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| Porn Users Forum » RIP Obscenity Prosecution Task Force (2005-2011)? |
| 1-21 of 21 Posts | Page 1 |
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| 04-17-11 06:09pm - 4998 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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turboshaft (0)
Active User Posts: 1,958 Registered: Apr 01, '08 |
RIP Obscenity Prosecution Task Force (2005-2011)? This may not be of much interest to non-U.S. PU'ers, but apparently the Obama administration has quietly put the Dept. of Justice's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force to sleep. Or at least hasn't done enough with it that 41 senators were concerned enough to write attorney general Eric Holder a letter urging him and the DOJ "to combat the growing scourge of obscenity in America." I know this may seem strange to the international PU'ers, especially considering how southern California produces porn by the truckload (a badandy400 unit of measure, I believe), but you have to remember that our elected officials absolutely hate porn, or pretty much anything having to do with sex--birth control, sex ed., film, music, the Internet (apparently as a whole), TV, you name it. It's all sexualizing our innocent citizens and destroying society before our very eyes!  Okay, I'm getting on my free speech soapbox here, but porn is big business because a lot of people like it, and regularly (if privately) enjoy it in a perfectly healthy manner that doesn't mysteriously lead to child rape and spousal abuse (that's what organized religion is for!  ...just kidding.). But I wonder if a career in American politics leads you to be a prudish asshole or all these people just assholes by birth?Supposedly last summer's Stagliano trial and then subsequent dismissal was a sign that this task force was of no interest to the Obama administration. I may dislike him for being so irritatingly centrist but at least he's adult enough to give up on this ridiculous federal boner patrol the Bush II people set up in 2005. I'm just hoping the next republican president doesn't try and bring it back to life. "It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hardcore Commie works." - Gen. Jack D. Rippper, Dr. Stranglove | |
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| 04-17-11 06:43pm - 4998 days | #2 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
Naw, they are all running scared. Those politicians who lectured your nation on the evils of gayness and gay marriage turned out to be gay themselves. Those who preached family values were caught cheating on their wives, so those who are against pornography are probably frightened of the possibility that someone might discover that they are closet porn addicts. I think one stone too much has been thrown from the glass houses of the moralists and they are all hiding behind their congressional or senatorial pulpits so that they'll be ignored for now!  Edited on Apr 17, 2011, 06:47pm | |
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| 04-17-11 06:58pm - 4998 days | #3 | |
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pat362 (0)
Active User  Posts: 3,575 Registered: Jan 23, '07 Location: canada |
I think that the writing was on the wall the moment that Mr Obama became President. He couldn't do anything right away because they had already started certain procedures but he wasn't going to spend millions of dollars fighting against a legal enterprise. Whether you think pornagraphy is a vile and discuting business or not. It is still a legal tax paying business and based on what many well to do people claim is a multi-billion dollar enterprise then the tax revenue from these enterprises must be quite high. Long live the Brown Coats. | |
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| 04-18-11 07:18am - 4997 days | #4 | |
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Jay G (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 96 Registered: Jan 12, '07 Location: USA |
Absolutely on point again, Messmer. Those who scream the loudest against sexuality are the sickest bastards of all. Tell them they belong in the Taliban, putting burkha blankets over all women so we won't have any sexual thoughts. Ever notice how they hate sex but love gory cruel violence and torture? Show me a defender of torture and I'll show you a very sick soul. Jay G | |
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| 04-18-11 09:10am - 4997 days | #5 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
This is something that has always baffled me, Jay, that no one ever speaks of the true pornography that is violence. Extreme violence is so casually accepted in all the slasher movies, in the news, in games etc., yet put one explicit love scene into a movie and it gets an NC-17 rating. It's a sick world, and as you implied the sick ones aren't necessarily found among porn lovers. | |
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| 04-18-11 10:28am - 4997 days | #6 | |
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turboshaft (0)
Active User Posts: 1,958 Registered: Apr 01, '08 |
