Taking the pornography out of CP/KP

i certainly will, i am not being fecious in saying so.. your point is well taken, and saying the fight against "child exploitation" images is a whole lot better than 'ch*ld p*rnography'


Fight the common ground!

Well said, Jack!



Yes, yes, YES.

that's presuming that because you don't see change, that it isn't happening.

oprah made her statement, and immediately, there was a movement by Joan to contact oprah's people to "correct" her. but because you dont' see her doing the behind scenes work to attract oprah and you see no retraction/correction from oprah,then that means nothing is going on?


when AG Gonzales made his remarks about the adult biz and cp, there were PR issued and joan being quoted in articles.

there are proactive and reactive efforts that ASACP does as an organization.

in order to inform members of issues, email blasts go out like it did on the oprah issue. there is an upcoming newsletter feature that goes to members as well.

items like SS's point about labelling things better as CE.. are certainly great iems to push out to the membership.


Fight the O!

This particular topic has been on my mind for a while now, actually lodged somewhere between the back and front of my mind, since the first day of Cybernet in SD, when upon arrival at the hotel, one of the first questions put to me was about c. "pornography". I was so revolted with the man's joviality over the subject, and his ease at asking us about it, that I wanted to puke.

And that's when I realised... how much credibility could I possibly have in trying to deny that "c. pornography" is part of our industry, when the very word pornography links us together like blood brothers.. ?

As long as we persist in calling it "pornography", we're not educating the media, personalities or politicians, or anyone else, on anything. Hell, look at how hard a sell it is here, on the board, AMONG the industry! Why *would* the media or anyone else even begin to call it anything else, as long as the actual pornography industry isn't even denying the association as vehemently as it could?

You don't need the ASACP to tell you what word to say. You can make that choice, and encourage everyone else to make that simple choice. Just stop calling it pornography.

You're in Europe, right?

I ask because your post reflects the luxury of a detachment from consequence we simply don't enjoy here in the US. This is NOT a theoretical, semantical, "intellectually stimulating" discussion we're having here - this is for keeps. I don't care to partake in an argument about technicalities of language. "Shampoo" is a Hindi word -- who gives a fuck, I still go to Walgreen's for mine. It's MY use and the connotations and associations THIS culture heap on the word that determine its MEANING FOR ME. The simple truth is the use of the same word ("pornography") in both circumstances is HURTING US. It contributes to our continuing legal marginalization. It operates on the collective cultural psyche. This isn't happening in college lecture halls, where the confused get a chance to raise their hand and ask the sorts of questions that might resolve clarity from complexity. Please don't argue with us on this point, unless you are prepared to convey your technical argument in layman's language to as many Americans everyday as are reading, hearing, and THINKING the association is real, simply because the terms have been so long conjoined.

Let's all of us please begin to distinguish mental masturbation thread-fodder from things that REALLY matter.

2HP

FTP if the FSC practiced what it preaches it would support .xxx.
Or....
Would .xxx just make things easier to manage the adult net thus creating less fund raising opportunities?

Drama?

i think you are mixing apples and oranges.. the 'fund raising opportunities" you speak of, could be attributed to 2257.

there hasn't been any "signup/support FSC to stop .XXX" type messages.

FSC does practice what it preaches, therefore its position to not support .XXX and to fight against it is very consistant.



Fight the non-drama!

Hey... start your own thread!

or atleast stay on topic


fight the thread police!

Ahh
So we putting together the Fight the .XXX fundraising campaign already?
12th hour is comming. FAST.

Maybe this is not the correct thread for this issue however it is easy to see why this industry gets the shit it does from Law Enforcement.

REGULATION is what this industry is lacking.
With Regulation we legitamise our industry and would not have to face such issues in public humiliation along with over stepping Laws that challenge freedom of expression.

As a non regulated industry we face vulnerability and thus effectively creating opportunities for "Organisations" to capitialise on this industries unregulated failures.

