As of last Monday, I have reached a milestone I knew I'd reach but never imagined myself reaching. Yep! I turned the big 5 - 0!!! I still don't quite feel "old" yet, but I can easily see I'm part of an older generation. It would be great to be young again, but at the same time I'm glad I was born when I was. Gen X is having a good run I'd say. I certainly do NOT want to sit around grousing about my age and my life lamenting "OMG I'M 50" all over the place. For one, it would be a waste of time and energy. But also for a bigger reason, obsessing over age is exactly what the baby boomers did.
Many of you younger millenials and all of Gen Z have only known boomers as these creaky old curmudgeons. But, those of us in Gen X witnessed the boomers when they started aging and, believe me, it was pathetic. Practically the moment the first boomer turned 30, age is all they would talk about. "Oh my God! I'm 30 now! What am I going to do??", is something we heard from them all of the time. There was even a prime time drama dedicated to placating these people:
That is a real show. It was a drama series with a highly depressive tone that was just 54 minutes of people trying their darndest to cope with the despondency of...................... being more than 30. I'm so proud of my generation for not getting like this. Millenials are in their 30's and 40's and they haven't said much about their aging either. We're watching Gen Z though. They could create shows on Netflix/Hulu?TikTok all about being "triggered over becoming old and cringe". Here's hoping that can be avoided.
OK! That's all about aging I'm going to talk about in this post and anywhere else. I'd like to spend the rest of this time talking about someone who everyone should be talking about more.
A man named Jose Rizal! He is a great man who made the ultimate sacrifice and started his home country of the Philippines on a path to freedom. It all started by him simply writing a book.
It all really started in 1521 when the explorer Ferdinand Magellan landed on the shores on the Philippines and conquered it for Spain. He and his conquistadors immediately and brutally imposed so much of Spanish culture on to the island inhabitants. Heck, the place was named Maharlika when before they showed up. Magellan then renamed it the Philippines after Prince Phillip, One of the biggest aspects of Spanish culture foisted upon the Filipine people was its catholicism, which still very much exists to this day.
This was all very much a way of life for the Philippines when Jose Rizal was born in 1861. He went to school just like every other kid at the time. However, his grades were so exceptionally high that he was granted the opportunity to attend university in Madrid, Spain. Living outside of his island country of origin gave Rizal a much broader perspective. He recollected all of the Catholic missions in the Phillipines run by the Spanish. Upon reflection, he could see just how restrictive and even abusive they were. This inspired him to write a book about his experiences with these missions: Noli Me Tángere (Touch Me Not)
You can pretty much guess how both the Spanish Government and the Vatican felt about Rizal's work. They weren't just mad because of the words he published, they were absolutely seething moreso because his book had sparked a revolt among the Phillipine populous. The United States then intervened on the Philippines' behalf and they were soon liberated from the iron fist rule of Spain.
Sadly, before that liberation could happen, by order of both the Spanish government and the Vatican, Rizal was executed by a firing squad on December 30, 1896. Still to this day in the Philippines, December 30th is a national holiday.
Someone being killed by two authoritarian institutions for the "crime" of expressing oneself is definitely someone who belongs among the pantheon of free speech heroes, much like other people we know:
FREE AT LAST! FREE AT LAST! GOD ALMIGHTY, HE'S FREE AT LAST!
So, in that spirit, attempted drawing a picture of Mr. Rizal.
Believe it or not, that topic has actually been raised in the passed few days. As a free speech advocate, I'm feeling the need to weigh in on this. I'm sure most people who support free speech in any way will answer the above question with a resounding "B'DOIIIIII!! YES IT IS!!!!" However, there are quite a few voices who are very adamantly declaring "OH NO IT'S NOT!!!" even insisting that it's somehow a free speech position to ban porn. How does that compute?
I, of course, am firmly on the side of "yes it is a form of speech" and I will gladly explain my entire position...
Uh huh huh huh huh! You said 'position'. Heh heh heh! Yeah!
[ahem].... that is, I will give my opinion on the subject here.
