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• Child Molestation (71)
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• Debate on the Issues (212)
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• Porn Examples--Judge for Yourself (40)
• Porn Industry (105)
• Prostitution (131)
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• The Berlin CT Experience (6)
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• Viewing Booths (37)
• What You Can Do (122)

HiStats counts date from 5/12/07. The NoPornNorthampton website was launched in 2006.

Northampton and environs

Ask the Valley Advocate's Publisher to Drop the Massage/Escort Ads

Ask the City of Springfield to use "amortization" to get adult businesses to comply with current zoning laws that protect homes and schools

As appropriate, register complaints about Capital Video's porn shop with the building inspector, police, board of health, the mayor or the city council

If the Capital Video store hurts the interests of its neighbors (e.g. secondary effects, unsafe traffic flows, overflowing parking, disruptive patrons or offensive signage), a nuisance claim may be appropriate

Tell Capital Video attorney Michael Pill of Shutesbury (contact information) how you feel about his efforts to help a convicted criminal with mafia ties set up a hard-core porn shop next to homes, churches, counseling centers and a bike trail (see PDF) in Northampton

Contact your Northampton City Councilor

Write a letter to the Daily Hampshire Gazette

Write a letter to The Republican

All regions

Download and distribute these free posters against pornography and prostitution from the Not For Sale Media Project

Help Us Spread the Word Online (quick and easy)

Ask Monster to reject Capital Video's job ads

Ask Blue Razor to decline Capital Video's website registration business (explicit language)

Ask directNIC to decline Capital Video's website registration business

Report degrading billboards to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America

Patronize hotels that do not offer in-room adult movies and support the "Clean Hotels" Initiative

Divest from the media companies, telecoms, hotels and other corporations that profit from porn

Ask Calvert (a socially responsible mutual fund firm) to divest from porn distributors

Counter the bad education of porn with better sex education in the schools

"Conversations key to children's safety"

Challenge the liquor licenses of adult enterprises that hurt the surrounding community

Advocate for intelligent prostitution laws that are easy on women, tough on johns

Combat sex trafficking at the Polaris Project's TraffickingResourceCenter.org

All employers must comply with OSHA regulations on working with/cleaning up certain bodily fluids. Report non-compliant adult enterprises to OSHA.

How the People Reclaimed Oklahoma City from a Major Eruption of Adult Businesses and Crime

More actions to come...

Email info@nopornnorthampton.org, write to NoPornNorthampton, 351 Pleasant Street, PMB 101, Northampton, MA 01060-3961, or call 413-320-2027. Please indicate if your comments should be kept private.

Please email your comments to info@nopornnorthampton.org. Please indicate if your comments should be kept private.

11/25/07: NoPornNorthampton Offers 500,000+ Words of Innovative Porn-Fighting Power

5/1/07: NoPornNorthampton Reaches Out to Springfield Neighborhood with Advice on Adult Enterprises

1/11/07: Northampton Citizens Appeal Adult Store Approval in Land Court

11/6/06: Northampton, Massachusetts Passes Zoning to Safeguard Homes from Large Adult Businesses

8/17/06: NoPornNorthampton Issues an Open Letter to Barry G. and Annette E. Goldberg of Longmeadow, MA

7/6/06: NoPornNorthampton Fights Porn King's Plans for Northampton, Massachusetts

NO V.I.P. in Berlin, CT

Keep Johns Creek Safe (Georgia)

Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)

Herbert, Brooks and Osayande on Misogyny, Money and Power; Amazing.net's War on Women and Blacks (explicit)

Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Privacy and Consent (explicit)

Amazing.net: Making Nazis Sexy (explicit)

Now on Sale at Amazing.net: The Swirlies (explicit)

Childhood Spanking Linked to Coerced Sex and Risky Sex in Adulthood; Amazing.net Milks Pain for Profit (explicit)

Now on Sale at Capital Video: Watch Women Eat Their Own Poop (explicit)

Gag Factor #20 (explicit)

Violent, misogynistic movies

Movies that promote infidelity, despair, call women "sluts" and "whores"

Movies that feature "Bubble Gum Virgins"

Capital Video's Magazine Rack: Bondage, Racism and More

Capital Video: Purveyors of Shame Feature a New "Celebrity Sex Tape Scandal" (explicit language)

Abusive Relationships and Porn: The Similarities (explicit language)

Some of these pages have explicit language.

Here are posts on our blog that give particular attention to the "secondary effects" of sexually oriented businesses. These effects include an increased risk of crime, disease, failure of surrounding businesses, reduced property values, hazardous trash and harassment of passersby. These risks are the ones that motivate cities to enact zoning and health regulations on sexually oriented businesses, and the reasons why courts uphold these regulations. Adult businesses aren't just about speech. They're about physical impacts on people and neighborhoods. That makes them a public issue.

