13 state GOP govts put forward bill to tax porn

[pbrower2a]

Does this constitute porn?

(apology for the nudity, but blame Michelangelo Buonarotti for this):



Does this?



The Supreme Court has already declared the SLAPS test valid in ruling out certain objects as legitimate exclusions from the category of actionable pornography:

Serious Literary, Artistic, Political, or Scientific content

The line is blurry. Child porn cannot pass the test, but that is about it.

Anyone who wants a porn filter is welcome to get it. 

Taxing legitimate expressions in a discriminatory matter would seem to violate the First Amendment.   

[pbrower2a]

Heavy involvement in pornography is likely bad for people. Pornography proves, all in all, a surrogate for sex. It is far more likely to impose loneliness than to break the ice in a relationship. For participants, it is horrible. I am told that women who became Playboy centerfolds (and this is the mildest form of heterosexual porn involving women as sex objects) have high rates of either becoming fundamentalist Christians (now that is a decisive rejection of what they had been) or becoming messed up on drugs and alcohol. Women who thought that they might be advancing their acting careers have found that involvement in even the softest-core porn is not good for them. Then there is the harder stuff that is more blatant and destructive. There are lots of suicides in that activity.

I can understand why people use porn. If they are lonely and expect to remain so, as on an oil rig or a ship with a single-sex crew, then I understand. Porn is better than sexual harassment or prostitution -- safer for its user, at the least, and possibly an employer or spouse. But we have plenty of other questionable activities from strip clubs to gambling casinos to 'rough' bars.