Fight the double edged sword.

There is a lot of that here.

But, in fairness to all the people who seem to always get confused in the produce aisle, this board is for many of them...

...THE ONLY PLACE TO BE HEARD, THE ONLY OPPORTUNITY FOR AUDIENCE WITH THE PEOPLE WHO SEEM TO BE MAKING THE DECISIONS THAT AFFECT ALL OF US.

Observe this, and begin to appreciate the significance of GFY. This is our Town Hall, and until there is a better "forum" for the Dialogue of the Industry, let's offer each other the same respect and consideration to colleagues we would if we worked across the hall from each other. Let's leave the ambushes to Sleazy, or else very soon no one will want to "peek their head out" --


2HP

wuh? huh? are you in the same thread as us, or is this a jack-bot?



fight the confusion!

.XXX kills threads fast...

Hillarious.

NOTE TO SELF: Shut up Alien, your making to much sense!

arghhhhhhhhh!

LOL -- I'm trying to teach Q the value of timing and FOCUS --

Must be for being a NOOB Instructor all week --


2HP

Mark, I don't think I have ever said this to you, but fuck off.

You don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

You might make more sense if you used words you knew how to spell.

Fight the Dictionary

Theory and reality are inseparable in this case. The connection is real, and thus people will continue to use the same words. Child exploitation contains but is not limited to child pornography. Child abuse, the same. What we are talking about is pornography containing children.

You want to destroy the association between kiddy porn and normal porn? Tough shit - it ain't gonna happen. Both are porn, and people know that.

Pornography contains snuff, kiddy porn, beast porn, rape vids, etc., and trying to change that meaning is extremely unlikely to be successful. If you want to destroy the association between "us" and "them", focus on terms for us like "the adult industry" and "adult entertainment". Throwing the subgenres out of the main genre doesn't make sense linguistically, and indeed doesn't make practical sense either. Take your cue from language and theory, and you'll see that the much more obvious solution is to emphasize our subgenre, and separate that from the others.

Theory is valuable because it helps us deal with reality in an effective way

SexyScribe is one of the most intelligent, articulate, attractive, witty, spontaneous, amazing women I've ever come across and she's 100% right.

Good job Sexy!

My new business card:



B

great points.. .. i think more to SS's point, and certainly to mine, is that rather than making references to content that involves minors and calling it 'child pornography', to instead use phrases like 'child exploitation', or 'child sexual abuse', rather than 'child pornography'.

no different than in hip/hop culture to use replacement words, fo'shizzle or the world of politically correctness.

from a nomenclature standpoint, "child exploitation" content is a subgenre of pornography..much like beastiality, but to the religious right and the DOJ, ALL pornography is bad, and some, like CE and B, are illegal, the rest, they find immoral.

so SS is articulating a simple, personal way that each person can demonstrate to others, that CE is not part of the adult biz, is to not referer to "that" content as "child pornography"... so when someone says they are a "pornographer"... the connotation is not like what oprah inferred that this person must take pics of kids, but they are engaged in legal, lawful, (and healthy) visual, auditory, or written expressions of human sexuality.

calling it by the right name is great start, doing something about it is a bigger step, and that is what joan, gracie, tim, and i do everyday at ASACP.


fight the CE'izzle!

Child exploitation, as well as child sexual abuse, are things that aren't necessarily child pornography. Fucking child hookers in third world countries is both child exploitation as well as child sexual abuse, but not child pornography. Likewise, what a pedo has on his computer is not child exploitation, but kiddy porn.

Child exploitation is the wrong word for child pornography, plain and simple. They are both two different phrases, with different meanings.

If you are bent on finding a term for child pornography that doesn't contain the word "pornography", you have to find a word synonymous to "pornography", and if you want to make it stick it has to be catchy. "Audiovisual depictions of child sexual abuse" simply doesn't have a good ring to it for the media, and thus will never become the dominant term.

