FC: "Cyber-liberties" feminists fight obscenity laws, by A. Newitz

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Tue May 14 2002 - 20:25:18 PDT

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    Also see my article at Wired News today on obscenity and COPA:
    http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52504,00.html
    
    ---
    
    Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:43:58 -0700 (PDT)
    From: Annalee Newitz <brainsploitationat_private>
    Subject: cyber-liberties feminists fight obscenity laws
    To: declanat_private
    
    Hi Declan. I think the politechnicals will enjoy this
    article I've just published about the many connections
    between feminism and cyber-liberties in current
    debates over online censorship and obscenity. It's a
    longish think piece in which I describe the tech-savvy
    feminists who are leading the fight to protect our
    First Amendment rights, especially when it comes to
    sexual free speech on the net.
    
    Obscene feminists
    Why women are leading the battle against censorship.
    
    By Annalee Newitz
    
    DIAN HANSON IS sorting through dozens of porn
    magazines. In one pile are Jaybird nudist publications
    from the late 1960s, featuring what she calls "crotch
    liberation" fantasies of happy, unshaven hippie kids.
    Filed in a different category are the British
    magazines, which "are so tidy and sensible ­ they have
    names like Practical Photography."
    
    Hanson, a career pornographer who has run popular
    adult magazines like Leg Show and Juggs, is working on
    several pictorial histories of men's magazines for art
    publisher Taschen. She's been on the editorial staff
    of various porn mags since 1976, and although she's
    joined the art world now, she says proudly, "I still
    consider myself a pornographer."
    
    Although Hanson estimates that close to 10 percent of
    adult magazines are run by women, public perception
    lags behind the facts. Most people assume women avoid
    pornography. Playboy's CEO may be Christie Hefner, and
    the wildly popular adult Web site Danni's Hard Drive
    may be woman-owned, but the conventional wisdom is
    that naked pictures exist only in man's domain. Women
    are supposed to be deeply disturbed by porn ­ that's
    why companies marketing "adulteryware" on the Internet
    aim their e-mail ads at women, who will supposedly
    want to catch their male companions in the "naughty"
    act of downloading a little tits and ass.
    
    . . .
    
    Yet the truth is, women are generally in the vanguard
    when it comes to fighting sexual censorship. The civil
    rights lawyers, activists, sex workers, media pundits,
    and professors who fight for your right to have dirty
    pictures are by and large female. Many call themselves
    feminists.
    
    And the people fighting to stamp out pornography today
    are most decidedly male.
    
    Attorney General John Ashcroft; his sympathizers in
    Congress, such as Mark Foley and Orrin Hatch; and
    powerful male-dominated lobbying groups like the
    Family Research Council and the American Family
    Association are on the warpath to eliminate "obscene
    materials" on the Internet. They're doing it using an
    argument conservative pundit George Gilder would
    undoubtedly deem feminine in the extreme: these
    antiporn boys say they want to protect the children.
    
    . . .
    
    http://www.sfbg.com/36/32/news_womenvscensorship.html
    
    =====
    Annalee Newitz
    tech * pop * sex
    415.487.2559 - cell: 415.378.4498
    www.techsploitation.com
    
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