Porn not a problem

Recently, the chief justice of India, K G Balakrishnan, brought back to focus a very important affecting the virtual world. While financial fraud is a big threat to those doing business online, the spread of hate messages could threaten the peace and harmony of any country.

But pornography? The one thing that has left the cyber space divided is his emphasis on the need to ban websites that exclusively circulate pornography.

Now, for any government to plan any such ban would be a very bold move and would require strong reasons to defend it.
Because, voices can be raised against pornography only on moral grounds, and any such protest would be confronted with the question: ‘How can anyone else decide what I can watch?’ And how can the government preach on morality when it is yet to provide basic amenties to hundreds of millions of people to lead a normal life?

More on the moral factor later. First, what would constitute pornography, for several of the Hollywood movies involve not only frontal nudity, but also scenes of sexual acts? And banning such movies would only deprive the Indians of very good quality movies.

And I wonder what purpose banning of websites that exclusively circulate pornography would serve, for most of these sites charge for access to the content. Since owning a credit card is not easy or simple in the country, trying to stop someone who is more than willing to spend in dollars to satisfy his/her voyeuristic desires would be a herculean task, and send them in search for other avenues.

More importantly, once these videos are released, many of them are circulated through emails, which will be very difficult to stop.

Agreed that morphing and sleazy videos taken through hidden/candid cameras not only invade people’s privacy and wreak havoc on their lives and they have to be dealt with seriously. No person in his/her sense would endorse such acts, for they are violation of a person’s basic rights.
But porn does not necessarily mean home made videos. And in fact with proper enforcement of laws, they should be checked.

Otherwise, pornography is just yet another commodity, certainly not a service. And what is wrong in that, or how does that affect any person’s life, when it is regulated?

It’s hard to believe that we are in the same century as Copenhagen is in, where the sex workers recently took on the city mayor. After the city council sent postcards to hotels urging guests not to buy sex, the sex workers offered free sex to anyone who produced the offending postcard to them.

This is freedom in the broadest sense.

There are countries where prostitution is illegal, but pornography is not. And our country has reached a stage where it be debated if prostitution should be lagalised. Then it would be very ironical if we think of banning pornography websites.

Like strict enforcement of prohibition has often seen rise in the consumption of spurious illicit liquor, banning of porn websites could only rise to other media.

And anti-porn proponents who want to cite exploitation as a reason, should answer to themselves whether the migrants labours working at construction sites and in hazarduous conditions have taken up the job williningly, or are not being exploited?

And if we want to end expoitation and trafficking of women, the government should strive to make their lives better in the rural areas.

Doesn’t banning pornography for fear of exploitation sound akin to asking women to not get married, because a majority of women suffer domestic abuse in marriage?

Worried about the welfare of the actors? Then the government should not just leaglise porn and prostitution, but empower them. In fact, then it will be easier to monitor porn for and check pedophilia , morphing and even videos taken through hidden cameras.

However, For the viewer, it is just yet another programme watching online. And a person who has access to personal system or has the knowledge and money to access these content online, does not need to be dictated on what is good or bad for them.

In the absence of sex education, a society which looks at the western countries with awe and wants to ape every act of theirs, but has not or is not able to, porn gives a good ground for the youngsters, and even married couples to some extent, to explore and free themselves.

At the end of the day, isn’t it all about roti, kapda and sex?