some of the more involved porn movies have story? Cue that old joke about reading Playboy for the articles.
Anyway if you're arguing that we should ban it you should really think twice. That would give a government infiltrated by commies the power to control what people watch, and they would probably end up banning the less degenerate stuff for "misogyny" while continuing to allow the usual victim classes to produce the really degenerate shit. Vanilla stuff with the male on top? Banned for objectifying women. Cuckold and tranny shit? It would be very problematic to prevent oppressed ppl from expressing their sexuality. So that stays. Oh and we're going to show it to your kids as well.
Main reason why I am always against this argument to ban porn. One side wants to ban it because it's degenerate, the other because it's my soggy knees when in fact both want to dictate what you should and should not watch.
I am all for making porn difficult to obtain, especially for minors but outright ban will just give this new weapon the next guy in charge a nice little tool to censor even more they deem "problematic". Doubt anyone here thinks the government is ever gonna give back the tools they have gotten.
We can't play morality police and at the same time cry free speech from the rooftop. Since I know it's gonna come up at some point: I would however never advocate for cheese pizza be legalised, children have been exploited, trafficed, abused and murdered for this disgusting filth. There's no argument for free speech or anything else involving that to justify it in my eyes and the left should be ashamed of themselves that they're now in cahoots with those very same child abusers.
To the main point of OP: I think the issue is harder than a yes or no. It really depends on your personal bias and viewpoint. I could argue for or against it but it isn't really my forte to defend or attack porn as free speech/free expression. We'd first need to try to find out what porn you exactly mean because there's tons of different kinds. I could argue hentai could be porn, it however often times can have an interesting story or be a really depraved shitpool. Does that mean I could judge which of those would be free speech?
What about drawn stuff? Artistic expression could 100% be called free speech but even there you might find the truely degenerate stuff(diaper furry shit or something). While I draw myself I would not call all "art" I see art yet some might disagree. It's really up to you which brings me back to it's no easy yes or no, I'd still call it a way to express yourself aka free speech even if that way is crude and not to my liking.
What about real life porn? Real life porn has set designers, the performance(no, the other one) of the actors, some even have storylines(and even if it's only "there's straw on the ground, let's bang"), camera work etc. All this can be to a degree artistic, thus free expression.
Now, what value all this has is an entirely different topic. I did mention it shortly in the art part but a lot of it has rather low value. Might just be the bias in me but I'd value the drawn versions higher than any real life stuff but that's just me. Value should be a main focuspoint when talking about that stuff...just not wether we should ban stuff or now.
Another possibility would be a sketchy politician might use legalizing it as an excuse for people who want/defend porn to vote for them.
A shitton of gender criticals will aggressively defend abortion and may even blindly vote for politicians who will initiate politicide against them in the name of regressive leftism, rather than sucking it up and accepting the dissident right's arguments against abortion abuse.
As for art, it's arbitrary as fuck and extreme lack of quality is usually the qualifying factor as to what isn't art, though when it comes to pornography drawings and animations are always artwork and photography and video do not count 99.99% of the time. Parody law is similar as shitty parodies legally qualify as parody regardless of how bad it is,
It would also give the government the ability to declare more loosely what is porn. And in this new world where land whales grace Calvin Klein billboards any attractive person in underwear could be labeled as porn. See London banning swimsuit and lingerie models on ads. They didn’t claim porn they claimed body positivity. But it was really just a means to an end. Enforce the mayor of Londons religious beliefs on the people of the capital.
you already lost when you have a Muslim foreigner as the mayor, Britain never had freedom of speech in the first place
What qualifies as porn revolves around intent and reality, "know it when I see it" is not enough and does nothing but cause scandals.
Ironically, the best paying and way to get into the business was playboy. They paid well, and made sure to promote you to others. People like Gaiman and King have praised it for getting them into the business and when they wanted to try new ideas.
I can also say I want porn to be taboo for technology reasons. The more taboo, the more they figure out insane tech. This then filters to us as Google or the cloud.
A University I taught at for a year had printers with small hard drives. Someone hacked in and used those hard drives to make a website for porn. I have never seen anyone else use something that method.
I actually moved over to videogame studies because internet studies had way too much porn using tech in innovative ways. The more taboo and dangerous the greater the technological skill. My soul isn't worth finding out how any of that works.
I also doubt that the really illegal stuff isn't easily found and used by the elite types.
