Pigtails and Porn

By: N. Long

"If a ten-year old can buy pornography on a street corner in New York for five dollars, isn't that too high a price to pay for free speech?" fictional United States president Josiah Bartlett is asked in the pilot episode of "The West Wing." "No," responds the president, "but I do think five dollars is too high a price to pay for pornography." Kathleen Parker of the Washington Post recently wrote an opinion piece entitled "Pigtails and Porn," about the effects of children's exposure to online pornography. This is not about child pornography, as some who read the title might first believe, but rather about children between the ages of 10 and 17 who run across or view pornography while surfing the internet. Quoting recent psychological studies, Parker argues that children who view pornography over the internet suffer irreparable psychological trauma, and heavily implies that content on the internet should be more heavily regulated. Using the same study, Parker also argues that pornography is addictive, and causes "dysfunctional relationships" in those who consume the media. Not everyone agrees with this medical assessment, but before addressing that issue, the impact of this argument on free speech must be examined.

The issue of regulating internet pornography arose in 2004, when the US Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 vote, struck down a law that would have made it a crime to place materials that would be "harmful to minors" within "easy reach of children on the internet." The 1998 law was called the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which never had a chance to take effect. This was the third time the Supreme Court has struck down such a law, citing violations of the first amendment and free speech as the reason. But the question remains, would this law have truly violated "free-speech guarantees." This law did not technically ban online pornography, but would have required adults to use access codes and other forms of registration before being allowed to see "objectionable material." Unfortunately, the definition of what constituted objectionable material was extremely general, which is one of the reasons the ACLU challenged the law on behalf of websites such as sexualhealth.com, that provides "sex information for people with disabilities." Luckily for the ACLU, the majority of the Supreme Court agreed with a study arguing that internet filtering software was far more effective in keeping children away from online pornography than registration requirements. Voluntarily installing such software would not, in any way, violate "free-speech guarantees." This was the legal justification for the court's ruling. The ethics of the situation are a bit more complicated.

According to Parker's article, internet filtering software is only effective 50% of the time. The other half of the time, children are exposed to internet pornography. Without the law holding site operators accountable, parents have no recourse, except perhaps to sue the producers of the filtering software, which is never guaranteed to work in the first place. If I'm a parent, whose child has been exposed to, and perhaps scarred by internet pornography, the absence of this law might be upsetting. On the other hand, if I run a site such as sexualhealth.com, I might be very upset if my attempt to help those with disabilities have a more fulfilling sex life is thwarted by a law that infringes upon my ability to get a message out into the world. In this case, as would be the case with the many safe sex websites in the world, my right to free speech has indeed been impeded. If ran an informational sex education website that included instructions and depictions of how to use a condom, would that be deemed obscene material? If someone from an abstinence only website filed a complaint, would I be fined? Who gets to decide? While a law attempting to shield children from online pornography is noble in nature, the possibilities of such a law violating free speech is too great. And speaking of shielding children, how much damage do they really suffer from viewing online pornography.

As I said earlier, Parker cites one study conducted by a psychoanalyst when claiming that the viewing pornography can become addictive, and can cause negative behavioral patterns. However, as many studies as there are that takes Parker's position, there are an equal number that take a rival stance. Dr. Daniel Linz, a psychologist from the University of California, Santa Barbara, disputes claims the pornography is addictive and harmful to viewers. According to Linz, viewing pornography is not the same things as taking a narcotic. It is a learned behavior like watching football on Sunday's. And like any learned behavior, viewing pornography can be unlearned with the same amount of effort it would take to stop watching football on Sunday's. Furthermore, Dr. Linz iterates that for pornography to have a negative effect on behavior, it has to be violent in nature. For most people, "the message of violence against women must be present for negative effects to occur." For this reason, violence in conjunction with sex in pornography has been banned in the United States for decades. Dr. Linz concludes that exposure to most forms of pornography should not have any long-term adverse effects on either children or adults.

Both of these studies can be disputed, and perhaps it is better to be safe than sorry. No one wants 10-year olds to be exposed to online pornography. Unfortunately, enacting a murky law that not only makes it more difficult for adults to access online pornography, but might actually affect safe sex websites is very dangerous ground to tread. Such a law comes too close to government censorship, and perhaps silencing political and philosophical opponents. So, if asked if the risk of exposing a 10-year old to pornography is too high a price to pay for free speech, my answer is no.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/12/EDGC7N72JH1.DTL

http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/FSCView.asp?action=preview&coid=133

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/06/29/scotus.web.indecency/index.html

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/06/30/PORN.TMP