Newsgroups: alt.sex.bondage,alt.sex.masturbation,alt.sex,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk From: feorag@antipope.demon.co.uk (Feorag NiBride) Subject: Re: JANET bans alt.* Message-ID: Sender: news@demon.co.uk (Usenet Administration) Organization: Pagan Prattle PLC References: <1994Dec13.075237.20570@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> <3ct9ad$9f9@pentagon.io.com> <3d1kne$s8l@dockmaster.phantom.com> Date: Fri, 23 Dec 1994 20:27:45 GMT Lines: 114 In article <3d1kne$s8l@dockmaster.phantom.com>, sasohn@phantom.com (Steve Sohn) wrote: >We strongly advise all to ditch that JANet thing and pay for a real provider. JANET is the Joint Academic Network. Most of the people on it have an income of less than £2000 ($3000) per year, of which £120 a year (+ 17.5% VAT) -- the cost of a Demon account -- is quite a large chunk. Very few of us are lucky enough to have someone else pay Demon ;-). >The proscription is simply another manifestation of the womens movement >(aka: Coordinated Universal Nonesense Traffickers), to whom, no doubt >reading an alt.sex.* Newsgroup constitutes rape. Before the JANET ban, my own University, the University of Bradford, decided we weren't going to get the alt.sex* groups, nor anything with erotica in the title. The reason thay gave for this outrageous piece of censorship was that they wanted to create "a non-harassing environment for women". As a feminist, I found this particularly offensive and it may be of value to paraphrase my arguments on brad.cc.service. The making of such a decision, for the reasons given by the university, is particularly worrying because of what it says about that establishment's attitude towards women, and its staff and students generally. Particularly, it shows that whoever made the decision has a view of women dating from sometime in the last century. In the mind of this individual, we are obviously feeble creatures in need of protection from the big, bad world. We are clearly incapable of making our own minds up as to what is suitable for our own viewing, nor are we capable of being taught how to unsubscribe from those groups we wish to avoid. Either that, or we are too scatty-minded to be trusted to make are own mind up, or possibly the person concerned is scared of women who do show signs of independence. Naturally, the thought that some women might _enjoy_ reading these groups is a source of untold horror for him (and we can safely assume that a person with these views towards women is male). Remember, we're talking about a British university here, where students tend to be (a) adults and (b) of above average intelligence (although the latter will probably change over the next few years as the abolition of the grants system ensures that only those with rich parents can go). On top of this, the banning of the groups may cause serious problems for members of sexual minorities, as groups such as alt.sex.motss and alt.sex.bondage often provide a safe space -- often the only space where women are confident enough to talk about subjects which may cause them to be rejected by the more general community. As such, the ban has automatically made the university a more harassing environment for women such as myself and indeed a number of men, most obviously gay men. The alt.sex* groups are also a source of valuable advice, safety information and the latest thinking on safer sex. I also raised the question of where the process would stop. For example, I find that I am frequently harassed on alt.pagan by those who would describe themselves as Christian. Not only that, but these people hold, and promote, views which are openly sexist, racist and homophobic. Is the next step to ban the soc.religion.* and talk.religion.* hierarchies? Then there's talk.abortion, soc.women, talk.feminism etc -- look at the number of men who hang around there purely to harass women. I suppose we might as well get rid of the talk.politics.* groups and uk.politics too whilst we're at it. The soc.culture.