Trying to change the words in this particular way is a losing strategy

Unfortunately, child pornography is the right name. Just like "adult entertainment". Now, the religious right will never give up linking adult entertainment and child pornography, simply because they do - and want to - associate the two.

However, if we want to show that we have nothing to do with cp, the best thing is to show that what we are doing is something different in a way that has an actual chance of sticking (and just happens to link us to the "soft side" of adult that is socially more acceptable).

"Are you a pornographer?"
"I work in adult entertainment. I sell entertainment by and for adults."

How I have been called upon to champion the Rationalist-Pragmatist position in this discussion is really beyond me, and soooo funny to me personally -- you have no idea -- many of the voices in my head are laughing at the irony --

But fine, you like the realm of theory and abstraction, I have an argument there, too.

Let's discuss symbolism, metaphor and euphemism as relates to this situation.

Symbolism: You're encouraging us to direct our energies at defining a territrory for ourselves among the sub-genres of pornography, to accept the legitimacy of the word's usage to describe atrocious crimes on the basis of semantical technicality, and accept also that we have no power to reclaim and redefine the word, that we should just "abandon" it as one would a piece of rotten wood. Sorry. No can do. "Pornography" is a good word, I like it, I like how fighting for it will give a focus to our larger fight. I can't help but be struck by the undesirable Smbolism of taking flight from something we invented, from a word with an etymology appropriate to us. I also like the challenge. I like that it's going to be difficult to make people re-think a word that pervades our culture, a word that is all but lost to a condemnatory quagmire created by the same people who are trying to win our illegality today. I am in love with the Symbolism of change and revolution. I think it's going to give us strength and focus in our cause. You say: "...the connection is real, and thus people will continue to use the same words..." You say: "...tough shit - it ain't gonna happen. Both are porn, and people know that..." Well, I say -- The struggle we face to assert our legality in 2005 has got to rise to a new level. We can no longer be content to merely "squeak by" on the "technicality defense" the First Amendment has been reduced to in our case. I say the reclamation of a word, and our unification as an industry under that SYMBOLIC effort is going to help clarify our message, elevate our argument to the level of Proud Ideal, where it belongs, and bring the question what is "pornography" into every living room in this country right where it belongs. Sorry, this word is taken!

Metaphor: "...take your cue from language and theory, and you'll see that the much more obvious solution is to emphasize our subgenre, and separate that from the others..." I couldn't tell you when or where it happened, but at some point pornography lost its rhetorical vitality, it ceased to be a thing whose nature was understood clearly by most people, and it ceased to be thing that was obviously positive in the lives of the people who used the word. I'm sure it didn't happen all at once, but gradually over time -- erosively. I'm going to venture to guess, though, that the undermining of pornography's connotative legitimacy coincides with the increase in suppressive (shame-based) influence of organized religion and the governments who have tried to curry the favor of Religious Establishment by parroting that suppressive rhetoric. Once pornography -- the word, the idea, the material, had been dipped in the acidic bath of equivocal, conditional meanings, the erosion of its legitimacy could begin earnest -- thereafter (and to the present moment) we have been negotiating what we are and what we aren't in the shadowed back-office recesses of government, flling out forms, worrying that our t's are crossed and that we'll lose everything if we don't follow the increasingly byzantine and effectively censorial "legal hoops" those skinny-necked clerks who push pencils all day keep tellings us (SMUGLY) we have to jump through -- or else. I say to hell with that! We are a good thing! We have a right to exist -- UNEQUIVOCALLY -- better than that, we are ESSENTIAL. And, I'm sorry, punkworld, but our days of "emphasizing sub-genres" are OVER. That's just a metaphor for UNWORTHY TO STAND UP AND BE SEEN IN THE LIGHT OF DAY FOR WHAT WE ARE.

Euphemism:

"Adult Indusrtry" & "Adult Entertainment" are euphemisms. Like all occasions of this linguistic phenomenon, their existence and use indicates a culture's discomfort with an idea, to the extent that the orginally used word for that idea has been REPLACED with something more -- palatable.



