In flagrante in public ... inexcusable

Jewish World Review ^ | 3-16-04 | Leonard Pitts, Jr.

[SJackson]

Let me set the scene.

You're sitting in traffic with your 4-year-old. Suddenly you notice she's watching with rapt interest something in the next car. You glance over and realize that the other vehicle is equipped with one of those DVD screens that are available on certain late-model cars.

The option is usually marketed as a way of keeping kids quiet on long road trips. But what the folks over there are watching is more loin king than "Lion King." Because there onscreen, before your daughter's steadily widening eyes, is a pair of exceedingly fit people using their private parts in ways the child never imagined they could be used. It is, in other words, a porn flick. In traffic. In public.

This is not just something that could happen, but something that already did. And the mother in question, 26-year-old Andrea Carlton of Gurnee, Ill., was outraged. "You're not allowed to have sex in your car," she said, "so why are you allowed to watch it?"

We have the Associated Press to thank for bringing this incident to our attention. According to its recent story, more and more drivers are using their onboard DVDs to screen pornography. I won't call it a trend, because that probably overstates the case. But even if we're only talking about a few isolated incidents, it still seems to speak to a rather troubling aspect of life in America just past the turn of the century.

Call it the loss of the public square.

I'll elaborate, but first let me head off any misunderstanding. My concern here is not that some people choose to entertain themselves with pornography. Frankly, so long as no children or beasts are involved, I don't care what grown people watch in the privacy of their own homes.

Public spaces, however, are a different matter. It used to be that you were sent into the world beyond your front door with an understanding that the public square belonged, well ... "to the public." To all of us. You were taught that it betrayed a lack of class and intelligence to act as if it belonged to you alone.

Where I come from, we had a term for that understanding. We called it home training.

[mhking]

Just damn.

If you want on the list, FReepmail me. This IS a high-volume PING list...

[biblewonk]

Porn is visual and the story about Lot was told with usual biblical modesty. Much more modesty that we'd ever get from CSI, (cum scene investigators) which would describe the acts in detail with their cum cam photo lens thing showing all the mess.

[katana]

I "knew" somebody would bring that up. Thanks a Lot.

[MineralMan]

"Porn is visual and the story about Lot was told with usual biblical modesty. Much more modesty that we'd ever get from CSI, (cum scene investigators) which would describe the acts in detail with their cum cam photo lens thing showing all the mess.
"

Congratulations for recognizing the Lot story. As for CSI, I've never seen it. Sounds like you're a faithful viewer, though.

[JimRed]

This guy is the desert, far from civilization, with his two daughters. They don't know if they'll live or die, so the daughters decide to have sex with their father.

Would a story like that be porn?

If I recall correctly, that story is right out of the Old Testament.

[BSunday]

Nice try, Godless Atheist. Guess what? The Bible does depict people who (gasp) sin. I don't know why You People seem to think that fact somehow makes the Bible not the word of God.

BTW, does the Bible depict it in living detailed video before your eyes? Didn't think so. The BIBLE AINT PORN !

[biblewonk]

By the way, America's a republican democracy, not a theocracy, thank God.

You you are probably pretty pleased about the progress gay marriage is making too.

[Yossarian]

You you are probably pretty pleased about the progress gay marriage is making too.

Nope, try again....

[hopespringseternal]

And of course you completely ignore the fact that the story of Lot and his daughters has no pictures to go with it.

Again, it has been pointed out that the only people who don't know how to define porn don't want to.

[biblewonk]

Apart from religion, there is no reason to be against gay marriage, except personal prejudice.

[Modernman]

It seems only nine people in America don't know how to define pornography.

That't the old "I know it when I see it" definition. Without relying on that definition, can you define porn?

[philetus]

If you set up a movie screen on your front lawn and start playing movies that cause the majority of your neighbors to come over and beat you to a pulp. I would define it as porn.

If you watch the same movies in the privacy of your bedroom, I would define it as your business.

[Modernman]

Porn is visual

Literary erotica and/or pornography can be just as sexual and explicit (if not moreso) than pictures or video. Why do you make a distinction between, say Playboy magazine (porn) and "The Story of O" (not porn)?

[oyez]

COCOONING: The need to protect oneself from the harsh, unpredictable realities of the outside world.

I think there is an element that wants a certain part of the public off the streets, so to speak, so they can carry on unabated with their lewdness and obnoxious behavior. Once the law abiding folks are secluded away, any thing goes.

[biblewonk]

OK, ban that too. If it is really porn and not just the mention of some sex act.

[MineralMan]

"And of course you completely ignore the fact that the story of Lot and his daughters has no pictures to go with it."

---

No, I don't ignore that at all. Pornography can be in written form, as well as visual. The problem is in defining what is and what is not pornography. I have not seen such a definition on this thread. Perhaps you'd like to take a crack at it.

[TontoKowalski]

26-year-old Andrea Carlton of Gurnee, Ill., was outraged. "You're not allowed to have sex in your car," she said, "so why are you allowed to watch it?"

Well, all arguments about porn's merit (or lack thereof) aside, this woman needs to get out more. She sounds like a real lights-out, missionary-only, hurry-get-it-over-with kind of gal.

Of course you can have sex in your car! I recommend it, although not while driving, and not while in full public view, of course.

[Modernman]

BTW, does the Bible depict it in living detailed video before your eyes? Didn't think so. The BIBLE AINT PORN !

How about an explicit video recreation of a Biblical event such as this one? Would that be porn, in your view? Why do you make such a distinction between the written word and visual media?

Following your definition, "Lady Chatterly's Lover" and the "Story of O" do not qualify as porn, while nude paintings by Michaelangelo do.

[hopespringseternal]

No, I don't ignore that at all. Pornography can be in written form, as well as visual.

Try reading something in another car.

Main Entry: por·nog·ra·phy
Pronunciation: -fE
Function: noun
Etymology: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornE prostitute + graphein to write; akin to Greek pernanai to sell, poros journey -- more at FARE, CARVE
1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement
2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement
3 : the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction

See definitions 1 and 2.