A Word on Words; 2412; Nadine Strossen

no word on where the program building in the world of books and their office this week canadians brosnan talks about defending for ivory coast or a word on words mr johnson chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt university in the law done so you know once again welcome toward own words defending pornography the nineteen eighties datsun is going to be talking about defending american forward through that your book defending the market and avoid through i suspect he will be defending the welcome for happy to be here jeremy it's nice to have you are you are indeed the presently aclu the american civil is that really the american civil liberties union yes and if you also i teach law at your right hand and you have written this book defending pornography free speech sex and the fight for women's rights and the fight for women's rights is an important part of that title because there are those who listened to people like catherine mackinnon and andrea dworkin

you call them than they've organized who believes that if you tolerate pornography in society you really don't believe in fighting to win and i say exactly the opposite precisely because of my commitment to women's rights and women's safety and women's dignity and women's autonomy for those reasons specifically i oppose censoring pornography or sexually oriented expression which is all that the term pornography means and my book demonstrates john that throughout history to the present day any power to suppress sexually oriented expression has been particularly damaging to advocates of women's rights now you came very close to defining pornography do now the problem it seems to me is that many people take pornography and confuse it with what the supreme court and the other quarter of the fund as

obscenity right and so it would help i think if you gave us a clear understanding of that about defining what is pornographic and what is obscene and what does the death i really don't think there are functionally is a difference the supreme court has struggled for years to try to come up with a meaningful definition and some category of sexually oriented expression that should not receive constitutional protection it uses the legal term of art obscenity to describe that category but the definitions have really floundered i think the only honest definition we ever got from the supreme court was this famous statement by former justice potter stewart when he said i cannot define that's actually are its expression that shouldn't be constitutional protected but i know it when i see it as why not know as i listen to them and as i read the thinning pornography and as i've thought about it myself and it comes home to me

when our view what justice stewart said is that what he sees and judges to be a saint is not necessarily what the other justices would say exact iowa just as insane and i guess the point is that once you say that we will give to the government to write to censor it depends on which governments censor is looking at what the use of an rv and judging of beauty exactly and dave dennis who advocate censoring sexual expression used the term pornography because they want to try to create ad distinguishable category of sexual expression for months and anything she asked of the obscenity definition and concept is dealing with expression that is contrary to traditional family values so to speak undermines the conventional morality of the community what these feminists want to target instead barrow is sexually oriented expression that is jimmy

or subordinating or degrading to women but john the same problem exists with that that definition as with the supreme court's definition because no two individuals are good or great as to whether any particular expression is subordinating or degrading and in my book i give examples of certain are sexually suggestive like images for example we're different groups of venice so and different groups and lesbian families have a radically different interpretations one group will see it as being degrading and subordinating and another group looks at the very same image and sees it as empowering and liberating this is why i believe they're all decisions as to what we're going to see in the realm of the sexually oriented have to reside with individual men and women use a peaceful listen you mean specifically he's the most or who have declared war on porn on exactly how it would be helpful i think if you address this question of whether a pornography promotes violence again

women against women but that it seems to me that that mckiernan and pork and i are best and attracting support for their cause when they say not when they say we're talking about is not censorship or when they say we need to censor out we need to suppress this in order to protect women from violent and they will cite ted bundy among others as a pornography obscenity promotes world exactly because i certainly as a feminist as well as a civil libertarian as a human being i am deeply opposed to violence against anybody and i do not defend that speech absolutely yes one could shower in fact that any expression constituted a clear and present danger of promoting violence or some other hard then it should be centered but that showing ten not be made with respect to pornography reams of studies have been done by social

scientists already even expose of male college students to honor just to house them in very violent up pornographic films and they've not been able to show any behavior change at all indeed not even any attitudinal change so one can't make that shelling and the fact that we can in her latest book was reduced to citing of dui anecdote such as the ted bundy when you mentioned john i think shows how how weak the evidence be as ted bundy for those of your listeners who don't no art was a convicted mass murderer and rapist in florida and after he had given up lost every other challenge to his death penalty are bundy argued literally on the eve of his execution don't blame me pornography made me do it now that's hardly the most credible evidence and i contrast only enough mccammon is her argument in her last book on the alleged causal connection between