The Evidence of Relationships Between Adult-Oriented Businesses and Community Crime and Disorder

The Case for Secondary Effects

Secondary Effects Across America: 1977-1999

Crime, Nuisances Motivate Cities to Regulate the Location of Adult Entertainment Uses

How the Supreme Court Reconciles Adult-Use Zoning with the First Amendment

US Fifth Circuit Appeals Court Affirms that Evidence of Secondary Effects of "Off-Site Consumption" Adult Enterprises Is Sufficient To Justify Zoning

Viewing Booths and HIV

Full Text of Springfield's Decision to Deny Capital Video's 2008 Viewing Booth Entertainment License

Springfield Republican: "Ryan shuts adult shop booths"

Full Text of Springfield's Decision to Revoke Capital Video's [2007] Viewing Booth Entertainment License

Gazette: "Porn store's viewing booths raise stink in Springfield"

Springfield Police Commissioner: "...it is fair to say that 'Amazing' constitutes an attractive nuisance that contributes to blighted conditions there"

Capital Video's Springfield Porn Shop Repels Sought-After Businesses

Capital Video Springfield: Secondary Effects Extend to Prostitution; Actions the City Can Take

Springfield, MA: License Commission to Review Alleged Capital Video Violations for Drug Sales and Lewd Activity On or Near the Premises

Prosperous Minneapolis Commercial Area Blighted by Proliferation of Adult Enterprises

Testimony in Minneapolis: Secondary Effects Around Adult Theaters; Police Suggest that Concerned Citizens Move Away

Detroit Police Testimony: What I Saw at the Melody Theater

Journal of Planning Literature: Adult Bookstores Often Increase Fear of Crime, Discourage Walking

New York City Planners Document Secondary Effects of Adult Uses, Support Zoning

Giuliani Understood How "Small Things" Matter

New York City Porn Shops Depress Demand for Neighboring Properties

San Francisco: Loss of Porn Shop Brings Hope to Tenderloin District

Even Hollywood Moved to Crack Down on Its Adult Businesses

California Supreme Court Ruling Helps Communities Preserve Quality of Life While Leaving Room for Free Expression

Local Businesses Say Porn Shop Hurts Downtown Ypsilanti

Impact of Porn Shops on a Community

Des Moines, WA: Adult Uses Cause Business Failures, Scare People Away

Law Article: "Preventing the Secondary Effects of Adult Entertainment Establishments: Is Zoning the Solution?"

Carolyn McKenzie: Undercover with the Viewing Booths (explicit language)

US Court of Appeals Upholds Minneapolis Regulation of Porn Viewing Booths

Secondary Effects: Town of Islip

The Kittery Experience

The Blaine Experience

The Raynham Experience

See Northampton's new signage (PDF) and adult-use ordinances

Quickly search the municipal codes of many North American cities and towns for adult enterprise regulation at General Code's E-Code Library

US Appeals Court Upholds Daytona Zoning and Public Nudity Ordinances; No Grandfathering for Lollipop's Gentlemen's Club; Rebutting Daniel Linz

See Local Regulation of Adult Businesses by Jules B. Gerard and Scott D. Bergthold

A Comprehensive Overview of Regulating Sexually Oriented Businesses

Massachusetts Towns Use Zoning to Regulate Adult Businesses

Struggle Over "Love Shack" in Georgia; New City Adopts State-of-the-Art Adult-Use Ordinance

Townsend, MA: A Robust Adult-Use Zoning Bylaw

Springfield Tightened Adult-Use Regulations in 1993 in Response to Citizen Concerns

Chicopee Noted Springfield, Holyoke Problems with Adult Businesses, Passed Zoning Regulations in 1993 and 1994

Massachusetts Land-Use Planner: "If communities take time now to look at their zoning regulations, you can really lessen the impact dramatically so (an adult-entertainment business) doesn't pop up next to a high school, church or day-care center"

Kittery, Maine Regulates Viewing Booths to Curb Disease, Hazardous Trash

Blaine, Washington Uses Zoning to Keep Adult Businesses from Halting Revitalization Efforts

Citizens, Officials Use Zoning to Protect Quality of Life in Berlin, Connecticut

Hooksett, NH, 1999: Citizens Convince Property Owner to Withdraw Application for Capital Video Porn Shop

Law Professors Provide Comprehensive Sample Adult-Use Ordinance for City Planners

US Supreme Court Sets Reasonable Guidelines for Adult-Use Zoning in City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books (2002)

Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA): Zoning Balances First Amendment with Community Concerns

State Senator Stanley Rosenberg (D-Amherst): "I recognize the courts have upheld the Constitutional Rights of people to buy and sell these materials. The courts have also said governments have the right to regulate where such materials are sold."

Testimony in Minneapolis: Role of Porn in Child Sexual Abuse; Pornographers Perpetuate, Profit from Dysfunction

Testimony in Los Angeles: Psychologists Underestimate the Role of Porn in Sex Offenses

Psychiatrist Rapes Patient as 'Therapy' for Her Inhibitions

Testimony in Minneapolis: With Growth of Porn, Rapists Show Less Remorse

Testimony in Minneapolis: "Prevalency of pornography amongst our offenders"

Porn and Sex Crimes in Other Countries: The Historical Experience

Exposure to pornography as a cause of child sexual victimization

Testimony in Minneapolis: Offenders Use Porn to Convince Children that Child Sex is Normal and Pleasurable

Some porn hard to distinguish from training for pedophiles (explicit language)

Testimony in Minneapolis: Pornographic materials often found in homes with child sexual abuse

Testimony in Minneapolis: Ice cream man uses porn magazine to interest children in sex

Porn contributes to divorce; used by pedophiles and rapists

Porn a factor in many sex offenses

Robert Jensen: Influence of Pornography on Sex Offenders (explicit language)

Role of porn in sex crimes

Porn: One rapist's story (explicit language)

We distinguish porn, which is generally harmful, from erotica, which can be harmless or even beneficial. The distinction is not absolute, but we suggest that erotica is that which supports love (examples), and porn is that which destroys love (examples).