They're not all running scared. Most of the possible/considering it/exploratory 2012 Republican presidential candidates are of the "values" crowd--no sex, no queers, no taxes, no Darwin, no problem! Except for Donald Trump--yes, apparently he's going to try and run--they're all in the sexuality-is-evil crowd, or at least that's how they're selling themselves to the far-right fringe. For people who constantly claim to defend the "sanctity" of life they sure do hate some of the best parts about it; the sex, masturbation, and porn (though not necessarily always in that order).  What happened to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? "It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hardcore Commie works." - Gen. Jack D. Rippper, Dr. Stranglove | |
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| 04-18-11 01:33pm - 4997 days | #7 | |
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rearadmiral (0)
Active User Posts: 1,453 Registered: Jul 16, '07 Location: NB/Canada |
I suspect that this holds a lot of interest for any members here regardless of where they live and buy their porn just because the U.S. produces so much of the 'mainstream' stuff available. If I recall corretly, Bill Clinton dialed back on the right-wing attacks on 'obscenity' started by the Reagan administration. It really should come as no surprise that Obama has done the same since the religious-right drives this bus and they don't have the same clout with the Democrats as they do with the Republicans. Two things that I've read come to mind on this subject: 1) pornography is something that Americans publicly abhor and privately adore. 2) Republicans will let you keep all your money but tell you how you can spend it, while Democrats will take your money but let you do what you want. All joking aside, this is just part of the bigger culture war in the U.S. BTW - excellent thread turboshaft. | |
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| 04-18-11 03:54pm - 4997 days | #8 | |
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messmer (0)
Disabled User Posts: 2,582 Registered: Sep 12, '07 Location: Canada |
The longer I live the more I feel that I live among entirely too many hypocrites. Jesus described them well when he said: On the outside they are like white washed tombs while on the inside they are full of dead men's bones! <- see not all religious are bad! It's just their followers that mess things up!  | |
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| 04-18-11 04:17pm - 4997 days | #9 | |
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Drooler (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 1,831 Registered: Mar 11, '07 Location: USA |
Nicely said, Messmer! I haven't met too many religious zealots that weren't going through life without some windows or other shattered on the floors of their teetering little edifices of self-annointed holiness. But these things work in cycles here in the US. In the 80's we had the "Moral Majority." And we had the Jim and Tammy drama, and the Jimmy Swaggart meltdown, too. Naughty!!! Very naughty!! Jerry Falwell managed to keep his rep aligned with his message, at least. But we only remember the MM dimly now. But they'll always come back in some form. They rode the Bush admins coat tails and infiltrated the gov't enough that we had all kinds of wedge issues based on their twisted morality (stem cell research, the 10 Commandments at public buildings, same-sex female couple hints being shorn from PBS stations at kiddie hours, intelligent design, etc.). Oh, and the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. What a fucking waste of everyone's time, all of that was. And TAX MONEY too! It's now pretty quiet overall, isn't it? Enjoy it while it lasts, 'cause it won't. I wanted something new, so I left England for New England. | |
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| 04-19-11 06:44am - 4996 days | #10 | |
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Jay G (0)
Disabled User Posts: 96 Registered: Jan 12, '07 Location: USA |
Have you noticed movies that warn of "Extreme Violence AND Adult Content?" I laugh because in the US we don't see extreme violence AS adult content, only sex. Let the kids watch slasher films but don't show any tits in them.  Jay G | |
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| 04-19-11 01:47pm - 4996 days | #11 | |
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rearadmiral (0)
Active User Posts: 1,453 Registered: Jul 16, '07 Location: NB/Canada |
I think it was Sally Struthers who pointed out (correctly, in my opinion) that in the U.S. if a movie shows a man kissing a woman's breast the film gets an X rating. If a movie shows a man cutting off a woman's breast with a knife, it gets an R rating. If you can find it, watch the documentary "This Film is Not Yet Rated" for an excellent exposé of the MPAA and the film rating system. | |
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| 04-19-11 02:13pm - 4996 days | #12 | |
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Khan (0)
Suspended  Posts: 1,737 Registered: Jan 05, '07 Location: USA |
For those with NetFlix, it's available for instant watch. And I'd agree with rearadmiral, it'll give you new insight into the film rating system. Former PornUsers Senior Administrator Now at: MyPorn.com "To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short sentences."-John Henry Patterson | |