That's not a list I want to be on. You?

! -- I AM A PROUD PORNOGRAPHER -- !

2HP

Let me start off by saying that I hate you for having me waste my last night at home on gfy, before I go to spend many weeks trekking in the mountains without things such as computers, desks, chairs, warm water and other things like that. I should be getting drunk right now, watching videos of cute young women with big tits having hard sex with eachother.

I am actually pretty much a pragmatist in most philosophical issues, using theory and abstraction as heuristic devices rather than ultimate goals. The same goes for this particular issue: theoretic deliberation leads to the conclusion that changing the meaning of the word "pornography" is most likely not a productive strategy in the real world.

Pornography is a good word. Just like sex. One can have sex with hot big-titted blondes, but also with chickens, children or Jell-O. Both words are good words because they themselves are fairly clear and, without further specifications, morally neutral. Attaching specific moral and legal clauses to the words would take away their power, and make them unusable to most people.

But since language is something of the people, that is something that won't happen in the first place. It is not a challenging fight, it's an impossible fight. There is no reason for the people to create an artificial distinction other than the fact that we might want them to.

Aside from that, if we stick with porn, the same legal position can go as for sex:
"It's legal, unless..." (eg. there are underage people involved, it isn't consensual, etc.)

Like I said in the previous part of this post, I consider "pornography" a morally neutral thing. Its value, therefore, is only determined by its subgenre: consenting adults = good
underage or non-consenting = bad

In my opinion, it's much better to say that we are depicting people fucking, and emphasize that those people are consenting adults, than it is to say that we are depicting people fucking, and argue that illegal porn isn't depicting people fucking.

I don't consider the phrases "adult industry" and "adult entertainment" euphemisms, for they aren't synonymous to "porn industry" and "porn".

The adult industry contains legal porn, but also sex toys, informational books, lingerie, etc. Adult entertainment contains legal porn, but also strip clubs, dirty comedy, sexy stories, etc. Unlike "pornography", which neither has a positive nor a negative value, "adult" has a positive value: it's responsible entertainment by and for consenting adults.

On the other side, "adult entertainment" excludes exactly that part of "pornography" we can do without: the non-adult part.

Now, personally, I don't feel the need to change the words being used right now, but if you want to do that, the "adult entertainment" strategy seems like a much better and much more productive one than the "child exploitation" strategy.

People know that?? Why do people know that? Because they've been told that. Just like you're telling them now. For you to insist that "both are porn" simply reinforces the notion in the eyes of 'society' that we of the legitimate pornography industry acknowledge, accept and condone those activities.

You're right from a semantic point of view. The definition of the word revolves around sexual arousal, and arguably, pedophiles revel in that kind of content, thus rendering it technically "pornography" under the accepted denotation of the word.

But why should WE accept that? Why shouldn't we strive to change the CONNOTATION of the word? to change what it REPRESENTS in the minds of ordinary people.


Words do not have their definitions poured in concrete. Language is fluid and continually evolving. Check your history on language theory and evolution. Words mean whatever people believe them to mean.

You have the power with a simple word to disassociate yourself from those who cause harm to children. Why would you refuse to use that? because the dictionary says so?

If we turn cp into (for example) Child Obscenity, the dictionary will come to reflect that. Not the other way around.

And we're helping them.

That might work for the softer stuff, but where does that leave producers of hardcore or extreme or fetish content? Still lumped in with the pedos?

No. There has to be a line. A thick, black line, a divider. Between producers of legal pornography and criminals who engage in sexually violent acts on children.

My point is: You, simply by refusing to call it pornography, can affect a small and powerful change in the world. It requires no effort on your part. All it requires is that you make the choice to use a different word.