So, is it a free speech thing? It can be and I would argue that since elites can use it, so should everyone else. From the point of view of technological advancements and keeping folks safe, I would argue there need to be extra rules for it and people specifically working to stop it.
The government was a lot less "communist" pre-porn. A lot of modern right libs undersell how authoritarian conservatives used to be and how effective it was at, well, conserving things.
They already have that power. They just call the stuff they want to censor "hate" (which means anything opposed to the commie agenda).
There is no way to stop someone from having that power. The question is would you rather the people setting the rules go after porn, or go after "hate"?
That power not existing isn't an option.
First: Define your terms.
Second: PETA at one point covered naked women in pigs blood, and had them pose in oversized meat containers. There's definitely some kind of speech/expression there, you can argue the efficacy or sanity of that expression, but it is definitely present. But it is also easily considered pornographic, since it does feature, you know, fully naked women posing for the intent of gaining the male gaze.
"What is the message it is trying to convey" is a terrible question. Because Porn is not a message, it is a medium. "What is the message television is trying to convey?" is a useless conversation, because it lacks granularity. Is it left wing? Is it right wing? Is is neutral? Does it bounce between both? It all depends on what program on it you're watching.
Pornography is, at its core, a form of art. What does "art" convey? Well, depends on the art! Some art exists for people to discuss its deeper meanings. Some art exists solely to showcase some kind of technical skill of the creator, to other creators. Some art exists just to break up the monotony of a blank wall in a dentist's office.
I have a large painting of an armored apatosaurus being ridden by cavemen, fighting T-rexes. It's art. What does it say? Nothing. It's purely self-indulgent art. It is "cool". Looks nice too, good color balance and framing, but not enough to be a showcase in use of those things. A lot of porn is like that dinosaur art. It is self-indulgent art to look "sexy", while having a decent baseline of cinematography (no one wants 144p videos anymore).
Other porn can carry messages, like the PETA one above, or even showcasing techniques/positions/etc.
And yet others can shape society on a meta-level, while not being a message-carrier on the individual level. If all the porn "presented" to you is interracial, in example, you will likely vastly overestimate the demographical impacts of some races, even if any given video in the genre does little. In that case, the porn isn't the speech per se, but instead the presentation of the porn offerings is the speech.
And all of that is irrelevant... Because you asked the wrong question. The right question is "is it worth giving my political opponents the right to censor anything they wish by justifying it as them deeming it as wrong or lacking sufficient expression, because I don't like the idea of seeing other people naked?"
Having truly free speech also means shit tastes and degenerate fantasies will be posted. Its fine so long as it's both easy to ignore, and age appropriate for those present (as in, no porn is posted where minors will easily find it)
The most obvious problems are that it's not only easily abused, but those in charge can effectively censor anything they don't like with selective enforcement. What's to stop them from labeling anything that has an attractive woman in it as porn and then using that as an excuse to ban it? On the reverse side, I'd expect they'd gladly allow degenerate trash with trannies or some such.
In rad-Feminist circles, attractive female characters in flattering clothes are considered ''pornified'' because somewhere, a man might enjoy what he's seeing ( toxic male gase ).
It is their belief that showing such female characters makes girls grow to be self-conscious, contributes to eating disorders, and boys grow predatory, entitled, abusive with ''unrealistic expectations''.
Oh and it's a recuring narrative that boys and men who see ''pornified'' female characters ''can't get it up'' for a ''real woman''. As if the <0.5% of males with such obsessive-compulsive disorder ending up in a treatment center somehow tell us some far-reaching conclusion about most men and ''representation''.
These people want to censor content based on that.
Among other things, they also have this weird obesession that if you don't sexually-desire them post-wall and ungroomed body-hair, you're a pedo because of pornified representation of women.
Please disregard the near-totality of studies showing boys do not develop women-hating attitudes when seeing hot chicks, and girls feel more confident when playing a game with a hot female avatar.
That discussion may be interesting but it isn't relevant.
The real question is should there be any limits on speech?
And are the people in charge of setting and enforcing those rules agreeing with your position or with the position of people who don't like you?
In reality, this is all that matters. There has never been completely free speech anywhere, ever. Even without laws, even before civilization, you still couldn't piss off your village or tribe or whatever for fear of being ostracized and thus dying.
I'll do you one better. In 2002 Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition ruled by the Supreme Court that simulated child pornography is protected free speech. As in, drawings and clearly fake images.