Jill Manning writes, "While erotica has also been defined as literature or art intended to arouse sexual desire, it is distinguished from pornography in that it is void of violence, illegal portrayals (e.g., children), sexism, racism, and homophobia, and is respectful of the human beings involved."

An article in The Guardian suggests that porn is much more about power and domination than erotica is. An article in Writer's Digest suggests that porn is about masturbation, while erotica is about "sexual journeys ripe with character development". Hugo Schwyzer argues that porn is about having shallow experiences with lots of people, while eros is about having deep experiences with the same person.

Here are some characteristics we associate with porn:
mechanical
mindless
uncaring
exploitative
imbalance of power
lack of consent
taking without permission
selfish
careless
heedless
simplistic
shallow
objectifying
deceptive
cheating
violating
rough
harsh
inflicting pain
degrading
humiliating
unloving
actors not proud of product
actors disdain audience

Here are some characteristics we associate with erotica:
humane
mindful
caring
respectful
communicative
listening
consensual
balance of power
mutual pleasure
integrity
wholeness
sharing
thoughtful
deep feelings
loving
actors proud of product
actors respect audience

A complex work of art may have characteristics from both groups. It might be hard to apply a simple label to it. However, most porn is not that complex. You will not find much Henry Miller or Anais Nin in your typical porn shop.

While erotica may empower women, porn disempowers them. This is easy to see in the workplace, where porn has been used to harass and intimidate female coworkers.

Ultimately, the biggest difference between porn and erotica has to do with the long-term effect on the viewer, as well as the conditions under which the entertainment was made. By educating people as to the potential harms of adult materials, we hope they can look inside themselves to judge the healthiness of their media diet.

The following might be signs of unhealthy consumption of porn:

You feel guilty, ashamed, alienated, sad, confused, unsatisfied, or angry after viewing porn.

You generally feel bad about yourself.

You're afraid other people might discover what you're watching.

You experience negative consequences at work from your consumption of porn, or you fear possible consequences.

You start looking at pretty people purely as sex objects that you'd like to possess.

You treat people the way you see people in pornography treated.

You become more hostile or aggressive toward other people in your life.

You find that you are becoming increasingly critical of other people's physical imperfections.

You find it stimulating when porn performers appear to be experiencing pain, or are crying.

You notice your relationships, particularly your intimate ones, becoming unstable, coarse and conflict-ridden.

You become dissatisfied with how your partner expresses himself or herself sexually.

You need to remember images or scenes from pornography in order to have sex with someone.

When you are having sex with someone, images or scenes you've seen in pornography "get in the way"--they come into your mind and won't go away, even if you want them to.

You find that you prefer spending time alone with porn, rather than engaging with a companion or attempting to find one.

You sense that you are not growing emotionally as time passes, that you are stuck in habits that are not very satisfying.

You find that you have to consume more and more porn, or more explicit and violent porn, to become stimulated.

[Some of the above appears in Men Confront Pornography, p.294]

--------
Clinician M. Douglas Reed offers further warning signs of porn addiction here.

--------
Robert Jensen offers these definitions of pornography in Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (p.3):
"Pornography is the material sold in pornography shops for the purpose of producing sexual arousal for mostly male customers... Second, from a critical feminist analysis, pornography is a specific kind of sexual material that mediates and helps maintain the sexual subordination of women."

--------
The films sold by Capital Video appear to us to be firmly on the porn side of the spectrum. They are violent, misogynistic, and promote despair and infidelity.

Porn is education--bad education.

Healthy Sexual Behavior
Mutual consent (free will)
Behavior is a want or desire
Fulfilling, enhancing, mood stabilizing
Personal interchange of emotion
Rare negative consequences
Enhanced self-worth
Sexual behavior is fulfilling, satiating
Balanced sexual behavior

Addictive Sexual Behavior
Coercion, victimization, and force
Behavior is a compulsion for instant gratification
Associated with severe mood shifts
Impersonal and emotional detachment
Negative consequences
Negative self-worth, shame, guilt
Lack of satiation, tolerance
Erratic sexual behaviors (excessive vs. anorexic)
__________
Coleman-Kennedy, C. & Pendley, A. (2002). Assessment and diagnosis of sexual addiction. Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, 8(5), 143–151.

Springfield Republican Reports on Strippers Lawsuit Against Strip Clubs

Iceland Criminalizes Strip Clubs

Springfield Republican: "1 dead, 5 seriously injured in shooting rampage at Springfield strip club" (5/31/09)

Springfield Republican: "Man fatally shot inside strip bar"

A Review of Stripped: Inside the Lives of Exotic Dancers

Profitable Exploits: Lap Dancing in the UK

The Truth About Lap Dancing: A Performer Speaks Out

Why Investors Should Shun Strip Club Profits

Strip Clubs: Dancers Pay to Work There
...the girls who work there, the dancers...pay $150 to $200 a shift for the privilege of working... I asked one guy in the business, "What's the biggest risk to your business model?" He said if the government stops immigration from Eastern Europe.

