Blog #4 Grassroots Sexual Content

Blog Option #3. Grassroots Sexual Content.


How do you classify something as stimulating? Isn’t it true that different people are interested, compelled, and offended by different things? Obviously the same can be argued for sexually stimulating content. What one may find as sexually stimulating another may simply see as just “the facts of life”. There are of course images, words, and descriptions that the average person would classify as sexually stimulating, such as pornography and erotica. But is the discussion of sexual preferences, habits, education, and health concerns necessarily stimulating. Certain individuals may find it so, but there are many people who wish to merely discuss the facts of sex in a civilized manner to better educate themselves and make personal decisions. For reasons like this speech that can be considered sexually stimulating should be protected because like other protected speech it’s relative to the exchange of new ideas. Philosopher, John Stuart Mill justified his theories on free speech under the idea that a popular opinion may be false, and the censored one true. If sexual speech and education had been fully censored at some point in history, we may not have the advances in birth control and STD prevention that we have today. People can learn a lot from sexual speech, it can do more than just stimulate a person’s sexual side it can stimulate their mind as well.

It is also my belief that people have the right to create, distribute, and receive sexual material whether it is for private use or public consumption. Naturally there should be some levels of restriction. If material contains any kind of child pornography, real rape or any non-consenting individual being forced to participate, or real murder, the speech should not be protected because that content would be illegal. How the government might go about looking for and confirming that illegal content is another problem. There should also be restrictions on where sexual content should be posted. Such as nowhere a child might be able to attain access, such as children’s sites and public forums such as youtube. It should be restricted to private sites where people have to confirm their age or are at least given a disclaimer. We should be operating under a "harm" theory rather than an "offense"
theory.

People have very diverse opinions when it comes to what offends them, but harm is a little easier to classify. Any form of speech that can be proven harmful should not be protected. But a clear and present danger test needs to be applied to make sure that the material in question can actually cause harm, and not just offense. Such as anything exploiting children, or something sexual posted where children may see it and possibly be mentally harmed.

Levels of protection should vary when it comes to different forums of media, particularly with the concern of protecting children from possibly offensive materials. Adults (for the most part) are educated and experienced enough to handle offensive material. They can always change the channel, stay away from websites, and judge for themselves whether or not a program or print article is for them. One may argue that they’re “held captive” when they turn on the radio and instantly hear something offensive, whether they quickly change the station or not. But so long as they’re a mature adult, no real damage can be done. In reference to the Miller v. California case, I would have to agree with the dissenting justices Douglas, Brenna, Stewart, and Marshall. Who believed that consenting adults should be allowed to view what they want and that others can easily avoid material they don't want to see. Children however are impressionable, inexperienced, and easily traumatized. Sexual images can be harmful to them because they don’t know what to make of the images and they can become confused. We need to protect children from harm, but we also need to protect the free speech rights of adults. Therefore we need to apply high level of scrutiny and only censor material that is poses real harm to children. Mediums like cable, radio, and movies already have effective methods in play to prevent children from being exposed to sexual content.

We have the ratings system for television and movies, indecent material isn’t allowed on the radio between 6 A.M. and 10 P.M. as a result of FCC v. Pacifica, and indecent print materials aren’t suppose to be sold to children as decided in Ginsburg v. NY. Online sites are supposed to have disclaimers and other methods of confirming age. But those methods are often easily bypassed or fooled. I know personally that anyone can have a “Mature” video game mailed to their home after they “confirm” their age with a few clicks and no real identification method. So even despite these small safeguards children are capable of viewing indecent material online. The same can also be said for cable television. All a child has to do is stay up late enough and they can easily be exposed to offensive material. That’s where the parents come in though. If we want free speech and rights then we can’t ask the government to run everything for us. We have to run our own lives and if a parent is afraid of their child being exposed to indecent material, they need to watch their kid. Parents can install blockers and filters on their internet and thus prevent certain websites from being viewed. Most cable providers also provide the option to have parental controls installed into their cable service. With that they can block certain channels and have shows with certain mature ratings also blocked. We don’t always need the government to shield us from material.

I would not support any kind of federal law that banned sexual materials altogether. People have the right to express their sexuality. It can also be argued that pornography or erotica can be seen as therapeutic. An individual may be sexually frustrated or confused and rather than going out into the streets to hire a hooker, or possibly rape someone, they can log onto the internet and peacefully satisfy their desires. I once read an article (I wish I still had it) about how violent video games and pornography are very therapeutic because they allow people to fulfill desires and urges vicariously through the digital world. The only kind of regulation I would support would be to just monitor these sexual indecent sites and postings for any possible illegal doings such as rape, murder, or exploitation of minors. Other than that, the American people should be free to express themselves sexual just as they do in other ways. I agree with the Reno vs. ACLU case that the regulation of online content would more likely interfere with the free exchange of ideas, rather than protect it.