Pornography itself (as recorded by humans anyway) goes all the way back to ancient Greece. The images on those pots were depicting events of the day such as battles fought or whatever the kings were doing. However, some of those images are quite erotic depictions of sexual acts that they may have indulged in at the time. But it would be a waste of time (and a lot of unnecessary padding) to talk about the entire history of porn, simply because the debate going on right now is only concerned with porn as we know it today. So I will only go back as far as I need to. The porn we're most familiar with really started up around the hedonist trend that was happening in and around the late 60's and early 70's. The hippie counter-culture brought in what they felt was a more open and non-repressed attitude towards sex as well as other pressing issues of society. They wanted to put be provocative and show the world as it really is rather than some idealized bubble of it. This affected the movie industry for sure since this flew right into the face of the code that the Hays Office had imposed on them back in 1934. Hays gave everyone in Hollywood a strict list of things they could NOT put into any of their movies. For years, the backlash to this had been a film genre called "film noir" which had put all those forbidden elements into their movies in such a covert way that it was virtually impossible for anyone to complain about them. But, when the "summer of love" came around, the movement was a desire for those elements to be overtly used so as to show the true gritty nature of society. This lead to break through movies like Midnight Cowboy, The Graduate, and Fritz the Cat to name a few. It also lead to more gory violent fare such The Wild Bunch and pretty much every other movie Sam Peckinpah ever did. He introduced a level of bloodshed in movies that has not been topped or matched. The code didn't disappear at this time, it was just adjusted to work with this change. This is where the rating system of General, Parental Guidance, Parental Accompaniment, Restricted and of course X Rated were put in place. And yes, the aforementioned hedonist crowd wanted to make movies with content they like, so the XXX movie category was created. The basic hedonist philosophy is the indulgence of self-pleasure. So all of these XXX movies feature people doing just that, pursuing self-pleasure through sexual means. The hedonist trend subsided somewhat over the years, but pornographic movies still continued to be made. At this point, the XXX movies kind of flip-flopped their focus. They started to more-so portray a fantasy. Everyone in these movies seems to live a crazy fantasy world where sex happens all too easy and very very often. Sex almost seems to be literal currency in that world at times. It's basically aimed at people's basic id-like desires. That's why a lot of them are set in rather mundane and domestic situations such as the classic pizza delivery scenario. Sometimes a man thinks "Hey, that lady I just delivered pizza to is quite pretty. What if....?" or a woman sometimes thinks "Hey, that guy who just delivered pizza is quite handsome. What if....?" Of course, it's very dangerous to be giving your body to ever attractive stranger you meet in the real world. Very few people (barring the hedonists) would argue against that. It's to much different than the fantasy provided by movies such as Die Hard for example. Most people who enjoy that movie and others like it do so because they're thinking "Man! If I was trapped in a building full of terrorists, that's what I'd like to do." Hopefully none of the people thinking that will ever get the chance to test that theory because it could end badly for them. But, in the time frame of watching that movie, it's fun to indulge in the fantasy of it all.
If someone were to ban Die Hard from all media, I think we would all consider that censorship of the most Orwellian level and fight against it. So too must porn be protected under those same free expression laws. You can't support one form of expression and try to ban another, Marge Simpson.
Ok, I think we can all see how and why porn movies exist. However, we still need to answer the question presented in this blog's title: Is it a form of speech?
Well, as I mentioned earlier, these films present a hedonist philosophy and philosophy is certainly a form of speech. Therefore, this should absolutely close the case of pornography being a form of speech.
The truth is, every film, every book, every painting, pretty much every work of art created conveys a message of some sort whether the creator intended to convey one or not. I've heard people griping about comic books with political messages in them and say "I just want something fun, like people fighting zombies." Well, that fun comic of that zombie battle still has a message, that message being "escapism is fun". When a 3 year old girl draws a cat, the message that drawing conveys is "I like cats". Everything ever made has a message and is therefore considered speech. There are no two ways around that.
However, some people are still not convinced. Or, more accurately, there seems to be a movement of people dedicated to declassifying porn as a form of speech in order to justify attempting to ban it into oblivion. The charge seems to be lead by, of all organizations, this one:
Yes, the GAB website. This is the same website that first advertised itself as the "free speech alternative to Twitter".