One of their main arguments, which will answer your own question, is that Romeo and Juliet is an undeniable classic of artistic expression for all of history. Yet because it is between teens a slight amount of too much skin (remember, most of America did and still uses the Miller Test which is basically "does a regular person find it obscene? WELL ITS NOT FREE SPEECH ANYMORE GET FUCKED") could instantly get it labelled pornographic and therefore due for extreme consequences.
So the question then becomes what is the difference between porn and artistic work featuring nudity/sexuality/etc. Which is incredibly hard to do because of that aforementioned Miller Test and its intentional vagueness for abuse. The difference between Titantic's sex scene and something out of porn is production value, name recognition, and a story built around it. The only of which that isn't just "only the rich can make it" is the story, which then means only the quality of the story is the seperator and means that "is this well written" becomes a defining factor of if something is obscene or not. I think it goes without saying that letting that be a factor is a recipe for bad.
The question shouldn't be if it is speech/expression, that's worthlessly subjective. The question is if it isn't, what would you do to restrict it that isn't ripe for abuse, moral crusading, and undefinable wankery?
A production Romeo and Juliet doesnt need to show tits or even kissing to work. Its basically a morality play whose lesson is allowing teenagers to follow their arbitrary hormonal whims leads to disaster.
It doesn't, but it can and will. The point isn't that it needs to. Its that it can and what constitutes "inappropriate" is incredibly subjective.
You've actually made the point even better. Because "well it doesn't need to do that" is the exact argument people would make for censoring anything. Bioshock Infinite didn't need to use the word nigger once in its super racist city, but it also should have been allowed to (and really it stands out that it didn't).
Its not that any of this is necessary. Its that the moment you try to restrict it, you open a massive door for abuse and censorship well beyond any and all things you think it will be used for.
Unless you are wiling to proclaim your support for showing child porn in public broadcasts then you also want some speech rules according to your subjective rationalizations.
All rules, laws, limits, traditions, conventions etc are subjective. That isn't a "gotcha" and doesn't mean they don't usefully serve a good purpose. It just means we may need to scrutinize particular instances of limits to determine if they are serving the intended objectives and maybe adjust them as necessary.
I wouldn't because these are videos in which a victim is being assaulted and a major crime committed. This also isn't a "gotcha" either.
Yes, and we should also always be aware of the worst application of any limit we apply and how it will be used by people who we disagree with entirely. That's why, for instance, the Bill of Rights uses phrases like "shall not be infringed" instead of "reasonable and common sense measures."
The reason I use the "subjective" phrase isn't because of some philosophical cop out. Its because that's the law in the US. The Miller Test is the law in most areas and its an entirely subjective test that involves things like "a normal person" and "would deem it lacking in artistic merit." Which means you can get in legal trouble based on the whims and moods of random people depending on the day.
You can create your society on pure utopian "it'll work great as we adjust them exactly as need be whenever needed" or you can recognize that those in power and those with nefarious deeds will abuse whatever censoring you push for their own goals while only the regular man gets the consequence. You know, like how we know gun control will turn out.
So are depictions of murder and battery and shoplifting and vandalism. Yet its only a crime to possess pictures of one specific crime and not every crime, why is that?
They will do it anyway. Do you think the neomarxists have any empathy for us? We are standing in the way of their utopia, their heaven on earth that is "just around the corner" once they get rid of us. Anything harm hey commit against us has been per-justified by their delusional belief system.
I can't because I don't produce porn. You can cry about edge cases all you want but the existence of edge cases doesn't change the general case. If few "mostly harmless" perverts being occasionally scooped up is the price to keep degeneracy out of the public sphere then to me that is a very reasonable trade.
Because sexual crimes are considered more heinous than others. If you want that idea to change, or us to ban holding onto criminal evidence in general I'd be willing to listen to either argument. But that wasn't yours, its just you moving the goalpost because I didn't give you the gotcha.
Then don't make it easier for them by playing right into their hands. Because this won't make actual difference, as we know very obviously they, the government and those in power won't be effected by these changes in the slightest. So you aren't saving anyone, just letting those you hate have more control of you.
It says a lot that you are so blinded by your own little moral superiority you think the only people who can get scooped up are "still perverts" and not regular people who accidentally went afoul of laws written intentionally to catch them.
Ironic, because the previous paragraph you were complaining about them being willing to do any harm possible to us but now you think this new system will only catch bad people.
This isn't a "new system". This country used to have obscenity laws that were enforced against only the most egregious of cases. And there was a gentlemens agreements where businesses catering to prurient interests stayed away from main roads and generally the "good" parts of town.
