Marc Beauchamp writes to Gloria Leonard: "The following comments are excerpted from an Oct. 8 debate on "Sex on the Internet" at the National Press Club. Panelists included former porn actress Gloria Leonard, National Law Center attorney Carol Clancy, Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Jeffrey Douglas, Cato Institute Director Solveig Singleton and Enough Is Enough Vice President Donna RiceHughes.
"Mrs. Leonard opened by explaining the Free Speech Coalition ofwhich she is president. Gloria Leonard: Our goals are to improve thequality of life for the people who toil in the adult industry regardless ofwhat their positions are. I might add this is an industry that employsliterally thousands upon thousands of people. We contribute mightily to thetax base of California and throughout the United States. . . . Some of youmight know that I was at the cutting edge of a phenomenon known as "phone sex" during my tenure as publisher of High Society [magazine], which ultimately resulted in a landmark case fought in the U.S. Supreme Court, which we won.
"Though considered radical at the time, I guess it pales incomparison to what is presently landing on countless attorneys' desksacross the nation -- athletes being secretly videotaped in locker rooms,fraudulent merchandise being hawked on auction sites, celebrities suing forthe use of their own or altered images, incendiary, defamatory remarksbeing posted on gossip sites, college girls living out their days andnights via live video streams, even kiddie porn. . . . There are presentlyan estimated 20,000 to 30,000 adult Web sites in existence and policingthem is an obvious impossibility.
"And although I am here representing the Free Speech Coalition, I nevertheless believe that there must be some limitations on what can and cannot be displayed for all the world to see. Currently, my biggest gripe is about the videotaping of unsuspecting people -- nude, semi-nude or compromisingly otherwise --and then having some talentless jerk lining his pockets from the transmission of these images over the Internet.
"The adult business' credo is material by and for consenting adults. If you haven't consented, then it's an invasion of privacy, no matter what you try and call it. . . . The sheer number of hits these adult Web sites receive each day is absolutely mind boggling. . . . We've got what everybody wants regardless of whether they want to admit they want it or not. . . . Of course it's very noble to try and protect children.
"I'm all for that. But I have concerns that in so doing, that wecannot reduce all adult entertainment . . . to a 9-year-old mentality. Wecannot deny the constitutional rights of adults in seeking to protectchildren. It's a very dicey domain, to say the least.
Carol Clancy: There's a substantial trade in materials that are not protected by the First Amendment. . . . The expansion of obscenity on the Internet has led [to] an explosion of the worst type of material --extreme material involving bestiality and the use of children as sexual objects. . . . The problem today: There is not vigorous enforcement of [obscenity] laws. That creates a problem, because without vigorous enforcement . . . you find there's no determination in the courtroom . . . of what constitutes obscenity.
Jeffrey Douglas: Violent pornography is not found in commercial adultentertainment. If you want to see violent, sexual material, you must go toregular Hollywood. If you want to see mutilation scenes, rape scenes,non-consensual sex, that's the province of cable television and mainstreamHollywood. Patrons of an adult video store looking for such products willbe greatly disappointed. . . .
"For better or for worse, commercial pornographers are in the business of making money, not in the business of violating the law and subjecting themselves to criminal prosecution. . . .. Child pornography and obscenity are illegal. . . . The modern adult entertainment industry does not involve the protection of child pornography. . . . Pornography on the Internet is a good thing. . . . No less than U.S. News & World Report said that based on 1995 figures, the industry was "an $8 billion giant." Those numbers have of course increased dramatically since 1995. . . . Those eight billion dollars generate jobs, those eight billion dollars are home-grown American product generating more dollars, jobs and taxes. . . .
"Through the Web, for the first time, people can get sexually oriented materials aimed at whatever their subculture, sub genre or fantasy might be in privacy. No video store clerk, no mail order warehouse employee, no postal deliverer need know what the consumer is watching. . . . This is the closest you can get to true sexual privacy except that which is created entirely through the imagination. In addition, the availability of pornography on the World Wide Web reduces the intrusioninto the community. . . . People don't want an adult store in theirneighborhood. . . . That material can now be gotten on the Internet.
Solveig Singleton: What's the most effective thing parents can do now?There seems to be no effective substitute for supervision and spending alot of time with your kids. . . . Even if you can't be there all the time,that's at least going to help. It probably isn't going to solve a reallydetermined teen-age boy. On the other hand, I wouldn't question whetheranything would. . . . What makes the difference on how kids turn out is how much time you spend with them.
Donna Rice Hughes: Many parents say, well, I've taught my child values and what to do and what not to do. They don't understand that [children] can come across [pornography] accidentally. For instance, through the use of innocent word searches such as "little women," "boys," "girls," "toys," "pets," you name it. You can imagine what these searches are turning up through what we call "stealth sites" where pornographers deliberately change the domain name --for instance, from a .gov to a .com -- attracting visitors who were looking for another site.
Pornographers simply take the "e" out of the middle of Shareware and set up a porn site. . . . Brand names -- Nintendo, Barbie, Disney, Mercedes, CNN, you name it --[are] embedded in the middle of a pornography site to trick the surfer not looking for this material to come to their site and look at the pictures. . . . Many pornographers are exploiting the Internet forprofit, exercising little or no restraint at the expense of children. . . .The possession of child porn is a felony. We would see more aggressiveattempts on the part of the corporate community to comply with that law. .
. . The public and the tech industry should not have to shoulder the burdento deal with illegal content. That's the job of law enforcement.Unfortunately, the child porn laws are not being enforced, due to lack offunding and the lack of cyber-cops. Also Internet obscenity laws have notbeen prosecuted at all under our current Justice Department. That's whykids can also see adult-protected type pornography, they can alsoaccidentally come across bestiality, "water sports" . . . defecation,torture, mutilation. It's all there and prosecutable but not beingprosecuted.
