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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 14, 1981)
opinion_ What’s all this fuss about pornography? What is it about obscenity, pornography and erotica that excites the humble citizens of sedate and kind-of-romantic towns like Springfield Oregon to mass protest? They raise such a disproportionate ruckus one would think the impetus was more than unclothed human beings engaged in sexual union with other (equally unclothed, and not always in a group greater than two) human beings. Is skin all that alarming? Does the sight of an embrace, a kiss, a touch, damn the participant through all time? What of an observer — are they also damned? It's a strange price to pay tor images that have not only been exploited in magazines, but have inspired works of art Perhaps that's it — the extremes of Botticelli s Venus and a picture of a woman in tattered spandex need to be defined with the middleground being the form and expression of American Gothic i nen again mere are tnose wno snoui uoa is against it if a person is depicted undraped Others cry ‘thou shalt not commit adultery” and claim a photograph of coitus de scribes adultery. The cheap newspapers in supermarkets have headlines that scream “Hollywood adultery” to young and old That's all right — the Hollywood adulterers are clothed and in composite photographs The Oxford English Dictionary — the first and last reference — defines obscenity as foul acts and dirty work. Pornography is defined as the expression or suggestion of obscene or unchaste subjects in literature or art By these definitions of obscenity and pornography Remargue's All Quiet on the Western Front and Golding's Lord of the Flies, as well as Picasso's Guernica and Robert Capa's Death in the Making, are extremely pornographic Pornography is derived from the Greek word porno which means harlot The OED goes on to define pornocracy as rule by harlots, specifically the government of Rome during the first half of the tenth century A member of the pornocracy was a pornocrat — bear that in mind the next time a Congressman's paramour publishes a hardbound or softback confessional It seems fitting for there to be a corner pornography shoppe in small towns all across America Isn’t this the land of the hypocritical Puritans? But let us take a moment to lament the passing of the days when grizzly bearded old men wearing long black coats would sidle up to boys in the schoolyard, lick their hairy fingers and pull open many pocketed coats saying so like Gabby Hayes — Say, Sonny wanna buy some dirty pictures?” The prices were outrageous even then Lenny Bruce said he'd rather take his child to what were at the time called “stag films” than to a Hollywood western “I’ve never seen anyone killed in a stag film,” he said And that is still true in nearly all cases except the deviate snuff films” coming out of Brazil and many of the specialty” films designated for particular peccadillos But these films are not erotic in nature — they are violent and aimed to trigger sadistic impulses Such aberrant behavior is more detrimental to society and less justifiable tnan mainstream pornograpny it s naraiy tne HDerai s cup or tea to admit that such extreme examples make a strong case to not completely decriminalize pornography, as the restric tions imposed provide viable perimeters of who to allow access, and community standards If some aspect of porno graphy needs restriction it is in the cases of violence being depicted as sexual Although, how often has the mainstream, so-called aboveground media, used a situation of rape as plot or set-up for a sexual sequence in a book, movie, or a play? The arguments that pornography tends to depict women as willfully servile and somehow enjoying of sexual humilia tion are valid in much of the sleazier pornography Porno graphy is male dominated in production and orientation Pornography, obscenity and erotica raises such ticklish questions Why do people react so vigorously against it7 Is it because it runs counter to all they were taught (regardless of consent) in church and their homes7 Is it because it depicts by word or image an act of sexual congress between two people? Do people still believe the fallacy that reading or watching pornography causes scortatorial madness and sets the reader off on a rampage of masturbation and rape? Pornography and such has been with us since the times people scrawled a phallus on the wall of their cave above the couch Every culture has its own type of pornography — in fact, dirty pictures on pots are now cherished as art works from antiquity The question remains unanswered — if all those people are damned, why hasn’t the seventh circle of hell overflowed7 He's k l/ar t Hfs Mug ibr ML F/Mt-Kr Little me! “ y FlPEUNES letters Propaganda "Think like we do or else!” is implied by (1) University Profes sor Carl Hosticka, Lane County Democratic Campaign Chair man and (2) Oregon's news reporters Hosticka intends to label "mainstream' democratic can didates by issuing pre-primary endorsements and political reporters will cover only ser ious' candidates' The U S Constitution s First Amendment goal of freedom of speech is to achieve "the widest possible dissemination of infor mation from diverse and an tagonistic sources ” 436 US 775 Jefferson said Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself that she is the proper and suf ficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human inter position disarmed of her natural weapons, tree argument and debate errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them ” Cal! it what you will. Fascism or Communism every totalitar ian movement has controlling political party and public thought as its hallmark It has meant the establishment of government by decree by bur eaucratic planning by concen trated and irresponsible power Indeed who has the right to say what a party stands for until a candidate s issues are ac cepted or rejected by an in formed public's primary vote7 And what news reporter has the right to judge one candidate s issues serious' and another s not7 John M. Reed B Street Springfield sally hodgkinson editor’s note "We re not going to let them forget Viet nam ” Ron Phillips sat in the dim EMU Fishbowl two years ago, vowing with a soft, emotional voice and strong words to fight for recogni tion of Vietnam veterans and against war He said he felt like he was finally "at home" in Eugene and with the University Veterans Association "We re going to keep fucking screaming about Vietnam until they hear it," muttered fellow veteran Russ Linebarger, a tense, lean man who went to Vietnam as a patriotic 17-year-old aching to fight like John Wayne and returned as an angry young man with emotions bunched inside him like a clenched fist And there was John Lawrence, the veteran who spent time in Vietnam as a medic There were other veterans as well Charlie Jesse And Dave Isenberg, the one who spent hours reading government documents trying to second guess military moves toward the draft and war Members of the UVA were a small tight group that, for two years, was one of the most active on campus They arranged ral lies against the draft and war, scheduled speeches, memorials, rap groups, marches and hosted — for two years — a regional conference on the problems of Vietnam veterans "There's a sense of community and sup port in the UVA,” an outside observer com mented "They're willing to scrap through and take a chance That takes a lot of cour age ” That was also two years ago Since then, jobs, school, the new downtown vet center and disagreements with the direction of Dave's current one-man UVA have sucked the organization dry Ron still spends time in the now-bright Fishbowl, but he's mostly alone Russ moved to Portland, then Hawaii John is working full time in Eugene Jesse is working for the city of Coos Bay Charlie is busy with school and other things Ron — who is back in town after a six month leave — doesn't know how long he will hang around He is left with the shell of a house he once called home ''I've given myself six weeks before I make a decision " Dave has asked the Incidental Fee Com mittee not to fund the UVA next year, saying the group is at the end of it's usefulness He has asked the ASUO to give the UVA office space — still cluttered with two-year-old posters, stickers and leaflets — to Students for a Nuclear Free Future Maybe Dave, as some have charged, scared off other veterans with his command of the UVA Maybe the veterans just got tired of fighting the past and trying to predict the future Maybe economic concerns over shadow anti-war rallies Maybe they're tired of talking about a war nobody wants to remember So, the UVA crumbles Memories fade Friends see less of each other War wounds scab over, leaving scars But John, Russ, Ron, Charlie and other vets will never forget Vietnam Neither should we