They were so dedicated to upholding free speech online or otherwise that they objectively let some of the most vile people, even literal neo-nazis, start an account and post their views uninhibited. I guess if they weren't making any overt threats of harm to anyone it was allowable. They turn a blind eye to that, but somehow porn is a problem and should be declassified as speech and thus be suppressed and banned? How did they arrive at that thinking?
Well that's just stupid. That's like saying "I dare you to feed someone an apple and see if they come back with 'that was such a delicious orange'". Of course if one shows a movie with a Restricted rating or higher in a public square where even the smallest child can see it, people will get uneasy. However, GAB's proposed ban on pornography also extends to private showings where grown adults have to show valid ID and pay money in order to view such a thing. That is absolute censorship and absolutely flies against free speech and free expression.
Some of the people who support this porn ban take it a little further.
Yikes! But I'm sure Ron Jeremy has studied the art of "Cock Fu" so he could easily deal with such opponents with one HEYAAAAAW swing of his enormous erection.
Here's someone else that supports GAB's censorious crusade:
How can any of these people claim to be on the side of free speech while spouting so much of the drivel that many of the Cenor Monkeys would say???
Porn does not support traditional values. Ban it!
God hates porn, the Bible says! Ban it!
Porn demeans women! Ban it!
Porn affects the brain of all who watch it! Ban it!
Ban und annihilate porn und pornographers because ov what zose monkeys said! SIG HEIL!!!
At this point I'd like to bring up something that the late Peggy Charren once said. She was an activist who started an organization that ruined television with too many regulations and a boatload of censorship. I made a video about her some time ago. You can check that out at this link for more info about her.
You notice that I attacked her organization as censorious but not her. That's because her intent was not censorship at all, certainly not regulation of content. She was just concerned about any block of children's programming becoming one long commercial bombarding the kids with images of toys and cereal. She knew trying to "clean up" content for children was wrong and antithetical to a free society.
However, through her interactions with people in the television industry and those in her own organization, she made the following observation:
Left wing people tend to want to censor violent content while right wing people tend to want to censor sexual content.
We can certainly see evidence of that throughout history and especially today. In recent years, we've seen very left leaning people try to equate words they don't like with literal violence in order to justify the banning of those words. They claim "Oh no no no! It's not censorship because we're stopping violence actually." It's a huge leap of illogic that makes no cognitive sense for sure, but that is the Orwellian double speak they are trying to push. So, the obvious flip side of that authoritarian coin is this right wing attack on pornography, trying so bloody hard to convince everyone that it's "not speech" and is therefore subject to banning.
But I think there might be more to this demand for a porn ban. Here's what another supporter of that ban had to say:
Whoa! Wait! What? "...controlled by one group of people..."? "It's a weapon"? What the what huh??? What could any of this possibly mean?
Ah! There it is. GAB and their cronies consider porn to be a conspiracy concocted by Jews to undermine society somehow.
"What are you gonna do about it, whitey??!! Just sit there?!!"
There's that big fat straw breaking my camel-esque back. For real, Jewish people are not some monolith where they all think the same. No group is. Granted there are some sleazy people working in the the porn industry, but they consist of people from various walks of life and are of various races, religions, belief systems and genders. To try to assign one type of toxic behaviour to one group is pretty much the dictionary definition of bigotry.
I'd like to also address the sleaze within the porn industry that these far right wing pundits use to also justify the banishment of porn. They talk bout the heavy drug use that causes many performers to die much too young. Yes, that is tragic. However, for your consideration, I'd like to introduce you to one Bobby Driscoll.
He was the child star of the very family friendly live action Disney movie Treasure Island. He was also the voice of Peter Pan for the Disney company around that same time. Later in life, he was found dead of a heroine overdose in a back alley. Take also into consideration the lives of Judy Garland and River Phoenix. There's also Chris Farley, Dana Plato, Mabel Normand, and Carrie Fischer. These were all people who worked within the mainstream film/televison industry and who also got themselves into doing hard drugs which caused them to die younger than they could have or should have. The entire film industry in general is full of toxic people that one needs to avoid in order to survive. Just ask Cory Feldman. To only single out the porn film industry as toxic is prejudicial and silly. Either none of it's ok or it's all ok.