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| 04-19-11 05:09pm - 4996 days | #13 | |
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rearadmiral (0)
Active User Posts: 1,453 Registered: Jul 16, '07 Location: NB/Canada |
I was going to mention that Khan because it is available on Netflix in Canada so I figured it would be available in the U.S. where Netflix offers 10x the titles. But I wasn't sure. Thanks for the info. The documentary isn't porn-related, but it gives great insight into how anti-sex the MPAA can be. Honestly, until I saw this film I didn't know that the MPAA wasn't a government agency. It isn't. It's a private company run by right-wing zealots. | |
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| 04-19-11 11:08pm - 4995 days | #14 | |
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turboshaft (0)
Active User Posts: 1,958 Registered: Apr 01, '08 |
Actually the MPAA is working for the film industry in order to keep the government from rating them, much like the Hays Code did until the 1960s. The way the FCC (federal government) handles content on TV makes Hollywood more than happy to submit to the MPAA. Different ratings can mean different theatrical profits. Like the difference between PG-13 and R, or R and the dreaded NC-17 or even Unrated, which effectively doom the chance for box office receipts, save for maybe "Showgirls" back in 1995 (though I think it was still a bomb). So it's an imperfect system--and one I personally find totally full of shit--but it's still better than actually having the government involved. I can only imagine the partisan firestorms that would erupt every time we had congressional or presidential elections, or it would turn into a battle of political donations between the entertainment industry and the religious right. But fortunately with the rise of DVDs and digital releases (and businesses like Netflix) you can easily find more and more unrated cuts along with the rated ones and skip the whole "approved" nonsense altogether. "It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hardcore Commie works." - Gen. Jack D. Rippper, Dr. Stranglove Edited on Apr 20, 2011, 09:18pm | |
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| 04-20-11 12:35pm - 4995 days | #15 | |
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Wittyguy (0)
Active User  Posts: 1,138 Registered: Feb 04, '08 Location: Left Coast, USA |
Ah yes, the lovely combination of political pandering and functionally obsolete morality colliding in a big ugly train wreck: this pretty much sums up the culture war on porn. Porn is an easy mark for racking up cheap political points because just like Elvis, the Beatles, Woodstock and other culturally subversive acts of their day, it's easy to speak out against it and you don't burn any political capital by doing so. Porn is an easy mark because opinion polls say so many people are against it even though a lot of them use it. It's just another case where people will say what they think the right thing to say is even when they do the opposite. Also, since conservatives rely heavily upon older voters (those less likely to look at porn) it's an easy call for them to make. The biggest hypocrisy I see with all the conservative mumbo jumbo on this issue is that many of them profess libertarian principles (less government, period) but at the same time they want government to crack on anything socially "bad". Also, at the same time we're drowning in debt, why spend good money chasing porn makers, internet gamblers (the newest federal bust) and steroid abusing sports stars (Lance Armstrong, etc.). Shit, just tax the stuff like everything else, that's the libertarian way. The real criminals are the companies hiding huge amounts of money off shore and politicians not willing to do anything but pay lip service to addressing our debt problems. | |
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| 04-20-11 05:02pm - 4995 days | #16 | |
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Drooler (0)
Disabled User Posts: 1,831 Registered: Mar 11, '07 Location: USA |
Wittyguy, we see very much eye-to-eye on this. I wanted something new, so I left England for New England. | |
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| 04-20-11 08:45pm - 4995 days | #17 | |
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turboshaft (0)
Active User Posts: 1,958 Registered: Apr 01, '08 |
