ADULT BOYCOTT!

Missing from yesterday's photo collection (just going too fast) was any documentation of Missouri's adult sign wars. (I'm sure what I noticed was nothing new, but for some confounded reason the search engines don't work right now and Google won't load at all.)

While I lost count of the number of times I saw "ADULT BOOKS" or "ADULT VIDEO" or "ADULT EMPORIUM" signs on Missouri's Route 44, what intrigued me was that most of them were competing side by side with signs attacking pornography. Such as "PORNOGRAPHY DESTROYS WOMEN AND CHILDREN!"

If you're a hopeless libertarian like me, you'll defend the rights of both forms of "advocacy." I concede the tackiness of the "adult" signage, but question the logic of how anyone is being "destroyed." But just as I was asking myself why men weren't also being destroyed, almost on cue sprung up another looming pair of signs, with the "anti" sign answering my question: "PORNOGRAPHY DESTROYS ALL PEOPLE!"

Oddly, that made more sense, even though I think the argument is overly broad. What about people who don't buy or view pornography? How are they being destroyed?

Anyway, the sign war reminded me how hopelessly intractable this dispute is. There's obviously a market for porn, or the stores wouldn't be there. The signs, one could argue, shouldn't be so large or visible, but then, what's visible? Only the word "ADULT" in front of a building. I'm wondering whether "ADULT" is becoming a dirty word.

I mean, suppose in my quest to further the politically surreal as an art form, I placed a neon sign simply with the word "ADULT" in the window of my home or business. Am I free to do that? Or is the word too inflammatory? Sure, I'd be lying to call myself an adult, although at 50 am I not one legally? And it would only be for art.

Hey now, how about if I butted into the mess in Missouri and offered a compromise? I know, I know, the words "Missouri" and "compromise" don't go well together, but let's just suppose...

The legitimate argument against pornography is not that it makes men into rapists (the stats show that never happened) but that the imagery causes them to detach from their wives, and become sexually more dysfunctional.

So how about a large sign proclaiming, "MEN! PORNOGRAPHY LEADS TO LOST ERECTIONS!" or "MORAL MEN ARE HARD MEN!"

That would get the point across, wouldn't it? I mean, what's the goal here?

(I think the problem may be that Missouri is a mix of liberal Midwestern Scandinavian types with Southern evangelicals, and it's showing up as cultural "signs of the times." If the culture clash touches on such ethnic and religious factors, there's no easy way to solve it. Multiculturalism encourages groupthink, which is another vestige of tribalism, which in my opinion sucks more than debates over porn, but that would involve another long-winded essay and I have. To. Drive.)

posted by Eric on 01.11.05 at 09:27 AM





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Comments

Yet another fascinating post. So much to think about here. This is why I read Classical Values.

ADULT --> ADULTERY?? Hmmm.... Anyway....

Free speech. Absolutely. If somebody wants to erect a billboard by my home saying "FANTASIZING ABOUT LESBIANISM LEADS TO BOTULISM, THE BUBONIC PLAGUE, AND THE VIET CONG FLU, AND KILLS CHILDREN AND FURRY LITTLE ANIMALS!", that is their perfect right, which I must defend to the death, precisely in order to defend my own right to fantasize about holy tribadism.

You are right about the other argument against pornography, which is the only argument I respect. A man or woman who is married should, must, strive to get high on his or her own spouse above all, for that is the sacred meaning of marriage. "HOLY MEN ARE HARD MEN!" "HOLY WOMEN ARE HOT WOMEN!" Holy Dawn must eternally strive to get high on her holy Negro wife Norma above all, must eternally struggle against wicked Wanda. The captivating discipline, the tight bondage, of holy wedlock. Total Commitment. Holy Dawn and her holy Negro wife Norma locked in tribadic embrace, getting high on each other's thighs, breasts, arms, shoulders, necks, hair, ears, eyes, noses, lips, tongues, licking whipped cream and chocolate ice cream off each other's tongues, in a space ship orbiting the rings of Saturn. Tight and High....

"MORAL MEN ARE HARD MEN!"

ROFLMDO!!!

You should sell t-shirts with "MORAL MEN ARE HARD MEN!" emblazoned on them.

Harkonnendog   ·  January 11, 2005 05:35 PM

"MORAL MEN ARE HARD MEN!"

ROFLMDO!!!

You should sell t-shirts with "MORAL MEN ARE HARD MEN!" emblazoned on them.

Harkonnendog   ·  January 11, 2005 05:35 PM

What a hoot!

But I thought that as a resident in the most scandahovian of Midwestern Scandahovian states (That's Minnesota. Don't believe what those dogs from the Dakotas say) that we don't have much in the way of ADULT stores around here. At least, not anymore.

When I was too young to 'appreciate' what the fuss was all about, they drove almost all of the ADULT stores out of the Twin Cities, and there were never many of them outside the Metro area. While the Scandanavians and Germans do enjoy their ADULT entertainment, they seem to prefer to do it quietly. I think the signs in Missouri are more a signal of a dichotomy in the Southren mindframe.

But I could be wrong.

The Evil Cub   ·  January 11, 2005 10:46 PM

Thanks, Steven, H Dog, and EC. Actually, the word "adult" came into use as a euphemism to placate the anti-pornogaphy people. The idea was, these places would be more "discreet." A holdover from the "brown paper bag" era.

I find it a bit ironic that the people who scream about it not only draw attention to it, they invite people to come to the defense of the porn sellers by way of trendy reaction. (Not that you'll see porn stores in upper class neighborhoods, where "zoning" prevents them.) Reminds me of Anita Bryant thinking that the best way to stop homosexuality was to shout about it on the cover of Newsweek. She gave rise to the modern gay movement by making it ordinary conversation. Snotty upper class folks (and aspirants) who'd always sneered at homosexuals suddenly found it was very trendy to attack Anita Bryant and the fundamentalists, and the gays suddenly had new support in powerful circles. I see echoes of this pseudo elitist Bryant backlash in the Boy Scout/gay marriage debates. Many of the advocates are heterosexuals who want to look down on someone, and defending gays provides the perfect excuse for a much more subtle form of bigotry. (The coolest form of bigotry is that which poses as a defense of others and an attack on bigotry....)

Eric Scheie   ·  January 11, 2005 11:23 PM

Old saying: "God created Anita Bryant to sell orange juice and Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel."

Hierarchy! Love that word. As the great architect Ralph Adams Cram, designer of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New Yorkd City, once wrote: "Inequality is the first law written in the Book of Man." No truer words were ever written. The Book of Woman, too, I must add, even more so.

You are right that homosexuals became a fad among the "liberal", "progressive", or "enlightened" elements. To be strong and win their rights, however, homosexuals must break with Leftism and all its fallacies: progressivism, egalitarianism, secularism, relativism. Homosexual men and women must instead uphold the holiness of their sexuality as an absolute, eternal value, rooted in their own souls and in the eternal hierarchy of the Divine.



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