Image courtesy of Blue Blood (the dot net version). But it’s Talk Like A Pirate Day, so there.
Interesting to see this item pop up on Reuters India: anti-porn people are not getting their way, so sad. Though the article’s claims that “the FBI has focused investigations on small operations” is untrue: the biggest porn companies have been targeted in 2257 recordkeeping raids since the start of 2007. Snip from FBI reluctance stalls Bush anti-pornography push:
President George W. Bush, twice elected with solid backing of conservative Christians, promised to curb adult pornography in the United States.
But the administration has had little effect on the $13 billion industry, anti-porn activists say, largely because the FBI has focused investigations on small operations producing extreme forms of smut instead of on the bigger companies.
Adult-obscenity investigations have taken a back seat to more pressing issues such as terrorism, even though former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales named obscenity as a top priority, two FBI officials said.
Internal FBI guidelines also encourage agents to focus on the most egregious violations — material that depicts rape, defecation or sex with animals.
Pornography producers “know that they don’t have to worry about being prosecuted because it’s only the small companies that are producing that kind of material,” said Patrick Trueman, who headed the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section between 1988 and 1993.
Even though the prosecution of child pornography has greatly increased, porn-industry insiders agree that adult business has not been dented, despite repeated promises by Bush and his attorneys general to be more aggressive.
(…) “What you have today is a whole generation of people who have grown up with pornography who don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” Trueman said.
Others question whether the government should be prosecuting adult pornography at all, arguing that its widespread appeal undermines the notion that it violates community standards. Commercial demand will always be better regulator than the threat of prosecution, they say.
Link.
Also — Thomas Roche has a really good sex news wrap this week at Eros Zine, check it out while I’m getting ready to dish on Tyra.
Also also — arrgh, hardcore pirates.