That is what "live and let live" means. That normal people can go about their lives without thinking about trannies and buttsex and whores because it isn't everywhere they look the moment they leave the house or turn on a tv.
What percentage of Titanic’s run time is dedicated to nudity and sex? 1-2%?
Now look at a porno. That percentage is almost inverted.
It’s not impossible to distinguish porn from art. People just don’t want to do it.
So now its arbitrary numbers that random people deem is the line. Alright, that's totally not abusable in the slightest. We don't have race quotas using that same logic across the nation.
So is Rance Quest porn? You've easily got 95+% gameplay and very little porn by comparison. Your test is lacking.
As someone who produces pornographic stories, artwork and animation for commercial gain, I will offer my opinion.
Porn is automatically speech and expression because at the absolute simplest level inherently offers an opinion on what is attractive or erotic. When you censor porn, you're saying it's not okay to enjoy what it depicts, even in the context of fiction.
If draw sexualized big titty amazonians, I am, at minimum, saying that either I or my intended audience does, or should find them attractive. If I put a story alongside that, I can say more.
If I draw those big titty amazonians using weak men as domestic servants and sex slaves whilst they hunt for chad boardsword the barbarian to fill them with his worthy seed, I'm expressing something about the dynamics between men and women.
If I draw a porn comic where the man who keeps coming back to fuck the succubus gets sucked into her vagina has his soul ripped apart and dissolved into a puddle of pussy juice on the floor between her feet, I'm saying that maybe you shouldn't think with your dick all the time.
You don't get to say you fight for free speech if you turn around and moralize about porn purely because you don't like it. You only concerns when it comes to porn should be in keeping children away from it, addiction problems, and ensuring that people are not being harmed in its production.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to go draw Abigail Shapiro being given the power of divine megamilkies by the jewish space lasers.
It's like cars. There's your Show car porn, with awesome body work, meticulous and color matched wiring and components, looking like it was assembled by gods of aesthetics. Then there's your beat up 94 Hyundai Accent, that's only good for point A to point B. One is art, the other is a tool.
So I'd say it depends. Some of it is artsy, with subtle hidden meaning or a celebration of the human body, some of it is raw utility, meant only to help sales of tissues and hand lotion.
Here's the thing, let's take a step back from porn with real actors for a second. Let's talk something like drawn porn images. I (in this theoretical scenario where I can draw for shit) could pick up a pencil and make porn. I can pick up that pencil, and make the most titillating thing, that is purely sexual, and meant to arouse. It's porn. Now, the question is, how is that not also speech/expression; and if it's not, at what point does the shift occur? Where does art/speech/expression end, and porn begin?
Say this porn I drew was a man and a woman, both naked, having sex. Now say I draw those same characters, in a non-sexual pose instead, with clothes on. Or maybe in a suggestive but still non-nude way, they're hugging or kissing, he's shirtless, she's in lingerie or something. I created all those things using the exact same methodology; I picked up a pencil and drew what I wanted to portray on the page. Is some protected expression, but others not?
That's the problem, it's hard to find a limiting argument. It basically always comes down to "I'll know it when I see it" and, in my opinion, that is nearly by definition a huge infringement, if we're talking any sort of regulation on what I can draw.
I don't like porn, I think it's extremely damaging to society, in fact. But, in my opinion, we can't really escape from that it is speech. Because if we're saying it's not, I think that has ramifications that are potentially even more damaging. I'd rather err on the side of too much freedom, harmful freedom; than the side of not enough freedom, on limits to expression. Porn must be treated as speech, because even if you argue it's not, it's so close to speech that saying it's not has direct impact on speech rights.
For more examples, think of things like written erotica, ASMR or other spoken porn, or even hentai. Written and spoken stuff you have the same issues as drawn; if the words you write or speak are a little different, it's speech? Again, even if you say porn isn't speech, that's still an infringement, because then you'd have to argue that you can't say/write certain things because then it wouldn't be speech.
The only real argument you could make is something along the lines of threats; you could try to argue that porn is so damaging that its creation is a direct infringement on other peoples' rights. That porn is speech, but not protected speech, because it's doing harm to others. I don't buy it though. It's too nebulous. It might very well be doing harm, but it's not direct harm, since there's no target. It's not actionable. To use the threat example, you can say absolutely vile, violent, hateful things; that's still protected. And it has to be, or nothing is. You just can't call for violence in a way people might respond, because that's harming whoever you're targeting.
