Fifty years ago, controversial stand-up comic Lenny Bruce kept getting busted—ostensibly for obscene language, but really for choosing the leaders of organized religion as targets of his satire, but there were no laws against blasphemy. Referring to one such trial, he told his audience, “Okay, now we’re into the second day of it, and the judge kept schlepping out his grandchildren. His grandchildren. What if his grandchildren saw me perform? And I thought, boy, am I that much of a despot? Is he sincere about his grandchildren?”
That excuse, the protection of kids, continues to be used today by those who would curtail free speech. The title character in the syndicated cartoon strip Hazel—she’s a combination maid and nanny—is shown sitting in a movie theater, holding up a container of popcorn to cover the eyes of the young boy sitting on one side of her, and holding up her purse to cover the eyes of his little sister sitting on her other side. Hazel sarcastically says, “Big deal! Family feature, pornographic trailer!”
“Protecting the children” is also set up as a justification for government action that curtails other civil rights, such as the Patriot Act. In 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft testified before Congress that the Patriot Act had helped catch two internet child pornographers, thereby enabling investigators to ask an internet service provider for the names of the criminals, and then get a warrant to search their homes. News sources later learned that investigators knew who the pornographers were and where they lived before they used the Patriot Act. Just as the 9/11 terrorist attacks ultimately served as a rationale for the invasion of Iraq, kiddie porn served as an enabler to help pass the Patriot Act.
The name of the game is creating fear, and then pandering to those who internalized that fear, whether it takes the form of a TV commercial or a totalitarian government.
The Chinese regime has been busy ramping up censorship on the web for many months. Primary in this push is their crackdown on pornography. However, critics claim that this effort is just a cover for tightening the controls over the largest online community in the world. Indeed, Chinese authorities announced that 5,400 people were arrested last year for crimes related to online porn. Also, hundreds of websites have been shut down, including file-sharing destinations for pirated movies and music, as well as personal blogs.
Sometimes, this concern for the children is carried to odd extremes. In England, a year-long trial at Manchester Airport of scanners that reveal naked images of passengers was allowed to proceed only after children were exempted. Moreover, British children’s rights activists contend that such imagery could be tantamount to child pornography and thus illegal. A spokesperson for Action for Rights of Children had warned that the scanners could breach the 1978 Protection of Children Act, under which it’s illegal to create an indecent image—or, absurdly enough, even a “pseudo image”—of a child.
In Australia, Bart Simpson would fit that role perfectly. A judge has ruled that an animation on the internet, depicting the Simpsons engaging in sexual acts, is child pornography. His justification: It could “fuel demand for material that does involve the abuse of children.” Ironically, a recurring character in the actual Fox series, the minister’s gossipy wife, has a one-size-fits-all answer to any question: “Oh, won’t someone please think of the children?”
These days, though, the more interesting question is what the children themselves are thinking. Jeffrey Douglas, a defense attorney in Santa Monica, Calif., asserts, “When the legislation for child pornography was enacted, no one was imagining minors taking photos of their own bodies” and posting them on social media such as MySpace. “People don’t realize that prosecutors may not have a lot of leeway in prosecuting these cases, and if kids are convicted, they could be labeled as sex offenders. Kids don’t think about this, because they never believe they’ll be caught. They don’t even know what they’re doing is a crime.”
Ralph DiClemente, a professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, has been studying how exposure to sex online affects teenagers. He points out, “Kids are likely to believe more of what they see in the media than adults are. They perceive people in porn to look and act just like you and me. Many kids see nothing abnormal about creating and/or starring in porn, and their perceptions lead to behavior that is less than desirable.”
According to Pamela Paul, the author of Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families, “It’s pretty appalling. Among girls and boys, porn has become increasingly accepted, even kind of cool. And with the American Idol-ization of the culture, where everyone can be a star, it’s almost inevitable that kids would be tempted to cross the line into interactive porn. Every form of media has become interactive. Why shouldn’t porn be as well?”
And so it has come to pass that, during the last few decades, the desire to protect children from pornographers and obscene comics has evolved to a desire to protect children from themselves.
Paul Krassner is the author of Who’s to Say What’s Obscene? His column appears bimonthly.
This column originally ran in the June 2010 issue of AVN.