"Waitressing, I cleaned the floors and I own a box of men's wedding rings that I found on the floor."

A Review of Sherry Lee Short, "Making hay while the sun shines: The dynamics of rural strip clubs in the American Upper Midwest, and the community response"

The Truth About Lap Dancing: A Performer Speaks Out

Carolyn McKenzie: Disease, Intoxicants Prevalent Among Strip Dancers (explicit language)

Former Stripper Tells Easthampton Hearing about the Life: It Stinks

Springfield Republican Reports on Strip Clubs and the Mafia

Strip Club Tips: How to Savor an Exquisite Blend of Fantasies, Lies, Exploitation and Despair (explicit language)

Strip Poker Men's Club: Women's Lib to Blame for Men's Going to Strip Clubs

Activist Strategies: Indiana Feminists Block "Girls Gone Wild"; Berlin Resident Fights Strip Club Liquor License with Remonstrance Petition

Porn Past Haunts Women Long After Pictures Taken

Porn Stars Melissa-Ashley and Jenna Jameson Confront Rude Fans, Actors... (explicit language)

Raffaëla Anderson and the French Porno Industry (explicit language)

Porn Director: The Idea that Porn Actresses Are Not Prostitutes Is Silly (explicit language)

Jenna Jameson's Cautions to Would-Be Porn Stars

Interview with Ex-Porn Star Traci Lords: Abused as a Child; High on the Set; Power, Not Arousal; Bad Pay

Ex-Porn Star Shelley Lubben Talks about Days on the Set: Tedious, Intoxicated, Painful, Risky

Kink.com: Bondage Porn Gone Chillingly, Cheerfully Corporate (explicit language)

New York Times: "The Girls Next Door"; Worldwide Sex Trafficking; Role of Porn

Pornoland's unwritten law: "if we tell the truth about what's really going on here, the fan will get turned off"

Kara Nox, adult film star, on "What don't you like about porn?"
A: ...Mostly, it's the attitude among many men that I'm subhuman. The degradation of women is getting worse. Conditions for women on set are becoming more and more dangerous. As porn grows, more men with Neanderthalean views of women are getting power as talent, and producers. The results are increased acceptance of violence onset. Women face enough danger outside of porn. It seems as though many of the men we fear are now doing porn, and they legitimize their misogyny by saying it's for entertainment value. That scares the shit out of me, because it means there are even more troglodytes watching this, and getting off on women being hurt.

Child Porn Mogul: A View from the Inside (explicit language)

Although the industry is dependent on fans for survival, many of the respondents reported a fairly negative image of the imagined viewer... Ironically, then, actresses and actors are motivated in part to receive recognition from a group they know little about and often disparage... (explicit language)

Lizzy Borden: We don't shoot "all the lovey-dovey stuff that there's not a big market for" (explicit language)

Porn Merchant Implies: Host Community Put at Risk So Outsiders Might Enjoy Themselves

Notorious Pornographer: Giant Porno Stores Not Appropriate for Residential Neighborhoods (explicit language)

Testimony in Massachusetts: Johns who like porn are the "most dangerous and potentially violent" (explicit language)

Testimony in Minneapolis: Prostitutes and Porn (explicit language)

Realities of Teen Prostitution Mock Notions of 'Sex Work', 'Sex-Positive', 'Freedom' and 'Empowerment'; Media Glamorizes Pimps

The profits from porn movies and phone sex flow through several "blue-chip" American corporations. These include Holiday Inn, Marriott, AOL Time Warner, Comcast, EchoStar Communications, DirecTV, Adelphia, Cox Communications, Charter Communications, Cablevision Systems and AT&T. If you own shares in these companies, you might consider discussing the matter with their shareholder relations departments, or simply selling their shares.

See more at Major Corporations Profit from Porn, Gail Dines Presents: Pornography and Pop Culture (explicit), Strip Clubs Are the Next Hot Thing on Wall Street, and A Hostile Work Environment: The Porn Sections of Movie Gallery Video Stores.

View and search Northampton's current municipal code online here.

On November 2, 2006, the Northampton City Council approved ordinances that regulate signage with adult content (PDF) and require that establishments with porn viewing booths must be located in Northampton's Highway Business District and be at least 500 feet from homes, schools and houses of worship. In addition, a business with over 1,000 square feet of adult material on display must also be located in the Highway Business District and be at least 500 feet away from homes, schools and houses of worship. See more about the ordinances regarding size and location of adult businesses. See the Daily Hampshire Gazette's support for this legislation.

NoPornNorthampton also advocates the adoption of health regulations to ensure the safety and cleanliness of porn viewing booths, should any be established in Northampton. The city has not taken formal action on this as of yet.