I think drawn porn is the best example of my argument though. I just find it absurd that, if I draw things in a certain manner, it suddenly becomes illegal. If I add a few more lines, my expression becomes no longer protected. Again, the big issue there is, it's than saying what you can and can't produce.
In my opinion, porn is just another form of entertainment, albeit one that's meant solely for adults. If you want to watch it, go for it. If it's banned in your household, good for you.
Is a auto key card a drawing or a unregistered auto sear? https://www.google.com/search?q=auto+key+card&client=ms-android-samsung-ss&prmd=ivn&sxsrf=ALiCzsZbWDpDJZa8WcxRNYESP8qxJixDEQ:1658018402870&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit_rvv1_74AhVmmYsKHTAhA1IQ_AUoAXoECAIQAQ&biw=412&bih=777&dpr=2.63
Right now ATF is actively prosecuting the guy who sold these, and a FFL who talked about them, for illegal manufacture and sale of unregistered machine guns. If you let the state decide, a line trace on a piece of metal will be classified as a MG.
A photo is speech if it shows a cunt or how to build a gun.
Here's Nick Rekieta talking about porn and expression from a legal angle.
Timestamps in the comments; if you're interested, there's other discussions on porn itself that are pretty interesting.
I hope this article from "Reason" helps answer the question:https://archive.ph/gkikZ
Thanks for the article. I think this is the relevant part to the discussion:
So judging from that, I wouldn't consider p*rn to fall in the category as noted in bold.
I agree, but for some reason porn gets a pass. Probably because it's already in wide circulation and not easy to regulate. It's become a permanent part of American culture . . . and it's free. I never could figure how any porn producers make money considering anyone can access porn online for nothing.
It's expression, but so is taking a dump. It's not speech. It could be speech if you were making a statement. For example if there were pornographic memes. Actually I saw one of those not long ago. It was about getting fucked at the gas pump thanks to Biden, and it was hilarious and true. That would be an example where porn and speech intersect. But usually porn is not speech, no. The supreme court declaring it so doesn't make it true.
I asked myself this long ago and came to the conclusion that it's expression/speech. I also realized that I want to ban it anyways. If every disgusting porn whore died tomorrow I would celebrate.
edit: Coalburner loving cuckolds downvoted this
No. Its noise designed to distract.
So are plenty of things, like much of entertainment, and even the corporate news. That's all speech/expression too.
Just because it's one thing doesn't mean it can't also be another.
Porn has never been considered 'free expression'.
Fundamentally, when the courts have been pushed to identify what actually is "protected speech", they are typically referring to viewpoint discrimination.
What this means is that anything that is actually espousing an opinion is protected speech that can't be restricted by the state. Incitement is a call to a criminal act, and isn't protected. Defamation requires a fact based claim, and is not protected. Porn is considered an "obscene" material that isn't actually espousing anything. It's a visual stimulant, and the court recognizes the need for children to be protected from obscenity.
Calling something "art" isn't enough. In fact, art is actually quite regulated, especially in the modern concepts of "performance art", where the performance can be so disruptive it can interfere with airspace, cause a general panic, or stop traffic.
For example, car shows are not protected speech, it's why some places can stop car shows from happening if they expect a disruption of traffic, or significant noise pollution.
What's protected is viewpoint discrimination. So we need to ask ourselves: "is there a particular viewpoint that this car show is espousing?" If the answer is yes, then we need to ask: "are the restrictions that the state is imposing being done as a response to the viewpoint of the car show, and not elements of the show itself." If the answer is Yes, then it's a violation of free expression / speech. If the answer is no, then the speech / expression is not protected.
ON THAT NOTE: are child drag shows a free expression? Absolutely not, specifically because of the violation of obscenity.
Thing is, most of the local governments are refusing to enforce obscenity laws on the drag shows because the establishment wants your children to be raped. However, the shows are absolutely illegal, and it's why a few of them have been shut down by the police after counter-protestors basically forced the police to show up by making a giant scene.
Porn, as far as SCOTUS is concerned, doesn't convey some kind of viewpoint. It is a product which is consumed for the purposes of masturbation. Basically, it's a 2D dildo. As such, this is not protected speech, but a commercial transaction involving obscene materials, and is therefore well within the government's right to strictly regulate.
What counts as porn is more subjective, quite literally "I know it when I see it". Probably because you actually know porn when you feel it, rather than see it.
considering the abuse on both the partakers and the watchers it is as free a speech as child pornography is, or as free a trade as the trade of black tar heroin.