Holistic Wisdom Corporation

Porn Still Under Attack

President Bush's nominee Alberto M. Gonzales to replace John Ashcroft as Attorney General of the United States, is committed to enforcing federal obscenity laws.

This is important, since it is the first public statement of his views on adult material that anyone has been able to uncover.

The topic first arose when Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Oh.) asked the candidate what he'd like to be remembered for, four years from now? Gonzales replied, in part, "I think obscenity is something else that very much concerns me. I've got two young sons, and it really bothers me about how easy it is to have access to pornography."

That statement led to a later exchange that was as revealing about the plans of committee member Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) about Gonzales' views on sexually explicit material. Senator Brownback urged Gonzales to investigate the hypothesis presented before his Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space that pornography was an addictive commodity, suggesting that perhaps the DOJ could prosecute porn on those grounds.

What is bothersome about all the statements of the "addictive qualities" of porn thus allowing justifications to make it illegal is that it is not only false that porn itself is addictive, but that it allows no personal responsibility of the viewer of porn. When we have alcoholics that are highly addicted to beer and we do not dream of banning it these days. Why? Because we see that it is a person's responsibility to drink responsibly, just as it is a person's responsibility to monitor themselves if they begin to see that they have an addiction to porn and get help for it. The average Joe is not an alcoholic nor is the average Joe addicted to porn after viewing it. Porn is not addictive, it is the person who has a dysfunctional view of sex that is the cause and most often these dysfunction views of sex come from hyper repression of sexuality causing internal conflict about what is healthy and what is not sexually.

In an administration whose members and supporters are so committed to wiping sexual speech from the societal landscape, Gonzales' "commitment" to targeting adult material and his "reassurances" not to politicize the DOJ and to "administer justice" are bound to come into conflict with each other. Time will tell.