That last line leads me to my final and basic thought on the matter. Any prohibition made against the porn industry would lead to the creation (or even recreation) of obscenity laws, the same kind of laws that got Lennie Bruce in trouble so many times. Food for thought: if your stance on free speech and the basic expression of ideas would've gotten Lennie Bruce arrested, it's not a good stance. You need to check yourself to see just how in favour of freedom and democracy you really are.
Since this blog post's subject is about porn, I will end it with............. PORN!!!!!!
Ha ha! No, I gotcha! The parameters of this blog would have to be drastically changed if I actually embedded some porn on here. What I will show, however, is some classic hip hip from Salt n Pepa singing about a similar subject. Just like I did in this post, these ladies are laying it all out there regardless of whatever any censor monkeys might say and speaking frankly on a subject that needs to be talked about. Enjoy!
Yes it did and I was there. Since I've been enthusiastic about since it was first announced and did not just one but two blog posts about it when everyone was full of optimism about it (as well as one after shit was hitting high-powered fans everywhere), I should complete my mission and talk about my experience there.
It started with a huge speech by someone who kind of looked like Charlie Chaplain a little bit. I think his name was "Randolph" and I think I remember him talking about how he "hated Joes" or something. Sucks to be Joe I guess. Everyone else there claimed that they 'see Kyle'. Maybe that was the name of the guy at the front doing all of the blah blah chu chu? I was way in the back. I couldn't really see or hear much. "What? Blessed are the cheesemakers?"
Then some guy walked out onto a balcony and made great big speech about himself. I couldn't quite understand him because he had such a thick Italian accent. He sounded pretty sure of himself though.
Next a lion and a whole bunch of hyenas sang a song to us about the importance of being prepared. That was fun.
Then a man in the back said, "everyone attack" and it turned into a Ballroom Blitz!
Ha ha ha!!! No, none of those things happened. I'm just funnin' with ya! What did actually happen was a series of lectures and panels espousing the importance things like free speech, free expression and alternative media. It was one of the least safest spaces full of microagressions as well as toxic masculinity/femininity and it was GLOOOOOOOOOOOORIOUS!!!
Here's the full schedule:
As you can see, there is a wide range of topics and issues to discuss.
I did see improv guru Michael Guthrie talk about avoiding self censorship. I agree. He also made a speech the next day about staying optimistic in what looks like bleak times for free speech. For sure it's important to keep optimism if for no other reason than to just keep yourself in the fight so that you never give yourself to those who wish to control you. I also sat in for Roaming Millenial's speech about dangerous ideas. I agree with everything she said in that speech too. I'll post more about that later on. For whatever reason, I think Clayton Muirhead couldn't make it so his speech didn't happen. Oh well, that left more time for the one and only Christina Hoff Sommers, a veteran feminist from the '60's, to give her speech about the current state of feminism. She talked both about her experience of having her speech interrupted by angry students at, of all places, a law school as well as speeches being interrupted and even shut down entirely in other places of learning to other people. Needless to say, she is not happy about that one bit and sees this as a disturbing slide toward fascism which these student protesters seem to be leading. She was later interviewed by Bunty King where she reiterated those same concerns to him.
I sadly didn't get a chance to meet her and discuss these issues or even show her my book. Regardless, I'm sure she knows that her words and speeches are appreciated by attendees of Kilroy as well as people all over the world. I'd say that for every one fanatical SJW who wants to shut her down there are at least three open-minded people who want to hear everything she has to say. I for one hope she never stops spreading her word.
Youtube veteran Mundane Matt gave his own speech and was party to many panel discussions as well. His big talk was about how to stay alive on social media in these times when the entourages of @jack and/or Zuckerberg could ban you from their sites at any time for any reason. Oddly enough though, Matt, as well as another speaker whose online name is Rucka Rucka Ali seemed to be on @jack's and Zuck's side a little bit in this regard. Rucka went into much more detail about his position in his talk Intersectionality: Free Speech and Property. The position they both had on this point is that social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, are private companies that can run their businesses however they want. They both scoffed at the push for turning social media platforms into utilities like electricity and water are because that would simply move the power of banning social media users from private business owners to the government. Of course, any libertarian-leaning people who also advocate for absolute free speech everywhere also advocate for as little government interference as possible. In this same vein, Rucka Rucka Ali also had a problem with the Equal Employment Opportunity Act passed during the civil rights era. He felt this was the government interfering with private businesses and thus that made him feel uneasy. Feel free to discuss this topic in the comment section below if you feel the need to.