pornography and violence against women were yeah yes exactly she is that that argument by saying there is no evidence that pornography does no harm another word she's trying to shift the burden of earth and if we did that we would have any free speech at all in this society they certainly no proof that mccain's speech doesn't do any harm it's undermining the first amendment i consider that very harmful but not a sufficient harm on the clear and present danger type toward sensation where the book you quote the john marshall islands a lion them to one mentor to the landfall caribbean and you paraphrased that i say one woman's subordination might be another's liberating saying it's hard for some people to envision how pornography might be full of writing samples called for for

women becoming if if you're raised to believe that time that puritanism is not something i'm about but what i am really offended by all the stalking and it's particularly offensive to me even think about what i should look into those events because you come from it's almost impossible today invasion if you haven't heard someone say it's boss was almost impossible invasion a woman being liberated by a quote still well first of all we have to be very clear that the fact that speech as offensive cannot be a touchstone for suppressing other all manner of the speech that we see i'm television and then in advertisements and so forth would be would be suppress a ball certainly the majority of the american public is deeply offended by flag burning by cross burning which the supreme court has said must be protected but moving today the

fact that certain women see something liberating in affirming pornography judge they got quote that you paraphrase or put my paraphrase are about one women's subordination is another one's liberating seeing that was following a description i had of a classic but controversial movie by a feminist woman filmmaker lena veritable or which came out in the seventies called swept away and it was about a woman who's cast away with a us sailor who had worked on her yauch is a very wealthy woman on a desert island roland and he waits or maybe third humiliates her and many fans and she ends up falling in love with him and almost worshiping the ground that that he walks on now that film was very hotly disputed because some women saw that as being very subordinating and others saw it as being sexually exciting as showing that this woman who lived in a very stifled upper middle class no you're really was liberated by this sexual experience she had with this man i met and others sought metaphorically as as being about the class

system and they saw it more as a socialist beyond that as a feminist or anti feminist know so all of this is very subjective i just wanna make another point john which is we have to be very careful do not have in our mind when we think about pornography whatever it is that the fans us personally that we might choose not to say i think that was the way you were using it in your last question in fact as my book illustrates literally everything that has any sexual connotation has been endangered and will be endangered by in a lot that surprise as anything in the realm of the sexual for example the bible has repeatedly been attacked in many communities around this country as obscene and pornographic and indeed the bible does have very explicit descriptions of sexuality including statue all violence in cameron pictured a drunken taken to bed linen impregnated so you can propagate the race right out of the bible well what do you say to want to love this

idea that what kept mckenna and an organ want does not represent a prior restraint and this is an argument play a voice and therefore it's not really a first amendment i'm still exactly the week to organize have a very limited definition of what the first amendment protects and what constitutes prohibited censorship they say as long as we're not talking about criminal prosecutions by the government which result in on preemptive order stopping somebody something from being published more visible it is not censorship and what they advocate instead is a lawsuit where somebody goes to court an individual citizen i to seek a court order either for damages or for an injunction that says you may no longer publish something obviously that injunction has exactly the same effect as the criminal prosecution white and the united states supreme court has long

recognized that the first amendment is violated even bite indirect measures that as the court says chills free speech for example probably the most famous first amendment decision ever issued by the supreme court was new york times versus sullivan him what would back and bought a civil lawsuit for damages specifically under as state defamation law and the court said that the chilling effect of facing damages for defamation was so great it even toward the chilling effect that would follow from a criminal past tuition because the amount of damages you can get in a civil lawsuit was huge compared to the maximum fine you would face under a criminal prosecution the court said the effect is to suppress i speech because of disagreement with its ideas we don't hear what the vehicle is through which that affect the curse it is censorship that violates the first amendment they well i'm glad that at least my adversaries and don't like being called sensors it and glared at it is still a dirty word so to speak but they are in fact censors no matter