See how your city officials are voting on adult-use zoning and matters relating to Capital Video:

Northampton Planning Board Approves Capital Video's Site Plan (December 14, 2006)

Northampton City Council on Adult Signage, Location of Adult Enterprises (November 2006)

Northampton Planning Board on Adult Signage, Location of Adult Enterprises (September & October 2006)

Building Inspector Complaint Form (PDF)

Zoning Board of Appeals Appeal Application (PDF)

Use this Custom Search Engine to search the City of Northampton website, courtesy of Northamptonist.

NPN Asks Northampton Building Inspector to Revoke Capital Video's Building Permit; He Declines on 2/26/07 (PDF). Supplemental material: Example of Victoria's Secret display.

Building Permit Issued to Capital Video, 2/8/07 (PDF)

Capital Video Submits Final Components of Application for Building Permit, 1/18/07 (PDF)

Northampton Planning Board Narrowly Approves Capital Video's Site Plan in 4-3 Vote, Recorded on 12/21/06 (PDF)

Capital Video claims traffic for their "specialty retail" store will be light, but a video rental classification is more appropriate (PDF, 12/13/06)

Capital Video Plays Hardball, Proposes Bondage Display for Store, Attorney Disses Community Opposition Ahead of 12/14/06 Public Hearing (shows revised plans for retail floor space)

Capital Video Capitulates to New Zoning, Revises Plans for 135 King Street (12/3/06 letter from attorney Michael Pill)

Capital Video tries to trigger zoning freeze to evade new Northampton ordinances, fails (PDF, early December 2006)

Northampton's adult-use zoning ordinances as approved by the City Council on 11/2/06

Northampton City Council minutes of 11/2/06 showing new ordinance to regulate the adult content of signage (PDF)

Northampton Department of Public Works memo to Planning Board re: Capital Video's plans (PDF, 10/26/06)

Update to Capital Video's Plans for 135 King Street through late September 2006

Capital Video's latest plans for 135 King Street
(September 2006: 6,222 square feet, no viewing booths)

The Goldbergs' large mortgage on 135 King Street

Northampton zoning map shows central location of 135 King Street

Neighbors of porn shop to include homes, School of Dance, counseling centers and churches--A Brief Photo Tour

Satellite photo shows schools, churches near 135 King Street

Satellite photo shows homes surrounding 135 King Street

On the satellite photos, observe the railroad tracks that run right behind 135 King Street. A bike trail is also planned to run beside the tracks (see PDF map). Presumably the bike trail will be used by many children. Many residents have expressed concern that a porn shop may attract prostitutes, drug dealers, and sexual predators to this area. The thick vegetation bordering the tracks provides many potential hiding places.

A quick check of Mapquest reveals that 135 King Street is less than a mile and a half from Exit 20 on I-91. People have expressed concern that porn consumers from around the region will converge on the King Street porn shop to avail themselves of the hardcore material to be sold there.

--------------
California Division of Occupational Safety and Health: Vital information for workers and employers in the adult film industry: Health hazards in the adult film industry; Bloodborne pathogens; Even workers who are paid as independent contractors may be considered employees under the law; How to file complaints and get help

Where can I find statistics about Internet porn?

TechCrunch and DeerBeards cite the following statistics from Good Magazine:

* There are an estimated 372 million porn web pages
* 12% of all websites are pornographic
* 266 new porn sites go online daily
* 25% of all search engine requests are porn related
* Sex is the most searched word on the Internet
* 35% of all Internet downloads are pornographic in nature
* 89% of porn is created in the US
* $2.84 billion in revenue was generated from US porn sites in 2006
* 72% of porn viewers are men

Are you advocating censorship? Why not let people choose the media they want to consume?

We are not advocating censorship. We don't want to establish any board of censors, nor do we want to see people arrested for consuming currently legal forms of porn. What we are trying to do is to educate people, and demonstrate why they should exercise judgment and restraint on their own. We hope this will reduce the demand for porn, and induce businesspeople to think twice about making money from suffering.

If people are going to make a choice, we want it to be an informed choice.

We do support modest zoning and health regulations for certain adult businesses to mitigate their well-known risks to the surrounding community (see About "Secondary Effects" above). These regulations are no more strict than those found elsewhere in America. Capital Video, and the porn industry as a whole, have left a highly visible trail of tears in their wake. Must we repeat the miserable experience of other people and other towns with regulations that are too lax?

Some people argue that the reasonable regulation of an activity is tantamount to banning it. This is absurd. The government regulates many activities, including many kinds of speech. The government regulates the gasoline you can put in your car. Does that mean it really wants to ban gasoline or the act of driving? It regulates the disposal of toxic waste. Does that mean it wants to ban toxic waste or all the activities that produce it? It regulates the time, place and manner in which businesses may serve alcohol. Does that mean it wants to ban drinking?

Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, has been at the forefront of those who equate anti-pornography with censorship. Diana Russell rebuts Strossen's arguments here.

You just want to roll society back to the way things were in the 1950s, or maybe the 1650s, don't you?

No. The sexual revolution and other developments since the 1950s have brought important gains, such as more opportunities for women and more rights and respect for the GLBT community. At the same time, today's society has problems. Rates of divorce are persistently high, with troubling impacts on children. Rates of sexually transmitted disease are "a major public health challenge". About one-half of all pregnancies are unintended. Rates of domestic violence and child sexual abuse are high. Domestic violence and sex crimes go unreported on a large scale.

