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

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

Also see my article at Wired News today on obscenity and COPA:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,52504,00.html

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Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:43:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: Annalee Newitz <brainsploitation () yahoo com>
Subject: cyber-liberties feminists fight obscenity laws
To: declan () well com

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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