Can Rick Santorum Ban Porn?
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Presidential candidate Rick Santorum has promised to wage war on pornography, the Christian Science Monitor reports.
If elected, he would order his attorney general to “vigorously enforce” existing laws that “prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier.”
Could Santorum turn this topic into a successful campaign strategy? Or does the idea step on First Amendment rights?
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My Response: Rick Santorum has just laid bare (so to speak) one more layer of a debate about the nature and purpose of human sexuality that he is sure to lose. Not because porn is a good thing—and of course existing laws should be enforced, duh—but because when push comes to shove, the American people don’t want government telling them what to read or watch or do in their private sex lives. What they do want is jobs and an economy that works again. And voters are very likely to connect Santorum’s focus on pornography with his overall sex police-like attacks on contraception and women’s rights.
America has a difficult and bifurcated relationship with sex. Our culture uses it to sell almost everything from cars to toothpaste; magazine covers sizzle with promises of sexual prowess; and popular culture lyrics and story lines revolve around it. At the same time, Utah bans teaching sex education that includes honest information about the subject, Texas and Virginia pass laws requiring women whose sexual activities resulted in pregnancies to be assaulted with 10-inch ultrasound “shaming wands” (to quote Doonesbury), and Rush Limbaugh joins Senate Republicans in attacking women who want contraception covered by their health insurance plans.
What we really need is to foster a healthier relationship with sex that acknowledges the existence of human sexuality as part of life, educates young people to know how to be safe and healthy when they eventually have sex, and helps adults as well to enjoy sex responsibly in healthy relationships.
How about that in place of an anti-porn campaign, Mr. Santorum?
GLORIA FELDT is the New York Times bestselling author of several books including No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power, a sought-after speaker and frequent contributor to major news outlets, and the Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead. People has called her “the voice of experience,” and among the many honors she has been given, Vanity Fair called her one of America’s “Top 200 Women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers,” and Glamour chose her as a “Woman of the Year.”
As co-founder and president of Take The Lead, a leading women’s leadership nonprofit, her mission is to achieve gender parity by 2025 through innovative training programs, workshops, a groundbreaking 50 Women Can Change The World immersive, online courses, a free weekly newsletter, and events including a monthly Virtual Happy Hour program and a Take The Lead Day symposium that reached over 400,000 women globally in 2017.
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Rick Santorum will now be cited by the liberal apologists for pornography as an example of the right-wing nutjob allies of anti-pornography feminists. He is not an ally. He opposes pornography for all the wrong reasons, just like any man who confuses chivalry with genuine respect for women. I wonder what he considers hardcore or obscene. It is common for religious fanatics to conflate those terms with graphic, which obliterates the distinction between pornography and erotica. The apologists for pornography also like to downplay that distinction, so they can lump all opponents of pornography under the umbrella of sex-negative.
I wish it were possible to simply outlaw sexism and be done with it. The law can deal with some of the most blatant symptoms of sexism, but men cannot be forced to respect women. That has to be learned.