Getting back to the doomed war on porn...

This is a reprint of a column from March, 2005

ALL WORKED UP ABOUT THE WAR ON PORN

That damned First Amendment.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof, nor of freedom of speech, nor of the
press, nor of the peoples’ right to peaceably
assemble, nor of the peoples’ right to petition the
government for a redress of grievances.”

Who knew that single paragraph would cause so much
trouble for the Morality Brigade?

If you’ve ever watched a porn movie by the company
called “Extreme Associates,” you’ve probably come away
with a wave of nausea in your gut and a desperate urge
to scrub the icky feeling off your skin with a wire
brush. Extreme Associates, run by the husband and
wife team of Robert “Rob Black” Zicari and Janet
“Lizzie Borden” Romano, specialize in the kind of porn
that gives porn a bad name. Their films feature
simulated rape and murder, verbal and physical abuse,
and the simulated forcing of women to drink
“cocktails” of semen, blood, and vomit. And did I
mention rape? Lots and lots of simulated rape. (The
key word here is “simulated.” Zicari and Romano have
gone to great pains to provide verification that every
single person in every single sick, twisted moment of
film is a consenting adult engaging in a paid acting
performance). No doubt about it; as pornographers go,
Extreme Associates the stuff at the bottom of an
abandoned Port-a-potty, only with a much less pleasant
odor.

So when the U.S. Justice Department decided to launch
an offensive in its War on Pornography, Extreme
Associates made the perfect target. The company
produced the worst of the worst, with no redeeming
literary, artistic, political, or social value
whatsoever, and it wouldn’t be missed when it was
gone. In August, 2003, the Justice Department brought
criminal charges against Extreme Associates for
violating Federal obscenity laws.

And the result? A slam-dunk. For the defense. On
January 21, 2005, U.S. District Court Judge Gary L.
Lancaster dismissed the case against Extreme
Associates, on the grounds that the First Amendment
protects their line of work. In his ruling, Judge
Lancaster pointed out that as long as people have the
right to view such materials in the privacy of their
own homes, Extreme Associates has a right to market
it, and that the State of Pennsylvania couldn’t ban
such material simply because government officials
found it objectionable.

The Justice Department has vowed to appeal the
decision, and newly-appointed Attorney General Alberto
Gonzalez swore in his confirmation hearings that he
would vigorously continue the Department’s policy of
vigorously prosecuting distributors of pornographic
materials.

Who’s he trying to kid? If the Powers That Be
couldn’t nail a couple of sleaze artists like Zicari
and Romano, what makes them think they stand a chance
against more conventional distributors of porn like
Vivid Studios and Seymour Butts Productions?
Especially since, as I myself have mentioned in
previous columns, porn has irrevocably entered the
American cultural mainstream.

We’re awash in porn-themed coffee table books,
biographies, documentaries, and reality TV shows. Not
to mention cable and the internet. On the one hand,
the Morality Brigade can scream that the inundation of
porn into the mainstream is proof positive that it’s
got to be eradicated. On the other hand, logic,
common sense, and the law itself make it clear that
the War on Porn was doomed before it even began.

For a book or movie to be considered “obscene” under
Federal statutes and case law, it has to be a
violation of the standards of morality of the
community in which charges are brought. Las Vegas,
Nevada would probably have a different opinion of what
constitutes obscenity than would, say, Salt Lake City,
Utah. So when the Powers That Be tried to prosecute
Zicari and Romano and Extreme Associates, they didn’t
bring the case in Northridge, California, where the
couple lives and works, but in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, which presumably would be more likely to
find their videos offensive.

Obviously, this plan didn’t work. I don’t know how
hard it might be to buy a dirty magazine or rent a
video in Pittsburgh, but I doubt it’s any harder to
download that stuff off the internet there as it is
anywhere else in the U.S. And since Pittsburgh has
bookstores and premium cable the same as the rest of
the U.S., I’m sure I’d have no problem buying a copy
of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ coffee table book,
“XXX: 30 Porn Stars” or watching Seymour Butts’
“Family Business” reality show on the Showtime
Network. If the Justice Department still wants to
bring an obscenity prosecution in a community that’s
easily shocked by porn, they’d maybe better find a
nunnery in The Middle Of Nowhere, Alaska.

So, where stands the War on Porn? The First Amendment
still stands as a bedrock for protection of all forms
of expression, offensive or otherwise. However, a
recent study by the John S. and James L. Knight
Foundation found troubling signs that the next
generation of voters sees the First Amendment as doing
more harm than good. One half of surveyed high school
students believed that the government should approve
of news stories before they are published. More than
one in three students surveyed said that the First
Amendment “goes too far” in protecting speech.

Small wonder. The Powers That Be have successfully
made dissent a four-letter word in the post-9/11 era.
For a generation of kids growing up in the past three
and a half years, it’s no surprise that they’ve
acquired a mentality that opposes the dissemination of
ideas they find objectionable.

For that matter, the First Amendment itself has been a
sort of “black sheep” when it comes to protecting
liberties and freedoms. Under the First Amendment, we
can’t pray in school, but we can burn flags in public
and crosses on peoples’ lawns. We can’t say, “under
God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, but we can have a
bumper-stickers that say, “Fuck Bush” on our cars.
The First Amendment has even turned people like Robert
Zicari and Janet Romero into folk heroes.

Despite high schoolers’ views of the First Amendment
and the Department of Justice’s War, I still have
faith porn is here to stay. In February, Adelphia
Communications, the country’s fifth largest cable TV
provider, announced that it would soon be offering
hard-core adult films to subscribers via pay-per-view.
The company, (which contributes heavily to Republican
Party operatives and campaigns), simply sees this as a
terrific opportunity to cash in on the multi-billion
dollar porn industry.

Phooey on the First Amendment. The Department of
Justice doesn’t stand a chance against the Almighty
Dollar.