Senators And Reps Grandstand Against Online Pornography Which Is Destroying Our Social Fabric

from the other-than-it's-not dept

Ah, pornography. It's so easy for politicians to grandstand against. Senator Orrin Hatch apparently sent a letter, co-signed by 41 other Senators, to Attorney General Eric Holder, urging him to start enforcing US obscenity laws in going after online pornography.

"Adult obscenity is increasingly harmful, addictive and associated with domestic violence, sex trafficking and other crimes," Hatch said. "It harms women, children, families, and communities. Congress has overwhelmingly passed laws to limit the production and distribution of this illegal obscene material. I am deeply concerned that these laws are not being enforced. I am gratified that so many of my colleagues have joined me on this letter to Attorney General Holder, asking him to enforce the anti-obscenity laws that are already on the books."

In the parlance of our times: [citation needed]. Radley Balko goes through the various claims that Hatch makes about online pornography and debunks them all pretty thoroughly:

The rise of the Internet in the mid-1990s made porn increasingly accessible to the point that today, just about everyone can watch people have sex damn-near any time of day, in every conceivable manner, in every possible vareity. If Hatch and his colleagues are right, over the last 15-20 years, we should have seen a massive increase in the social ills listed in Hatch's letter.

And in fact, every single one of these problems are trending in the opposite direction. It isn't even close:

• Sex crimes against children: Down 53 percent between 1992 and 2006.
• Abortion: The abortion rate has dropped by about 25 percent since 1993.
• Teen pregnancy: In 2009, teen pregnancy hit its lowest rate in the 70 years that the federal government has been tracking the statistic.
• Divorce: The U.S. divorce rate is at its lowest level since 1970.
• Domestic violence: The rate of reported domestic violence in the U.S. dropped by more than half between 1993 and 2004.
• Rape: The forcible rape rate in the U.S. has dropped from 41.1 per 100,000 people in 1990 to 28.7 in 2009. That latter figure is also an all-time low.

These numbers are overwhelming. What's more, there are at least a couple of studies suggesting that the widespread availability of pornography is partially responsible for some of these trends, especially the drop in reported rapes.

Is it really so much to ask our politicians to actually back up some of the claims that they make?

Filed Under: obscenity laws, orrin hatch, pornography, social fabric

UK Citizens Worked Up About Broad And Vague Obscenity Law

from the outlawing-comic-books dept

I have to admit that I've never quite understood the point of any sort of obscenity laws. Perhaps it's just my inner-libertarian, but why should the government be outlawing what people look at -- especially when it comes to such a subjective standard as "obscenity." Over in the UK, many people are up in arms over a new pornography law that is so broad and so vague that it could outlaw certain Batman comics, among other things. Defenders of the law will say that this is a ridiculous claim and that the law was intended for no such thing, and, in fact, police have said they don't plan to actively enforce the law.

Of course, that should be a sign of why the law is so problematic. Basically, officials are admitting that they're only going to use it in cases where either they can't find something else on someone, or they just want to pile on. It's not a law for any good reason... it's giving prosecutors an extra tool to take someone down. In the end, it looks like this was just another grandstanding law -- allowing some politicians to announce that they were able to help "protect the children" -- with little thought given to the actual details. That's why it includes a carve-out for movies. So, in theory, you could watch a movie with graphic pornography in it -- but then writing a description to someone else about it would be illegal.

Filed Under: obscenity, pornography, uk