We don't want to roll back the clock and give up the changes that were good. We want to preserve these gains while moving forward to address the current problems. Porn is part of what's holding our society back. It portrays sexuality in a way that generally ignores the problems and risks or even makes fun of them. The messages of porn can and should be countered with more complete and accurate information about sexuality and relationships.

We appreciate that there is a long-standing romantic vision that if we can only dispense with all 'unnatural' social restraints, a sexual utopia will envelop the world. Unfortunately, the reality is when you dispense with all restraints, the strong come to oppress the weak. This is exactly what we're witnessing between porn producers and performers, between porn shops and communities, and between porn viewers and victims.

The wisdom lies in deciding which social restraints to loosen, which to leave alone, and which to strengthen, not in abandoning them altogether.

By the way, Northampton's Puritans had a lot more sex than you might think.

Some women watch or make porn. Doesn't that mean that porn is harmless to women, or even liberating?

Being stimulated by or profiting from the subjection of others is a common human failing, and some women are seduced by it. "Madams", for example, have been around for a long time. Other women believe that a callous attitude shows that they are as tough as men, that they can compete in a man's world. This phenomenon is explored in Female Chauvinist Pigs.

That said, the substantial majority of today's porn viewers are men. 36.9 percent of the respondents to a Ball State University survey (2004-2005) acknowledged visiting a porn site within the last month or more frequently. The percentages were 49 percent among men, and only 17 percent among women. Internet Filter Review finds that of the 10% of adults who admit to Internet sexual addiction, only 28% of these are women. A 2005 article from MediaPost elaborates on the size and composition of the online audience for porn.

While we agree it is possible to make egalitarian erotica, today's porn is overwhelmingly about domination and abuse, even when the director is female. The target of this abuse is usually a woman. Read about one woman's journey out of watching porn, as she realized it was a cheap way of making herself feel good at the expense of others.

The First Amendment has only three exceptions: obscenity, libel, and speech that causes immediate harm. Any other restriction on speech, no matter how slight, is impermissible censorship, is it not?

The First Amendment is worthy of high respect, but the courts recognize many more exceptions than is commonly realized. For example, many regulations cover commercial speech, there are rules governing where you can "electioneer" on Election Day, and it is illegal to possess child porn. In the latter case, the Supreme Court holds that the value of child porn is so small, and the benefits of suppressing it are so great, that it is acceptable to censor it. Even the ACLU supports this position, at least when actual children are involved. We encourage you to read the court's detailed reasoning.

What do you have to say to claims that porn is cathartic, that it actually reduces the incidence of rape?

The balance of the evidence (scientific studies, personal testimony) suggests to us that porn in fact stimulates rape and confuses people about what's acceptable behavior (such as whether to take no for an answer during sex). We explore these issues in greater detail here.

The harms of porn are illusory. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say the harm stems from the stigma and shame surrounding porn?

Sometimes shame and stigma are unwarranted and toxic, but sometimes they are valuable signals that something is wrong. The stigma surrounding porn reflects people's understandable aversion to the sexism, racism, exploitation, abuse, disease, crime and blight that are associated with porn and adult enterprises. The key is assigning shame and stigma to where they belong--the oppressor, not the victim.

In 1983, Robin Morgan reported that "[T]he work of Dr. Natalie Shainess (psychiatrist of New York) and Dr. Frank Osanka [sic] (psychologist and child-abuse specialist, Chicago) show that convicted rapists who, even five to seven years ago, expressed remorse about their acts of violence, recently show no such remorse and often cite as a reason for their guiltlessness that 'everyone knows women want to be raped; all the porn stuff proves that.'"

When shame and stigma restrain someone from harming another, that strikes us as healthy and appropriate. It is dangerous for porn to erode the sense of shame felt by abusers and sexual predators. Examples of this at work are the cartoons of Hustler, which frame abuse as entertainment, something not to be taken seriously.

You say porn harms, but are you really just saying porn offends you?

The harm is real whether or not a particular person finds porn offensive. Rebecca Whisnant clarifies the distinction between offensiveness and harm in "Confronting pornography: Some conceptual basics" (p.22, see our review of this article):

Offense, we have repeatedly stressed, is a way of feeling bad, which can usually be avoided or ended by avoiding the stimulus that triggers the bad feeling... Harm is different. It is an objective condition, not a way of feeling; to be harmed is to have one's interests set back, to be made worse off... Whether a person is harmed or not does not depend on how she feels. In fact, she can be harmed without even knowing about it--say, by having vicious lies about her spread behind her back, thus damaging her reputation and diminishing her opportunities. In contrast, no one can be offended without knowing about it, because offense is something that happens in one's head.

Feminists have claimed that the mass production and consumption of pornography harms women in general--by contributing to violence and discrimination against women, and by conditioning its users to respond sexually to women as inferiorized, fetishized objects who crave humiliation and degradation. We have also claimed that the pornography industry harms many, if not all, of the women who participate in it. Coercion and abuse [are] rampant in this industry--from the literal enslavement often associated with international sex trafficking, to women and girls who get filmed without their knowledge...

