Conservative broadcaster Tucker Carlson, host of “The Situation” on MSNBC, has come out against any government efforts to regulate the booming iPod porn industry.
“Gadgets like the pocket-sized video iPod, newly out, and tiny cell phones are a hot market for what's being called mobile porn,” Carlson, known as much for his bow ties as his conservative credentials, said on his program Tuesday evening. “The sale of adult entertainment for downloading to cell phones is already a multimillion dollar business in Europe. Now there are calls for a rating system to prevent kids from seeing inappropriate content on mobile phones. And soon you can bet … that regulation of video iPods is just around the corner.”
“And I think it's unnecessary for this very simple reason,” Carlson said. “There are [existing] laws against sitting on the subway, for instance, and exposing the people around you to pornography. … Porn in the public sphere, like the guy sitting next to you on the bus, right, or the subway or in the terminal, that's not acceptable. And that will never be acceptable. That is so offensive to the non-men in our society — meaning women and children — that that will never be allowed.”
Hence, Carlson argued, no new laws to regulate iPod porn are necessary.
“Maybe I'm wrong,” he concluded. “I'm just not worried about it.”
Said regular Carlson guest Max Kellerman, ESPN radio and HBO boxing host: “If history has taught us anything, Tucker, … is that men will watch porn any way they can. Since the first puppet show in a cave, you know, when they figured out fire and they did a little hand puppet show, there was pornography. … If you give it to them on an iPod, we'll watch it on an iPod. On a cell phone, we'll watch it on a cell phone. In fact, every new technology has resulted in the kind of proliferation of pornography. …”
True, adult industry experts say, though pornography has actually fueled those new technologies, including the VCR in the 1980s and the Internet in the 1990s, and is expected to do the same with mobile porn.