* groups are always full of racist debate aren't they? Well, they could be -- let's drop them too. Interestingly enough, they haven't noticed alt.personals yet, and they seem to have no problem with alt.revisionism! Hypocrisy? They probably can't even spell it. One point I didn't raise, but is valuable in the current context -- censorship is, naturally, a tool of the patriarchy. It's always been used to ensure that minorities and women are denied a voice. We only need look at how the allegedly feminist censorship laws in Canada have been applied. There, pornography is defined as any material which degrades women or depicts them as objects. It was influenced by the work of Dworkin. I know of three convictions which have been made under this law: the first was of a lesbian magazine, _Bad Attitude_, which published a story, "Wunna my Fantasies" detailing a woman's SM fantasies about another woman; in another case, a gay bookshop found itself in trouble for stocking gay male porn which didn't depict any women whatsoever; thirdly, and most ironic, Dworkin's book _On Pornography_ is now banned in Canada because it contains descriptions deemed to be degrading to women! Have any cases been brought against the sort of material intended by the law-makers? Not to my knowledge. It depresses me immensely when prats such as Sohn attribute the actions and attitudes of a few extremists to an entire movement. One of the most fundamental demands of feminism is that women (and indeed everyone else) should be free to define their own sexuality -- whether that be straight, lesbian, bi, strictly solo or Not Interested; that women should be free to choose their own sexual partners and engage in whatever turns them on (the only guidelines being pretty much the "safe, sane, consensual" promoted on a.s.b). Like most feminist women, I get offended by being told how I, "as a woman", should think or behave; what I should do or believe. I get equally as offended whether these exhortations come from men or women, but I have to admit that I get annoyed if the person concerned describes themselves as 'feminist'. ----- Gratuitous insults -- feel free to ignore ----- There again, I suspect I may be Sohn's worst mightmare -- I'm intelligent, capable of stringing sentences together to make an argument, almost certainly bigger and stronger than he is, and definitely unlikely to fuck an obvious loser like him. And I'm a damn sight more typical of the women's movement than the PC brigade. ----- End gratuitous insults ----- bb Feorag ----------------------------------- Another Feminist Against Censorship ----------------------------------- From: gentryk@ucs.orst.edu (Kim Gentry) Newsgroups: alt.sex.bondage,alt.sex.masturbation,alt.sex,alt.comp.acad-freedom.talk Subject: Re: JANET bans alt.* Date: 23 Dec 1994 10:10:01 GMT Organization: Oregon State University Lines: 49 Message-ID: <3de7lp$gc8@gaia.ucs.orst.edu> References: <1994Dec13.075237.20570@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> <3ct9ad$9f9@pentagon.io.com> <3d1kne$s8l@dockmaster.phantom.com> In article <3d1kne$s8l@dockmaster.phantom.com>, Steve Sohn wrote: >This is very unhappy, in that what happens in the British Politically >Correct establishment is either a forerunner or mirror of what happens >here. Keeping the somewhat less than reasoned responses at bay, ignoring >the stupidity, what we see here is prior restraint (censorship for those >whose heads are up and locked). It is not what is supposed to happen on >the Internet. I agree. > >We strongly advise all to ditch that JANet thing and pay for a real provider. I don't think they can....it's the main newsfeed for all of Great Britain (from what I understand, mind you...) > >The proscription is simply another manifestation of the womens movement >(aka: Coordinated Universal Nonesense Traffickers), to whom, no doubt >reading an alt.sex.* Newsgroup constitutes rape. Too bad, British >Cousins; this Internaut recommends you moon the mothers and go commercial. > >Oh, save the flames, bitches; I will only turn them back to you, unread. > Now....I was agreeing with you completely until you got to this point. You lumped all women into this "women's movement" conspiracy theory you have...and that is just not correct. There are many, many women who read, post to, and all around enjoy the alt.sex hierarchy, myself included. I agree with a lot of what the feminist movement is saying...with the exception of the whole pornography issue. I think that there are a lot of women out there who agree with me, but just don't feel comfortable saying so because it isn't accepted in society for women to be openly sexual, to enjoy sex, or to admit to wanting to have sex frequently. A lot of women step back and let the more outspoken women speak, and don't usually agree with what they're saying. So....this has become more lengthy than I wanted, but I just wanted you to know that not all women out there agree with the entire feminist movement, and that you shouldn't just lump all of us into one group. Kim -- Kim | If you can buy food at a grocery store, gas at a gas gentryk@ucs.orst.edu| station, and clothes in a clothing store, why can't support indie rock | you buy a Christian at a Christian Supply Store?