The "Armchair Pundit" sounds more like the bedroom pundit or a Playboy magazine philosopher, and, like those mush headed porno "readers" he misses the point entirely.
No one I know of questions anyone's right to read or view pornography, although there can be no doubt that such materials have a corroding effect on one's mind and perception, but to each his own. The point is, most people object to pornography's being forced upon them. News stands that sell this trash entice the simple minded into buying it--movie theaters that show X movies advertise and even some radio programs are suggestive and denigrate women.
Pornography belongs where it used to reside--in the murky back rooms of an American Legion Hall--or under a stack of soiled clothing in some kid's closet. Promoting pornography is an circumstance of the "age of sexual enlightenment." And look what that has brought us--AIDS, huge increases in venereal diseases, a skyrocketing numbers of unwed (mostly teen) mothers, and massive increases in sexual violence and other sex-related crime.
One last point: Kelleher asks: "Do we really want the courts to decide when representations of sexuality have crossed that shadowy line into exploitation?" And I ask: "Who else should make that judgement?" Surely the churches have already made those distinctions--as have families and, in fact, the vast majority of the American people. The specter of censorship is the curtain that porno advocates hide behind and, sadly, Kelleher is no different.
John Walton
Trinity '88
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