Topic 1029 [media]: The Newsweeklies (Time, Newsweek, USN&WR), continued #259 of 895: Brock N. Meeks (brock) Wed Jun 28 '95 (05:17) 37 lines Mike has mentioned (#257) something I've been harping on since Exon began spurting his nonsence about how easy this stuff is to get off the Net: It's not. Sure, you can go into the alt.sex groups, but once there you are hit with several different files that are gibberish unless you compile them in the right order. So, I tried. Now, I'm not exactly MIT-status computer literate, but I'm no idiot about diggign into the guts of my computer. Getting these porn files assembled and decoded was a pain in the ass. Not worth it. Next subject and a more interesting one: Jim Thomas picks up on the fact that there is now some kind of preemptory strike against "conspriacies" in the works. Suddenly you have an academic institution acting paranoid. What I find amusing in all this is that CMU is at the center. This has to be one of the most fucked up campus administrations around. They try and censor the flow of newsgroups into their computer systems. And then they also set up ad hoc rules which prohibit -- and I'm not making this up -- students in conflict with one another from participating in *any* electronic forum where the other also contributes. ANY forum, commerical or Net based. They also cannot talk about or mention the other student online, anywhere. Seriously, now how fucked up is this! I learned of this situation the morning before I spoke at CFP '95 and couldn't help but mention it from the podium. I'm still amazed that they can get away with this shit, but they do. And nowthey sponsor this study, which as we've been told, was being "shopped" as long as 8 months ago. So they rung up Time for an "exclusive." Time got hosed. Topic 1029 [media]: The Newsweeklies (Time, Newsweek, USN&WR), continued #761 of 895: Susie Bright (sueb) Tue Jul 4 '95 (10:17) 74 lines I've been trying to speed read through the last 300 postings.so please excuse me if I am repeating something already said. I want to give you some backgroud on Martin Rimm, for starters. I just got some e-mail from him yesterday, after not hearing from him in months. He asks me, "if I don't hate (him) by now", would I please give him the title of my critical essay on Catherine MacKinnon. Well, I'll send him the whole book, if he gives me his snail mail address. But it seems a little late--not for Martin, but for a a lot of the people he'affeted. I was intorduced to Rimm because of Mike Godwin, who encouraged me to start a email correspondence with some very sharp women students at CMU who wre up in ars when the administration decided to stop the students form accessing sex on their intrnet connections. The univeristy was promptd inot this action by their paternalistic attittudes and liablity fears, which were provoked,and then jsutified by Rimm's survey. These amazing women, who decided to callthmselves the Clitoral Hoods, put together a really militatn campaign to question and reject the idea that women and innocent childrn would be hurt and degarded by having their information access cut off and censorred for them by their elders. they also started trying to hack their way past the univeristy's censorig efforts. I only wish there was such a grassz roots campaign in the rest of the country. These women know Martin personally and they said that he hatched this survey becuas of his OWN interest in usenet sex stuff ( SU_PRISE SU_PRISE) and was curious about what other people found hot, intersting, the most popular turnons, etc. They also said he refused to take a political osition about this material, but they he had no idea how to defend it against its detractors. This is typical, a person who digs sex and erotica in their own closetted way, but can't come up with a reason why anyone else should eb able to see it. i myself put more of my anger on the CMU administration,and now , TIME> That story was more sensatioanlistic than anyting I've seen in teh National Enquirer, at first I thought the cover photo was a satire on bill gates as a toddler. One of my students in my "Politics of Sexual Representation" class brought it in, and we talked about their expereinces online with sexuality, dirty email messages, cyber-lying, etc. I have also asked theminteh past when adn where they saw their first dirty pcitures,adn all of them were exposed to prnographic PRINT media between the ages of 6-9. AS noted some time back, seeing pictures of people "doing it' is not waht has made or broken these young people lives. And whether it was "vanilla" imagery or not had nothign to do with who they are now, either. Youknow, long before thre was th USENET< sex rsearchers lookinginto fantasy have verified that it is typical for people to fantasize about their won cutlures' taboos, what is onthe dark side, the outllaw territory. This is aside from teh fact that if you tll children not to put beans up their nose, the very thing they'll do ..... well, I won'tbor youwith althis. anyway the thing that infuriates me and frightens me abouthte Time aritcleis teh political infulence it has onalready opportunistic lawmakers and kingpins who are ALREADY more than happy to shut donw democratic access to EVERYTHING< using the demonization of porn as their trojan horse. Goddamn it! Dirty Picutres never killed anybody,and sexual speech is as human as it gets...but when faced with elitism and thw sword of righteiousness, free speech, and democratic access seem to have the slenderest of chances. heres th arrogance: Martin,and , and TIMES editors,and Exon and his crowd--NONE of them are worried that THEY will ever be denied access to information, any kidn of information or communication, becasue thy are priveleged,adn they think they've earnd that and deserve the golden key. THEY will look at secret things, naughty things and then decide what is good for the public. PORN is NOT the issue, conttolling power and keeping people outside taht power and disenfranchised is the issue. I think the scope and possibilities on the NEt are threatening becasue they are revolutionary, not because they are erotic. Pornography has lawasy undermined the state---just look at the French Revolution for a class icase. Sexual speech is unrelenting,and perseveres in spite of verythign that is sandbagged agaisnt it...but WHO see what and under WHAT circumstaces ad priveliges is going to hurt, alienate , and oppress al lot more people that a picture of a bleach blond in nipple clamps with a corn cob up hre butt. Topic 1029 [media]: The Newsweeklies (Time, Newsweek, USN&WR), continued #811 of 895: Susie Bright (sueb) Tue Jul 4 '95 (18:46) 20 lines brock, your article was incredible. I guess you don't know yet--does anyone?--but what did Rimm get, financially or professionally or whatEVER-- when he sold stats to the BBS's, made his deal with Georgetown, with TIME, with Nightline? I know this is a minor point of nausea, but I realize the reason Rimm is aksing me for the title of one of my essagys is that he must intentd to cite it as evidence that he is hip to, or familiar with, feminist anti-censorship politics. I know that the Clitoral Hoods tried to raise his consciousness, and he was alwys interested inwhat they had to say, as well as confessing a bit, but he obviously had big fish to fry with all his cloak and dagger arrangements. I had NO idea when I was corresponding with all fo them that this would be in TIME. Martin was so intense about his SECRET arrangemnt with Georgetown,and refuse to answer some of my questions becasue of this SECRET, and I would say, "Who cares about the Georgetown Law rview? They'll never find out you talked to me!" I was so dumb I asked him ifhe had to do this becuaswe he wanted to become a a lawyer.