Being stimulated by porn comes naturally to many people, so why fight it?

It's true that humans are naturally endowed with plenty of 'animal' instincts. Of course, in the animal world, some species eat their young. In others, the dominant male drives off other males so he can monopolize multiple females. Humans are not animals. They can choose other values.

David Mura writes, "Except when the term enters debates among Marxists, 'natural' is invariably used to preclude any investigation of whether or not people in other societies or in other times may have behaved differently. In addition, it discourages any examination of whether or not certain behavior is learned. In such instances 'natural' is not a step-by-step reasoned argument, it is an ideology. It is used to justify whatever is customary in a given society, to blind critical discourse.

"In this particular case, the argument that pornography is 'natural' ignores the fact that there are men who have given up their obsession with pornography and who have not died."

Much of your evidence against porn and adult enterprises is based on correlation. How does that prove that they cause the ills you describe?

Wikipedia discusses the relation of correlation and causation at some length. It is true that some correlations are illogical and false. Example: My failure to take an umbrella to work on cloudy days always causes rain. However, our opposition generally raises this issue as a rhetorical dodge to avoid engaging with the logical connections and evidence we present. Edward Tufte, an expert in statistics and information design, puts it this way, "Correlation is not causation but it sure is a hint."

There is substantial evidence that TV and movie violence and violent video games stimulate anti-social behavior, especially in children (see, for example, "Teaching Kids to Kill" and "Marketing Violence: The Special Toll on Young Children of Color"). However, our opposition simply refuses to accept that that movies like "Use Em' Abuse Em' and Love Em' #9" might lead to sexual callousness, despite numerous scientific studies that show this is exactly what happens for a significant number of viewers. The connection is logical, the experiments repeatable, but our opposition keeps insisting that porn is just harmless fantasy.

At this point, the onus is on our opposition to suggest alternate explanations for the impact of porn and the secondary effects of adult enterprises, and to back this up with evidence and not armchair speculation. It would give them credibility to acknowledge that neighborhood blight and abusive behavior are serious problems and, even if they are not ready to concede that porn is a cause of abusive behaviors, that porn is supportive of them. All too often we simply sense despair from the other side that things can be made better.

Not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer, but today most people accept that smoking is a cause of lung cancer, despite decades of denials by cigarette manufacturers. In this light, consider the words of researcher Edward Donnerstein: "The relationship between particularly sexually violent images in the media and subsequent aggression...is much stronger statistically than the relationship between smoking and lung cancer."

A mark of being human is having some free will and unpredictability, so theories about human behavior will never be as tightly provable as propositions in geometry. There will always be outliers and exceptions. However, this does not mean we should abandon the methods of history and sociology as useless. The stories we tell each other matter. Porn has its stories. We have ours. Ours are better. The goal is to search for stories that are ever more true, not to abandon the search because we'll never achieve 100% certainty.

Porn makes money because people want it. Why shouldn't we leave porn merchants alone? They are just meeting public demand.

We believe many people consume porn because they are misguided as to what will make them happy, and fail to appreciate the amount of suffering involved in the making and selling of porn. We have also seen recent studies suggesting porn has addictive qualities, implying that porn consumers lose the ability to make wise choices.

The danger of making uninformed decisions is especially high for the many people addicted to porn as children and teens, when their knowledge, judgment and experience are limited.

Plenty of high-risk, high-social cost enterprises make money. Why, we could open up a brothel or a crack den at 135 King Street [or if you prefer absurd but legal examples, substitute "bombing range" and "toxic waste dump"]. These other uses might be even more profitable than a porn shop. But elevating money to be the only important value doesn't seem very "Northampton", does it?

Porn shows actions between consenting adults. Do you have a right to criticize them?

There is evidence that porn can be addictive and harms many viewers, but let's go further. Let's look at your assumption of "consensual behaviors". Today's pornographers seem to have less and less use for this convenient screen around their activities:

Capital Video: Purveyors of Shame Feature a New "Celebrity Sex Tape Scandal" (explicit language)

"The look in her eyes tells us that she would like this bondage session to be over pretty soon. Forget it, girl!"

Punishment Porn: "Whether-She-Wants-It-Or-Not"

Martin Amis, "A rough trade":

A single issue of Adult Video News (April 2000) yields the following. Last October porno star Vivian Valentine attended the XXX-Treme Adults Only vacation in Mexico sporting the black eye she copped from Jon Dough on Rough Sex (Anabolic Video).

"I have no regrets or bad feelings about it," she said. Regan Starr who worked on the second film in this "line", Rough Sex 2, had a different take. "I got the s**t kicked out of me," she said. "I was told before the video--and they said this very proudly, mind you--that in this line most of the girls start crying because they're hurting so bad.... I couldn't breathe. I was being hit and choked. I was really upset, and they didn't stop. They kept filming. You can hear me say, 'Turn the f***ing camera off', and they kept going."

Northampton is famous for its tolerance. How does that square with your goals?

We agree that tolerance is an important value. However, the making and viewing of porn cause suffering, and porn shops bring suffering to their neighborhoods. Tolerance in this case is callousness. That conflicts with other important Northampton values, among them respect for women and compassion for all.

Arguments for and against porn are just matters of opinion. Why force your opinion on others?

