Re: pedo in a speedo

Let me be my usual argumentative self here:


I appreciate you citing (most of) the Rhino preface.  To me, though, 
the "ludicrous" clearly refers to the ludicrousness of people 
jacking off to the idea of 112 year-olds fucking.   The repeated use 
of the word "moral"--not legal, not even ethical--strongly suggests 
that the publishers were sincerely bothered by the idea of 
publishing something that could appeal to pedophiles, as I think 
almost anyone would be.  Times had changed but that doesn't mean 
Rhino was making a naked grab for self-preservation.  It meant that 
we as a society had begun to understand the terrible effects of 
child porn on the actors and the (disputed) possibilities of 
arousing dormant desires in peds.  

I very much doubt Rhino had Meese in mind when they wrote it.  If so 
they should fire their lawyer.  Meese's report would clearly have 
shielded Rhino and Delany from legal peril, at least if the "new 
regulations that had come from The Meese Commission on Pornography" 
you mention were enacted without going further to the right.  
Passages from the Meese report are very illuminating and wonderfully 
apposite.  Dig it:

"As defined by the United States Supreme Court in the 1982 decision, 
New York v Ferber, the category of "child pornography" is "limited 
to works that VISUALLY depict sexual conduct by children below a 
specified age."[392] It is clear from the Court's language, and in 
all statutory and scholarly definitions of the term, that "child 
pornography" is only appropriate as a description of material 
depicting real children"  (emphasis in original)

Oooh, and here's an unbelievably on-point line.  "...a rewrite of 
Lolita which included graphic descriptions of sexual activity with a 
young girl could never be "child pornography," nor could a fully 
explicit film of the novel which starred an adult actress playing 
the part of the young girl."  Meese advocated a view of child porn 
that only applied when children were used.  That's because, I 
suspect, the data on whether child porn encourages pervs to act is 
highly ideological and very contradictory but it's pretty much 
settled, at least among psychologists and legal scholars, that being 
filmed for sex acts early on is a trauma that follows the kids 
arounds well into adulthood.


While it's true that child porn has been more aggressively 
prosecuted in recent years, that neither began nor ended with 
Meese.  Indeed, in the report you cite Meese's report isn't even 
mentioned.  The distinction between child and adult porn, and the 
far greater social consequences of the latter, were mainstream legal 
thought at least a decade prior to Meese and his thugs.  
--- In [email protected], Steve M <lists@m...> wrote:
>
> At 6:28 PM +0000 12/31/05, Guy_Fawkes99 wrote:
> >I could be wrong, but I recall that at the beginning of Equinox, 
in
> >the Rhinoceros edition, there's a note from the publishers saying
> >that they were not comfortable with publishing a novel with
> >pedophilic overtones so they (perhaps at Delany's suggestion?) 
added
> >a hundred years to ever character under 18.  So at least by their
> >own words they weren't just kowtowing to the Meese commission, and
> >that would seem to be supported by the fact that the book was
> >published two presidents after Reagan.
> >
> >Incidentally, a 2002 Supreme Court case established that there's 
an
> >absolute constitutional prohibition on banning/criminalizing
> >*depictions* of underage sex--at least until computer technology
> >gets so good that the virtual pornography can be used as a cover 
for
> >people using actual children in their photos/movies.  But at least
> >until a few more Justices die, there's no way Delany's work could
> >get him or his publisher in legal trouble.
> 
> Let's look for a moment at the historical moment:
> 
> The Rhinoceros edition of Equinox is dated January 1994.
> 
> The Meese Commission on Pornography came out in 1986.
> 
> In the wake of the Meese report, obscenity, and especially 
anything 
> that could be construed as child pornography, was heavily 
prosecuted. 
> <http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/plus/e0107/results.htm>
> 
> The Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center was charged with obscenity 
> over a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit of 175 photographs in 1990. 
(Art 
> under attack)
> 
> In June 1990, 2 Live Crew's album "As Nasty as They Wanna Be" was 
> ruled obscene in a federal court. The group and album were not 
> exonerated until April 1993--by which point Equinox would probably 
> already have been set in type. Surely the decision to amend the 
> characters' ages was made while litigation was still continuing 
over 
> this album. (No images there--just explicit lyrics)
> 
> The Supreme Court case you cite wasn't decided until 2002.
> 
> So in 1993, when this book was being prepared for republication, 
the 
> legal situation was murky.
> 
> ---------
> 
> Having just returned home to my book collection, I reread the 
> publisher's note in the Rhinoceros edition. Here it is (the 
passages 
> I elide refer to their bibliography and discuss the history of the 
> title changes of the book):
> 
> "NOTE OF MORAL INTENT
> 
> "First finished by Delany in Autumn 1968, Equinox contained a 
number 
> of (fortunately secondary) characters below the age of consent. 
Need 
> we say that the sixties and even the seventies were more morally 
lax 
> decades than our current one? Certainly they were times of greater 
> license--if not looser sexual ethics. Delany's novel has sustained 
> considerable intellectual attention since its appearance in March 
> 1973 and has been the subject of praiseful analysis in various 
> journals and books--one reason, clearly, for republishing it 
today. 
> [...] We are torn, then, between faithfulness to the verbal 
artifact 
> we would herewith reproduce [...] and the dictates of the 
present's 
> greater sense of moral responsibility. To that end we have added 
an 
> even hundred years to the direct mention of the age of any 
character 
> in the original version clearly presented as a minor associated 
with 
> licentiousness. Bethy, Benny, Marny, Pietro...We remind you how 
> powerful such a strategy is: a six year old in a context such as 
this 
> invites unspeakable possibilities; a 106 year old we just assume 
the 
> homme moyen sensual, much less the pedophile, finds 
anaphrodisiacal 
> if not--in such a context--ludicrous. We hope  the disruption of 
the 
> image will prevent the age of these characters (now emended 
> throughout the text) from functioning as a node of libidinal 
> exploitation, as all directly stated ages in the novel are now 
> eighteen or significantly above."
> 
> 
> When I read the above, much turns on the word "ludicrous." To my 
ear, 
> everything after that word comes across as having tongue firmly 
> planted in, well, Edwin Meese's left cheek.
> 
> Sure, it reminds you, they could have added just enough years to 
the 
> minor characters' ages to bring them over the age of consent, 
making 
> the change escape the attention of the reader. Benny's first 
> appearance might read: "From a doorway, hung with paisley drape, 
came 
> a sleepy boy, 18 or 19."--and even the attentive reader might 
accept 
> that age assessment at face value. Instead it reads "From a 
doorway, 
> hung with paisley drape, came a sleepy boy, 115 or 116." The very 
> ludicrousness of the resulting image might lead the attentive but 
> devious reader to brush up on his or her arithmetic skills.
> 
> Even the reference to praiseful analysis is just a way of saying: 
> "Hey, we've got serious literary, artistic, political, or 
scientific 
> value here"
> 
> I certainly don't sense any sense of personal discomfort on the 
part 
> of the publishers anywhere within their statement--rather a 
> concession to parlous times, legally.
>






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