[ADS-L] New meanings for pornography?

RonButters at AOL.COM RonButters at AOL.COM
Sun Oct 29 19:09:55 UTC 2006


I think that Charlie Doyle is right in his post when he says that pornography 
implies illegality for many people. And it is also the case that not every 
attempt at sexual titilation is pornography, and what constitutes prurience is a 
matter of taste. I suspect that what this young woman meant was that her 
costume was not beyond acceptable levels of sexual titilationosity, and that she 
would not expect normal people to find it prurient. There are, for instance, an 
enormous number of print advertisements for normal products such as 
undergarments, perfumes, and colognes that are quite erotic but most people, I think, 
would not call them pornographic.

I have not done a survey, but I suspect that a very large percentage of the 
American public today--maybe a majority (depending on the ages of the 
interviewees) would not consider anything pornography that did not involve at least 
naked below-the-belt genitals and/or simulated or actual sexual intercourse of 
one sort or another. Soft-core pornography generally involves simulated sex.

I'd call PLAYBOY risqué, but not pornographic (as I remember it).

In a message dated 10/27/06 9:00:08 AM, db.list at PMPKN.NET writes:

> 
>    "'It's not like it's pornography,' said Pamela Runsick, 22,
>     a senior from Melbourne majoring in advertising and public
>     relations, who stripped down to a black lace bra, panties
>     and high heels for a test shoot. 'It's Playboy. It's
>     glamorous.'"
> 
> Since any definition of "pornography" i've ever run across before seems
> to have, at core, the purpose of some sort of sexual titillation or
> prurience involved, it seems to me that Playboy counts.
> 
> 

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