Language is indeed fluid and continually evolving, but like I said in a previous post, it is also something of the people. And the people seem unlikely, to me, to adapt an artificial term to describe something and at the same time change an existing definition just because a few pornographers object to the existing language.

I refuse to use language that I consider ridiculous, just for propaganda. I don't want to abuse language to get some silly moral point across. I sell certain types of porn. Not all porn is good. I don't sell the illegal and bad types. If people don't want to understand that and think that I sell kiddy porn, they are retards who can go fuck themselves. Just like people who think that when I say "I like fucking", I mean to include fucking chickens, can go fuck themselves.

Porn has a bad connotation, not because it is associated with child porn, but because many people consider it immoral in the first place, and because sex is still considered taboo. Trying to change a few words won't help, and most likely won't work either.

And yes, we should accept the association with child porn. That association is real, is true. It's both people fucking, and no words are going to change that. It's an actual, factual association. That association, however, is a small one. Much like the one between sex and rape, or the one between jacking off and jacking off in public, or even the one between getting a blowjob and infecting someone with HIV.
Child pornography is the overlapping area between raping children and pornography. Our job lies within the overlapping area between consenting adults performing sexual acts and pornography.
What we should do is not to deny the pornography part of child pornography, but rather emphasize the consenting adults part of our job. Simply because it makes more sense, and has a better chance of working.

There is a line already, and one that is pretty damn obvious. We're on the right side, along with the producers of hardcore or extreme or fetish content (who I actually do lump in with adult entertainment, and thus with Playboy magazine, strip clubs, sexy stories, etc), while those who produce porn involving children are on the wrong side.

Refusing to call it pornography, however, will result in absolutely nothing, and will only be an ugly abuse of language. "Child obscenity" is almost as ugly as "African American"

But if you want to try and fight the phrase "child pornography", by all means, go right ahead. Let me know in a decade or so if you've had any success.

I would love to agree with you on this one, but I can't. If it were that obvious, there would be no confusion. Producers/sellers/etc of legit adult content would never be mixed up or mixed in with a group of child molestors, if the line were that clearly drawn.

We do agree on this one.

The very fact that we need to have language to describe "child obscenity" seems like an abuse to me.. But you just proved my point. The term "African American" only came to exist bc enough people used it to turn it into a "politically correct" term. There was a need to replace the existing word, and a new term was found and is now an established part of our common lexicon.

There are numerous examples of this throughout the history of language, and the rate of evolution of language has only grown exponentially since the advent of television and the internet. i.e. words are changing and evolving at a faster pace now than ever before.

Thank you, I shall.
If you want to persist in maintaining your position, go right ahead. But in a decade or so, when you hear someone outside your circle refer to "child obscenity", smile when you remember me.

Language is indeed something of the people. We create it, shape it, use it, and manipulate it. Every day we choose words to use. Often, we're presented with new words, and soon enough the new word becomes part of our common usage. It happens all the time.

We simply disagree on this one.


How would you propose to do that?

And, by doing that, aren't we really just saying the equivalent of : "Yes, they're part of our industry, but *I* don't do that, *I* am not one of them. It's really just an aberrant group of people who do that. The rest of us are good, clean honest pornographers.... really."

Excellent thread
I only read half the first page, and bookmarked to read later.

Love it!!

Thank you.

It's just words, people... Use 'em or lose 'em.

Define or Be Defined.

Precisely

Things take time and time changes things.

I was informed three years ago not to use the words 'pornography' or 'porn', instead to use adult entertainment. Now and mainly only on this thread do people want to be pornographers again.

Yes, it would be nice if the world used a different word than child pornography, but that's not the way it is currently on an international basis. I will discuss all this at the FSC Board meeting and with the ASACP Advisory Council and Approved Members.

However, I must say that this discussion of lexicons, semantics, etc. is disturbing. My god, you are having a high level discussion about children being sexually abused. Of the 6000 monthly reports of suspect cp sites that ASACP receives, approximately 250 are determined to seemingly be CP and sent on to law enforcement.