Ahh, there's the classic Wittguyian crankiness I love. I think I have said this before in the forum, but the label "libertarian" seems to have been taken over by conservatives, if only because "conservative" became somewhat of a dirty word during the waning Bush II years (though many conservatives seemed to have problems with him and his policies much earlier). The libertarianism I hear so much about recently seems to be almost exclusively a sort of fiscal libertarianism--mostly free markets, free trade, little to no taxes, and generally less government and/or government intervention overall. Even if you don't care about the social aspects that libertarianism could cover--drugs, sex, porn (that's the perfect trifecta for a fun weekend), speech, religion, rights of the accused, the list goes on--then you can still probably get away with labeling yourself as libertarian. That's my big problem right there: this pick and choose nonsense that totally devalues the meaning of a political philosophy or just a belief. Granted, labels can become pretty meaningless because of so much misuse and misappropriation but it is insane to here someone scream about too much government when it comes to things like taxes or food regulation and then hear them scream that there's not enough when it comes to the so-called degradation of American culture, like porn. Maybe Ben Franklin should have said "but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. Oh, and porn, that's totally certain too." Anyway, I don't think the gun lovers are going to lose out on their guns anytime soon, or the porn lovers their porn, or the investors their free markets, but we're still all going to be paying taxes until we die, or at least until we are frozen so we can then be thawed out for Futurama-style head jars. "It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hardcore Commie works." - Gen. Jack D. Rippper, Dr. Stranglove | |
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| 04-21-11 05:26am - 4994 days | #18 | |
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rearadmiral (0)
Active User Posts: 1,453 Registered: Jul 16, '07 Location: NB/Canada |
Interesting and valid points, turboshaft. I agree with them all. Here in Canada we have a government-run system but we also rely on the MPAA, so it means a double-whammy for us. The provincial film censor boards used to be quite active, but I think most provinces abandoned them a long time ago and rely on the Ontario censor board, which, like the MPAA, is populated mostly by Christian soccer moms. The biggest problem with the government model of censorship is that it pre-determines what is and isn't legal. Often, the border cops will seize and watch a video being imported and determine that it isn't fit for sensitive Canadian minds. But... thanks to the internet, this model of censorship no longer really works. Once every quarter the federal government posts a list of all material they've seized and banned coming across the border. Most of it is hate literature but a lot of it is porn. I'm always amazed at how much of the stuff is (or used to be) Max Hardcore or Jim Powers (JM Productions) stuff. I make it a point to read that list and then within a couple of seconds I can find a place on the net where I could download it for a small fee if I wanted. One thing I have noticed is that the volume of porn being banned at the border is on a sharp decline. Obviously people are using the internet. But one trend that hasn't shifted is that a lot more gay and lesbian stuff gets stopped and siezed than straight stuff. One seizure of lesbian material ended up in our Supreme Court based on the obvious anti-homosexual biases of the border cops. Anyway, I can't remember what the hell I was writing about...  | |
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| 04-21-11 05:32am - 4994 days | #19 | |
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rearadmiral (0)
Active User Posts: 1,453 Registered: Jul 16, '07 Location: NB/Canada |
Amen to that. Whenever someone raises the idea of libertarianism or smaller government as supported by neo-conservatives I always point out that the whole concept is mis-labeled. Yes neo-cons push for limited government, but only for big business. Let big business do what they want without regulation. They'll do what's best for themselves and we'll all reap the benefits. Yesh, sure. Nothing bad can come from that. But... for the average person, it will mean more government intervention on 'morality' issues. The neo-cons will let banks go unregulated, but heaven help you if you want to see smut! One thing that has always baffled me is how the neo-cons can reconcile their smaller-government stance with their staunch opposition to gay marriage. How the hell can they even try to make that argument? How is it part of government's role to tell someone who they can consent to marry? | |
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| 04-21-11 03:16pm - 4994 days | #20 | |
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badandy400 (0)
Active User  Posts: 869 Registered: Mar 02, '08 Location: ohio |
I thank you for the compliments. Gas costs too much for truckloads now days. Train cars seem to be most economical now. "For example, badandy400 has taken it upon himself to become the one man Library of Congress for porn with a collection that surely will be in Guinness Book of World Records some day." ~Toadsith~ PU Interview | |
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| 04-27-11 09:48am - 4988 days | #21 | |
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turboshaft (0)
Active User Posts: 1,958 Registered: Apr 01, '08 |
So does this mean porn isn't green?  "It's incredibly obvious, isn't it? A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. That's the way your hardcore Commie works." - Gen. Jack D. Rippper, Dr. Stranglove | |
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