Iceland Considers Internet Porn Ban 684
Onymous Hero writes "With the printing and distribution of pornography already banned in Iceland, further measures to stop internet porn are being considered by Iceland's Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson. From the article: "Iceland is taking a very progressive approach that no other democratic country has tried," said Professor Gail Dines, an expert on pornography and speaker at a recent conference at Reykjavik University. "It is looking a pornography from a new position — from the perspective of the harm it does to the women who appear in it and as a violation of their civil rights.""
Fine by me (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:well... (Score:2, Interesting)
Sorry, despite anecdotal circumstances that seem suspect, there are still a huge number of involuntary sex workers in porn video. The statistics are available, and the sampling methods not suspect.
Re:fuck you iceland. (Score:5, Interesting)
There are instances of women doing these things because they cannot find anything else legal, that can give them the money they need to survive. Those women make up a grey area.
That being said, do you protect those women (and remove an option that they did at least chose) by removing the option for the women who think it's a great choice?
And as you say, if they aren't there by choice, there are other, much worse crimes being commuted. Why not add 'force pornography' penalties to the list instead?
Re:fuck you iceland. (Score:1, Interesting)
This is dumb, as a woman who's various parts are all over the internet I think this is bullshit.
But your various parts on the internet are there with your consent? And you weren't being abused/raped? In which case, this particular legislation has nothing to do with you. All your parts in all their glory should still be available in Iceland afterwards, just as they are now.
Read the article; it's violent porn that's the target, not anything else. Which admittedly isn't particularly clear (unless you read Icelandic) and it's easy to imagine it's just another religious/paternalistic BS.
Re:fuck you iceland. (Score:2, Interesting)
"But there is no God, and there is no free will."
So something forced you to post those words? Fate, karma, predestination?
That whole "there is no free will" philosophy was dreamed up by people who refuse to be responsible for their own actions.
Re:fuck you iceland. (Score:5, Interesting)
How exactly is banning porn "protecting" the women that went to porn as a last resort? Isn't it presumably the least-bad option they had available to them? In the extreme case, if they truly need the money to survive and have no other way to get it, then by removing porn you've sentenced them to death. Or more likely they turn to prositution, which is considerably more dangerous than porn on a lot of different fronts.
Re:fuck you iceland. (Score:5, Interesting)
Same applies for a professional athlete -- only it can be more lucrative.
I've known several strippers who had their houses paid off, and had banked a shit load of money. They then use that money for their stuff after the career dancing. More than a few do it while they're still going to school.
I mean, I've heard that some strippers do that.
Re:well... (Score:2, Interesting)
But print and TV porn is already banned in iceland. The moralist minister is simply extending an existing mindset.
Innate resources have legit values (Score:5, Interesting)
This is entirely disingenuous. There are innumerable jobs that depend on the resources you were born with, from sports to modeling to soldiering to becoming an astronaut or a scientist. You're trying to make some kind of exception if the sport is sexual, and it doesn't hold up.
These roles in society are not corrupt; they are based upon perfectly natural and reasonable preferences that we have for one another. Would you prefer an ugly, smelly, stupid companion, or a beautiful, naturally pleasant, brilliant one?
Would sports fans prefer an "athelete" who had a poor physique and could not win? Would the actresses in Hollywood be of such great interest to everyone if they were ugly? Would a stupid person make a good scientist? We are what we are, and if someone else were lucky enough to be gifted with some physical resource that they can market, who are you to say this is a bad thing?
It is ridiculous to attempt to make the case that only earned skills and knowledge have value, or, conversely, that those things we are lucky enough to find innate, do not.