Let me be blunt about the reality of these CP reports. These are not images of 15, 16, 17 year old kids. These are pictures of babies some as young as 6 months being raped, penetrated, sodimized (sp?), used as sexual objects, beaten, and sometimes even worse.

I've spent the last three years dealing with this reality on a daily basis and because of my position at ASACP being able to do something about it - not just talk or post threads (http://asacp.org/press/pr071105.html). This effort is only possible because of the help of many concerned Sponsors and Approved Members who have supported the ASACP effort. It's not a reality I ever pictured myself having to deal with and would not wish it on anyone else.

How many of the people on this thread are parents? I doubt very many because a parent would not have such a discussion. Instead, they would be in tears and holding their child even at the prospect of something so horrific and then they do something about it!

Take a moment to imagine if this happened to your baby or child, imagine if happened to your younger brother, sister, niece or nephew? Think about how you would feel and what you would want to do if you found out someone abused them in such a way?

So please, talk about the real issue: the real victims - the babies, the children - what this does to their lives. That is if they are lucky enough to survive physically; FYI - they never recover on an emotional basis.


The ASACP mission has been and will continue among other things to help the adult entertainment industry in this ongoing battle against CP and to help educate mainstream about this effort.

ASACP will be at Internext, please stop by booth #613 if you want to talk. Also, I will be on the Industry Town Hall panel Saturday at 3:30 PM.

Good point, Joan. It's not just an intellectual problem. It's a real, physical, dangerous reality and it can touch anyone here. Do you know your kids' babysitter that well? Uncles? Softball coach? etc. Maybe the stronger language will help shock people into action more than a softer phrase would.

I agree, Joan. A discussion of this nature is disturbing. I'd rather not have the words exist at all, but that's not the reality we have to contend with.

Whether pornographers choose to call themselves pornographers, smut-mongers, or Dr. Dolittle is largely irrelevant to the point of this thread, albeit a side issue resulting from it.

The point is, I believe calling the atrocities you describe by a tamer name than what they really are can only make YOUR job harder, and confuse perceptions in people's minds.

Pornography is not an apt label for these crimes.

We each do what we can. I am a writer. I use the tools at my disposal to try and affect change in ways that I can.

SexyScribe,

... AND I appreciate your efforts, tools and your ongoing support of ASACP!

Joan

I am, and I started the thread.

and what would you do if someone sexually abused your child?

Sorry, but what a retarded discussion.
To say in your defense when you're doing exactly that when you started this thread.

It's pornography. As defiined by the dictionary. This isn't a "technicality," but a real definition. You are the one trying to play the word games.

if you want to become legitamized in this world, and seperate yourself from such things as CP/KP, then do as punkworld stated. Get people used to the terms adult entertainment, adult internet, adult webmaster, adult actress and get away from calling it all porn, pornography, pornographers etc.

What the hell does that have to do with the discussion?

ummm, I started this thread, and I am relatively sure I never said that.

But to answer your question, I would most likely inflict great bodily harm on the person. I certainly would not accuse the abuser of being a pornographer, or of having committed pornography on my kid.

Definitions from a recently released NCMEC study - http://www.missingkids.com/missingki...US&PageId=2018


The term ?child pornography,? because it implies simply conventional pornography with child subjects, is an inappropriate term to describe the true nature and extent of sexually exploitive images of child victims. Use of this term should not be taken to imply that children ?consented? to the sexual acts depicted in these photographs. We have, however, retained the term because there is a history in the United States of court decisions and statutes that have used and developed the term, and it is the term most readily recognized by the public, at this point in time, to describe this form of child sexual exploitation. ?Child pornography? is used in this report to refer to visual depictions of the sexual exploitation of a child under the standards developed by statute, case law, and law-enforcement-agency protocols. It is hoped that more accurate term will recognized, understood, and accepted for use in the near future.