Oh hey. I even managed to make a quick doodle on the back of my program while waiting for one of the speeches to start. For some reason I always gravitate toward the American Monkey first when I think of my Censor Monkeys. I don't know why.
Anyway, it would be pretty dry of me to just go on about all of the speeches made at Kilroy though. Now I'll show the people I met there:
Bunny King for one. He's a marketing guru who's been kicked off Twitter more times than ISIS. Here he is holding and reading my book. I wanted just a shot of him with the book but he wanted me in the shot as well. So, be both compromised and got this oddly framed composition. Ah well. He's a fun guy to be with. Everyone in the world should meet him.
I also had the good fortune of meeting Roaming Millenial and showing her my book. This girl is tiny. She is built like Olive Oyl. She has to run around in the shower just to get wet. She could use a shoelace as a sleeping bag. If she's not careful, two Disney dogs could end up slurping her up at both ends. I've done enough body shaming type of 'tiny & skinny' jokes here. The rest of you can make up your own.
I also met and showed my book to Jeff Holiday. He was there to help moderate many of the panels at Kilroy. He's been making career online, mostly on Youtube, for the passed several years now. He's the one who set up and organized that What Is Kekistan video of which I was happy to participate.
Jeff is one of the nicest and most outgoing people one could meet. I hope everyone in the world gets to meet him someday.
I also managed to meet and show my book to the nam himself, Mundane Matt. He's also made a nice good living posting self made videos on Youtube and was one of the people who inadvertently spearheaded the saga that came to be known as #GamerGate. I had sent him a copy of this book some months ago and he recognized it. He even told me that he had even recorded a video talking about this book and would be uploading it at some point. When he does, I'll absolutely share it everywhere.
He's also a super nice approachable guy who could talk about movies for hours. I hope I get to meet him again in the near future.
I also met this guy wearing a shirt full of sexy ladies. I forget his full name but he told me that he is one of the producers for that documentary film The Red Pill Movie.
For those who don't know, this a documentary made by a feminist Cassie Jay. When she started making this film, her intent was to expose the Men's Rights Movement as deeply misogynistic in the hopes of shutting them down. However, upon listening to their arguments carefully, she found her self agreeing with all of their points and even supporting them. She found them to be anything but misogynists, even fighting for the same equality that she and her own feminist ideals were trying to achieve. Similar to the experience of Christina Hoff Sommers, this film has been met with huge backlash from SJW feminists and has had screenings cancelled because of the angry protests.
This man confided in everyone that Cassie Jay herself wanted to attend Kilroy but couldn't make it for personal reasons. Oh well, hopefully she can come to Kilroy when and if it's held next year.
And it should be held next year, and the next year after that, and another after that and so on. There should maybe even another one like it held this year. It is more than imperative that this should be done. Remember the original onus that inspired the creation of Kilroy in the first place. It was born out of free speech advocates who are completely frustrated by the setup at venues like Vid Con where the ones who push that SJW narrative such as the likes of Anita Sarkeesian are given a big stage and a microphone to free give her point of view. Meanwhile, open critics of that narrative, such as Sargon of Akkad, are regulated to audience members of that stage. Sadly, it looks like that's as big a compromise as the event's organizers are willing to make. Kilroy was meant to alleviate that unbalance and give the critique of narratives equal opportunity to be heard. We need more speeches like the one Roaming Millennial made at Kilroy:
She's posted the entire speech on her channel so you can go there to see the whole thing. Rather than post that entire speech here, I'll just go ahead and post a link to her entire youtube channel. It's all good. She has wisdom well beyond her years. Whether you agree with her positions or not, you will not be disappointed.
Anyway, Kilroy was fun. I don't regret going there. I'd gladly go again if I could find the time and money. For the preservation of free speech, free expression, and 'free to be decadent' western ideals in general, Kilroy must happen again and again and again. Here's hoping I see all of you Keks and more next time.
