10.11. Discussion Topics. What is your personal opinion about pornography on television? Pornography is a $8 billion business. Does this demonstrate real ‘community standards’? Should hardcore films be allowed to be shown on public television? Is a more conservative attitude preferable, like that of the USA, where topless women are not usually shown on terrestrial TV? What should be allowed on television? What should be allowed on the internet? What should be censored, and who should be responsible for doing it? Is this against our ideas of freedom of expression? Discuss the following: Toplessness, full nudity, sex, violence against men, violence against women etc. Nowadays, in the western world, virtually everybody has a television and / or a computer with Internet access in their sitting room, and often in their bedrooms too. The crux (the most important or serious part) of this argument must be what children should be allowed to see and what should be censored. What is the point of censoring national television, and only putting films and programmes with a high sexual content on late at night, if a child can have twenty-four hour internet and cable TV access? Online it is possible to see the most outrageous images on any theme at any time of day and night. This type of material with strong images and content must have a big effect on many children, but arguably has an enormous effect on many adults too. Many of the most dangerous violent criminals and perpetrators of sex crimes, fail to differentiate between fantasy and reality, and are undeniably influenced by material of this kind. So what is the solution? To censor everything? Who is going to decide who can or cannot handle certain information? Women are more often than not the victims. So should the logical step be to allow women to lead such campaigns? With so many brilliant female minds the task shouldn’t be a problem. No? So why in Britain and the US, do we have imaginationless, repressed Christian housewives such as Mary Whitehouse and the Washington wives doing the job? They simply object to anything that contains a swearword or a topless woman, but offer few worthwhile ideas. Spend the rest of the month arguing with your classmates about this. If you need anything else to stimulate a debate, here are two quotes. The first is from the American First Amendment, and the second from Justice Thurgood Marshall in a Supreme Court decision in the USA:

            ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.’

            ‘If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.’  Now pass over my copy of Playboy will you? …and turn the TV to Channel 69; they’re putting on a rerun of Hotbabes XXX.