We use the term ?child sexual victimization? broadly to mean the full range of sex crimes committed against minors that involve direct interaction with child victims. These include contact crimes such as child sexual abuse and molestation and non contact crimes such as online sexual solicitation.

Not sure, but I think that is why we are having this discussion. It is not impossible to begin training people to think "child exploitation" rather that "child pornography."

There is no denial that CP is the commonly used phrase today and in the past, it would just be nice to get people to start thinking of it as child exploitation in the future. The only way that will happen is if we start doing it ourself.

Using SexyScribe's blog that started this discussion. Back in the day, blacks were referred to as niggahs. You don't see that thrown around too much any more, do you?

I don't care who started it...I saw something about sexyscribe and I was quoting her.

This is still a retarded discussion because it won't get anywhere.

You're fighting the wrong battle on both fronts. Whether you're fighting it about cp, or cleaning up the image of the adult industry.

If you guys want some legitimization then adopt more legitimate terms like adult industry, adult entertainment, and then adopt more responsibility and act like adults.

And the funny thing is we're debating this on one of our industry's leading "business" forums and it's called gofuckyourself.com Yes...that's the way to be taken seriously

This is no particular swipe at you baddog, just discussing the adult industry in general.

Because that term was/is derogatory to a race of people.

While pornography describes the material being created whether it's legal or not.

I said it, and I stand by it.

There has been an attempt to turn this discssion into a technical one, meaning that some participants are interested in pursuing an answer to this question: Does the thing we're all talking about "fit" within the current definition of pornography? That is NOT the question baddog, SexyScribe and myself are interested in having answered. The question we're interested in having answered is: Is the reclamation of the term "pornography" by US (arguably "pornographers") an effective way to distance ourselves and what we do from a hideous crime?

I think that it is this gap in objective that has put us so (unnecessarily) at odds.

I think if you re-read the lines you wrote, which I have highlighted in orange above, you may begin to see the difference in our approaches, and why we're not succeeding in convincing each other. When I said "not interested in a technical discussion", it means that I understand for knowing dozens of examples in the English language (and others) where the "technical" meaning of a word tells you one thing and its USAGE another. If you disagree that the USAGE is the more important, and (I would say the TRUE determinant of meaning), I would have to say come visit us here in the US and spend some time in conversation with average folks. MOST people mis-use words, thinking them to mean one thing when they mean another. I am actually a stickler for grammar and using words correctly. English contains MANY, MANY words the usage of which departs from the technical/dictionary meaning. This cannot be a surprise to you, unless it is different where you live. But, I assure you, it IS that way here. Don't misunderstand the value of a dictionary. There is a reason it's called a "reference" book. The dictionary of the English language contains tens of thousands of words you will NEVER hear in average conversation. I know, I use many of them, and people never know what the hell I'm talking about, though my word choices and the way I use them are technically perfect. Contrast that with a "word" like "hella" which is not a word at all, but used by many people here in California to mean "very much" or "a lot" -- what matters, and what will determine PUBLIC PERCEPTION (which, I'll remind you, is what WE are interested in influencing) is the usage. Usage has, many, many times with all sorts of words dramatically affected the "meaning" of a word -- the meaning as it LIVES in the minds of the people who use it, who may never pick up a dictionary in their lives.

2HP

One of the best examples of redefining words goes out to the gay community, who turned the once-derogatory word "queer" into something positive.

There is no reason why the same can't be done in terms of DISequating and DISentangling the term "pornography" from "child pornography".

Joan, you do extraordinary good work! No one doubts that. ... BUT as Baddog says, what does a lot of what you've said here have anything to do with the topic of this discussion??? Do YOU think in any way "baby rape" and other horrid transvestites you've mentioned here should in any way, shape or form be linked to the adult entertainment industry? I will take it for granted that your answer will be "no".

Well THAT is what this discussion is about. How about adding something to the discussion actually at hand? No idea why you and FTP keep wanting to talk about something else instead.