On Mon, 17 Jul 1995, Jim Moody wrote:

> >[...] 
> > 
> >> If the Internet is to become a mass market phenomenon, and believe 
> >> me, it will, something has to be done about alt.sex newsgroups and 


This is an unbelievably nauseating statement. For all the 
more-puritan-than-thou Net newcomers, the alt..sex newsgroups are not 
part of the commercially driven (oh woe) World Wide Web. The sex groups 
are part of Usenet, the notorious NONCOMMERCIAL part of the Internet 
that is unfriendly to market forces. Does anyone remember the Cantor & Siegal
flap from last year. God, are memories really so short (perhaps 
deliberately so)? 

Remarks like the one above show not only a naive 
grasp of the Internet, but demonstrate the very worst, selfish, steamroller
aspects of American capitalism. There are thousands, perhaps 
eventually millions, of 
Internet users who do not want to participate in commercial services or 
make use of commercial products online. These people do not want the 
"Market" determining what information and images they have access to.

Pornography, and discussions about human sexuality, are not inherently 
bad. The eagerness to squelch, block out, supress and deny access to 
sexual imagery speaks volumes about the confused, puritannical attitudes in 
this society. We loudly claim to be "protecting" our children, but it seems 
more likely we are desparately trying to protect ourselves from acknowledging 
and coping with uncomfortable realities.



> Sheesh, the only thing the Internet has to worry about is the hysterical
> over reaction of politicians catering to that segment of the population who
> apparently are driven to a frenzy by even the thought of someone discussing
> s_x. 


Yes, the politicians  who obviously care more about 
protecting our "decency" than about violating the first ammendment.


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End of online-news-digest V1 #248
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From owner-online-news-digest@marketplace.com Tue Jul 18 19:34:43 1995
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