how they euphemistically try to camouflage what they're trying to do well we talk about what with it with the fact that you learn and what the dawn and my guess is that many people in the audience would not remember much about something called of pornography victims compensation act of nineteen ninety two but it had some momentum die der before the i guess the session ran out before the bill could be put to total but i think that it's important to understand what that bill would do and what it you would not exactly the nba the actor as you suggest john it was passed by the judiciary committee of the senate and died only for lack of being brought to the senate floor it embody the mic to work a night concept of damages by i can to be sought by somebody who claimed to be quote aid victim of pornography close quote in fact what this would do would be to blame the block to blame the

picture war ii actual crimes that have been committed against actual women one of my colleagues in the feminist anti censorship movement said this bill would more accurately be called the rapists exculpatory act ii and indeed one of the terrible things were starting to say along the lines of the ted bundy incident that we're earlier talked about is that convicted rapists are now arguing that either they should be let off scot free or that their sentences should at least be reduced and they saw the candidate called they were about pornography and what they read let him do exactly they say don't blame me pornography emilio it's so it's a mitigating circumstance a dispenser diminished capacity defense much the way we now have it to get alcohol made you we are operating under the influence of alcohol or drugs and so the irony is that in the name of supposedly protecting women from violence that we would be going down a

road that would make it difficult if not impossible to hold accountable and to punish league actual man who may even murder and rape actual wind and this is the danger of diverting our attention from real crimes against real people to images that some people might not like to walk out on the printed page now if you if you were you writing in defending what rpm about what the real effect of that sum ol might be other words in some aligned with it isn't body didn't work and thought how he asked nato's test which he repeated on how long gone silver lion she live by justice clarence thomas and i want to underscore john that's not my speculation catherine mackinnon has set that anita hill's testimony and the testimony of any victim of a sex offense

would be pornography under her watch intrigued work herself had set that her own books including her anti pornography books would be censored under their anti gay rally obama that standard would you prosecute gun on the senate testimony before congress all the testimony before a court bauer a victim as privileged lot of blood and it would seem to me that somebody has the chilling effect that has restrained so many women from coming forward and just find that they were indeed vacant right i couldn't agree with you more again it's one of many reasons that i cite in my blog why censoring pornography would do more harm than good to the cost of protecting women the critically important cause of protecting them against violence when you're when you get into this you inevitably are led into the whole question of sexual harassment particular workplace which leads me

to lead you into that case known as heresy for clinton which show which was a case in which an employer so actually arrest a supreme court the fountain and in an opinion written by sandra day o'connor sexually harass them a woman going to work for this company now you say that justice o'connor's line which is imprecise but justice ginsburg or you know i didn't mean to be critical of conor i think it's very i think it's impossible to come up with a bright line definition that is going to distinguish proscribe the ball better expression in the workplace on campus that constitutes proscribe mobile are punishable harrison and from on the other hand the offensive but protected expression in the workplace i think that o'connor and ginsburg did the best that anyone can do which is to say we're going to have to work at each instance of allegedly harrison expression in its full

context look at all the facts and circumstances i one bright line that the mc working nights have attempted to draw and unfortunately too many workplace rules on sexual harassment on campus definitions of sexual harassment have followed is they have fallen and into the trap of coming up with a bright line rule specifically any sexually oriented expression in any context in the workplace or in campus no matter what the intent no matter what they are in fact is going to be sexually harassing and we seem ridiculous situations or even professors who are teaching courses on human sexuality or our professors who were to you know showing images of nude bodies have been charged successful way with engaging in sexual harassment will that takes it now in the workplace it takes it into the classroom and that the people who express the

most concerned these days about prior fear seems to me and not those ideologues who follow kevin mccann and are an important they aren't parents who worry about something called kiddie porn they worry about the abuse and exploitation of children and photographing juveniles to make a quote dirty pictures and rigid i don't think you can have only within pornography without addressing what's at stake here what's involved here and what you're really happy i i absolutely do not defend the abuse are exploitation of anyone adult or minor and in my book jon i'm very clear to say if we have an adult what and who has actually abused arco worst are much less and is even stronger for a child so i'm constantly drawing a distinction between protecting or

