Supposedly Liberal Dood Bully Bloggers Try To Silence Criticism of Porn by Democrat

To suggest anything negative about porn is to automatically trigger an orchrestrated freak out by supposedly liberal doods who are trying to bully themselves into control of the “progressive” political discourse. Atrios writes:

The Great Porn Controversy of Aught 7

I think many secular liberals have come to the conclusion that hangups about sex and sexuality are the problem. Whatever negative aspects there are about porn and the porn industry – and of course they exist – they’re far outweighed by the fact that so many people are raised with weird hangups about sex. And given the ubiquity of imaging devices these days, suggestions of banning the creation of pornography are almost indistinguishable from suggestions of banning the sex acts themselves.

Time for the Victorian era to end in the US. It really doesn’t matter all that much what peoples’ genitals are rubbing against.

Interesting. I guess if we weren’t still in “the Victorian era” there might be a mainstream multi-billion dollar porn industry here. Oh, wait, there is a multi-billion dollar porn industry in this country. Atrios is clearly exagerating for instrumental reasons. I doubt he truly believes that pornography and sex are “almost indistinguishable” either. Atrios supports his post’s intentionally inflamatory “Great Porn Controversy” title and “Victorian era” rhetoric with a link to a Matt Stoller post, which Stoller has entitled “The Religious Left Runs Against Porn.” Stoller apparently bases this title on a single blog post by Tom Perriello. Perriello is running for Virginia’s 5th Congressional district. For Stoller’s title to be reasonable, one has to assume first, that Perriello speaks for the entire “Religious Left,” and second, that he us is “running against porn” simply beause he is critical of it in a fairly general way. Neither appears to be the case, as Stoller surely knows, as below are Perriello’s exact words, underpinning the “Great Porn Controversy” which Atrios suggests is driven by “weird hangups about sex” and Stoller characterizes as “very annoying”:

2) Internet Porn: Censorship may not be a viable or appropriate solution, but do any of us honestly believe that the ready availability of internet porn is not destroying something sacred within us? Study after study shows that porn tends to depict women in violently subjugated positions, and can shift norms of sexual expectations. Get a group of liberals in a room and there is little they will not pass judgment on, but when we start to talk about this in our politics, the conversation starts and ends with”So what are you going to do, censor it? Repress people sexually?”This is an irresponsibly false choice. Part of the conviction politics I outlined earlier this week is about calling things as we see it.

No wonder Atrios and Stoller are upset. Perriello clearly has their irresponsibly false number. If these Supposedly Liberal Doods have their way, politicians will be afraid to criticize pornography. Scaring people into silence on an issue can’t possibly be defended as “protecting the First Amendment.” So it’s important to ask some hard questions about what these Supposedly Liberal Doods are really trying to accomplish or prevent, and why.

–Ann Bartow