Sex, Pornography and Censorship - A small discourse by Laurence. (13)

One interesting thing about the arguments in the first half is how well they could also be employed to support aggression. But I presume that you're not standing up for the right to thump people on the nose, so there's probably something wrong with them (here I'm suggesting a reductio ad absurdum).

Ah, philosophy - the study of 'opinion' - how splendid. I fear I cannot comment upon your rather vague assertions in that field as it is not really my area and the piece was not intended as a philosophical excercise. All I have to draw on is a Masters in Psychology and over 20 years Forensic work in the Criminal Justice System as a clinical practitioner - during which time I cannot recall ever having a piscine client.

Of course they could - jolly well done.

Laurence

___________________________________________________ ___
Violenti non fit injuria

Maybe I can pick out a few issues that I think are worth focusing on.

1. The 'pressure cooker' analogy for repressing basic urges. Here you're simplifying the psychodynamic approach for your readers - it's what the general public grasp about Freud. But isn't it worth noting that current psychology isn't built around this single paradigm, even in its more sophisticated strands? For instance, the behaviourist approach doesn't have any similar commitment to such a metaphor, and there's at least as strong a tradition of behaviourist approaches in psychology as there is psychodynamic.

This is important for your argument, since you say that censorship is repressive, and the pressure-cooker analogy implies that repression is counter-productive (as the results of the pressure need to get realised somehow). So without this simple picture, what you say loses force.

Perhaps I could try an analogy to illustrate the point? Schoolkids clearly have an urge to play up their teachers. Teachers try to repress this urge by punishing bad acts and rewarding good acts. Eventually, hopefully, they achieve well-behaved children. But we don't think, do we, that the repressed urges are actually fuelling some other kind of badness in the kids? Generally, if the teacher is good, those urges will just be gone, or they will be outweighed by stronger urges.

To draw the analogy explicitly, someone might similarly think that 'repressing' certain sexual urges needn't entail that these urges build into extra pressure in the pressure cooker. Maybe, as in the above example, they just are absent or held in control?

2. That was a fairly picky point, I guess. A more general worry might be the idea that censorship always equals repression (for fundamental biological human behaviour) in the first place. Let's say that my parents censor my viewing Jackie Chan films, and as a result I never actually roundhouse kick my brother in the face. Have my general levels of aggression been 'repressed' by this? I don't see how.

So someone might then argue (I'm not saying they're right) that maybe censoring pornography doesn't actually repress any urges, maybe it just stops people learning some new tricks. In any case, in the face of such counterexamples the onus is on you to explain why censorship has such a tight link with repression.

3. I wasn't sure if you were accepting my point about aggression in relation to the first part of your paper. In your boxed-off section you make a claim something like the following:

a) Arousal is pleasurable b) Pleasurable states are attractive c) Pleasurable states promote well-being d) Pornography is arousing, thus pleasurable, thus is both attractive and promotes well-being

But it seems to me that for many people, beating up others who aren't in their group is also arousing and pleasurable. But it's not attractive (to society, at least), and I don't see that it promotes the yob's well-being. So I don't think that the argument works for aggression. And if the argument doesn't work for aggression, it can't work for pornography.

Finally, I would question your description of philosophy as the study of 'opinion'. Analytic philosophy I think could better be described as the study of rational argument. It studies opinions to the extent that it distinguishes between those which are based on logically sound reasons, and those which are not.

Ewan