real people from real abuse i'm very concerned about that versus punishing images and words now i would absolutely take the position that below a certain age somebody is not capable of making a mature voluntary decision to pose for sexual production therefore i completely support the laws that criminalize the use of children in producing sexual images and those laws have been theories alice lee enforced in this country so that experts concur that we have actually not that's still being produced in this country the kiddy porn that is available in this country is mostly being brought in from outside the united states where what does concern me is an exaggerated concept of child pornography that is afoot in many quarters in this country that number one it includes annie i knew it or even partially clothed picture of a child and we'd had tragic instances of completely innocent

loving devoted parents being prosecuted and losing custody of their children merely because they've taken heaven forbid a you know a picture of that that child in a bathing suit or you know a nude photograph in an inn in downtown this is really happened when the slate i distorted concept of child pornography that is not doing any good for the welfare of children are families in this country you talk about pitchers and photographs and then it's interesting to me that there is one section a book that includes pictures and photographs some of which have been most of which have been controversy over libya's mentioned two of them first is a picture of a woman i was a writer with a book runner here is she's wearing an off the shoulder blouse blouse which showed to behold about free of yes it i think david cameron to mean i can roll on a bike and fun and i have a second because it her name is trying to enter that the sunday isn't noted violence right and power and

drought though he is and i now i read that come in and you say in the book that that found that that photograph was criticized by a hundred workers that work and said it's difficult to see a human body without also seeing exploitation of resettlement by a woman's body and i know that's only a slight paraphrase now that's her exact language after into psyche sharon day who herself shows that outfit was her own beautiful off their shoulders outlays top when she was honored by being on the cover of poets and writers magazine she was shocked when readers rodin and denounced that image is pornographic again going back to the subjectivity of that concept on she made that are expressed her dismay about that in a panel discussion on pornography that ms magazine had last year andrea dworkin was on the panel with showing gay and she said it is impossible for me to look at a

photograph of a woman's body without seeing exploitation now again so that again work ends concept of exploitation insubordination goes beyond something that sexual goes beyond nudity it stands to this picture on the cover of a literary magazine believe me i totally defended workers right not to pose that way herself i totally defend her right not to look at that picture let alone to enjoy but i protest her desire to make that decision for me and for all other women of them and in this case with jonah and him are posing in that way now there is another picture there about the morning and doug fine line you're talking about the art and jesse helms died and the endowments inevitably come into others discussion it seems to me in the end but i think we should i think we should should do that yes well this particular image john i chose because it's

a classic religious work out couple centuries old by a noted painter the renaissance and higher i wanted to make clear that even for people who have traditional religious values quote unquote that they would find are many artistic depictions are important scenes from the bible would be condemned as pornographic and there's no doubt that that particular image would satisfy the definition that the mic to organize advocate because it does story behind st anne that those martyrdom is that after torture was a sexual mutilation including the slicing off of her breasts which is it suggested in that photograph byron that painting without picture of one of her bras on a platter so it's certainly a violent it's certainly sexually i'm degrading if one wants to use that talent could be subject to censorship under them at work in law my point is and i chose pick the images for the book deliberately to provide a cross section no matter who you are no matter what your religious or political

or philosophical beliefs there's going to be some expression that you consider a very important very valuable that would be endangered under the feminist anti pornography laws you know my guess is that they are can be thousands and thousands of people can look in on this conversation and they would disagree with you and me about this live at the mines about pornography and its effects what's to be done in this debate to win more people to more synthetic understanding of what the thing in our family that's what i was waiting to my last answer john because i find in share on free speech issues and i like you and baker center for free speech in general on that most people want to defend freedom for ideas that they purchased five years john chairman of the freedom forum's first amendment center at vanderbilt

university this program was produced in the studio in dc and nashville