Porn and adult businesses have physical effects on the real world that have been extensively studied. That changes the matter from an academic debate about opinions to confirmed facts that people need to act on.

The notion that people freeing themselves from self-restraint would lead to a sexual utopia might have been plausible in the 60s, but it's laughable now.

Marriage is an outdated practice, so there's no harm in Capital Video promoting free love and infidelity in their films, is there?"

The harmlessness of marriage-free living would certainly be news to many children of divorce. Barbara Whitehead presents excellent analyses of this issue in The Atlantic:

"The Love Family ideology has no theory of permanence or binding obligation. It is oriented to adults' interests and satisfactions because it emphasizes freedom of individual choice. You can pick the one you love and ditch the one you no longer love without a backward glance. That's great for adults, but children don't have the same freedom of choice or the same enthusiasm about moving on. From a child's standpoint the Love Family ideology is inadequate because it offers no basis for permanence in family bonds and commitments. When these bonds are lost, children suffer emotionally, especially in their ability to trust. We've set up a failure-to-commit factor for the next generation."
--Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, "What We Owe", The Atlantic, February 1997 (may require a paid subscription)

"According to a growing body of social-scientific evidence, children in families disrupted by divorce and out-of-wedlock birth do worse than children in intact families on several measures of well-being. Children in single-parent families are six times as likely to be poor. They are also likely to stay poor longer. Twenty-two percent of children in one-parent families will experience poverty during childhood for seven years or more, as compared with only two percent of children in two parent families. A 1988 survey by the National Center for Health Statistics found that children in single-parent families are two to three times as likely as children in two-parent families to have emotional and behavioral problems. They are also more likely to drop out of high school, to get pregnant as teenagers, to abuse drugs, and to be in trouble with the law. Compared with children in intact families, children from disrupted families are at a much higher risk for physical or sexual abuse.

"Contrary to popular belief, many children do not 'bounce back' after divorce or remarriage. Difficulties that are associated with family breakup often persist into adulthood. Children who grow up in single-parent or stepparent families are less successful as adults, particularly in the two domains of life--love and work--that are most essential to happiness. Needless to say, not all children experience such negative effects. However, research shows that many children from disrupted families have a harder time achieving intimacy in a relationship, forming a stable marriage, or even holding a steady job."

--Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, "Dan Quayle Was Right", The Atlantic, April 1993, reprinted at the Catholic Education Resource Center

Being anti-porn really means you are anti-sex, does it not?

We are not against sex. We are against mindless sex, abusive sex, sex without regard for issues like love, fidelity, commitment, pregnancy, disease and children.

This detailed analysis of 50 of today's top selling porn films shows how limited and loveless porn's vision of sex generally is.

Porn is harmless entertainment. Why blame it for social ills?

You are denying that people are influenced by what they read or view. We like how Dr. Victor Cline responds to this argument in "Pornography's Effects on Adults and Children":

...for someone to suggest that pornography cannot have an effect on you is to deny the whole notion of education, or to suggest that people are not affected by what they read and see. If you believe that a pornographic book or film cannot affect you, then you must also say that Karl Marx's Das Kapital, or the Bible, or the Koran, or advertising have no effect on their readers or viewers.

Astute businessmen do not spend billions of dollars a year on advertising if their visual and verbal messages and imagery did not motivate people to buy deodorant or diapers or automobiles.

In 2007, the American Psychological Association issued a report on the sexualization of girls by American media and marketers. Far from being impact-free, this sexualization has been linked to "three of the most common mental health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression."

Porn represents an extreme yet pervasive form of this sexualization. If this entertainment is so harmless, or even empowering, why does the desire of women to have daughters fall by more than half after they view porn?

It's unfair and inaccurate to claim that all porn viewers are immoral deviants, is it not?

We agree this would be unreasonable, so we don't make this claim. We do show that porn can degrade people's attitudes toward women, and that it's a factor in many divorces. Not everyone who drinks becomes an alcoholic, but drinking and porn viewing both have dangers that people should be aware of.

We believe that many porn viewers, on hearing the facts and looking inside themselves, will reduce their consumption of porn on their own accord.

A whole separate issue is porn's effect on people who are actual sex offenders, or who have sexual illnesses. These effects are indeed of concern to researchers.

Is not your opposition to a porn shop just a manifestation of an anti-business attitude?

On the contrary, we want to see businesses thrive on King Street. One of our concerns about the porn shop is that it will scare pedestrians and shoppers away from surrounding businesses.

A study in New York concluded that "business locations with adult-oriented businesses had a significant loss of sales tax collections (42%) as compared to control areas."

In Blaine, Washington, residents and local officials went to great efforts (ultimately successful) to relocate an adult business from their downtown. "We've been hearing the community say get rid of it," said community development director Terry Galvin. "This city is right on the edge of a growth spurt. Cities have windows of opportunity and this is it. We've got a problem in that the adult entertainment business acts as a kind of anti-gravity force." The town succeeded only after "years of frustration and community heartache for many local residents," according to a local newspaper. We'd rather not repeat this experience of frustration and heartache in Northampton.

King Street is a write-off and not worth caring about. The neighborhoods around 135 King Street are a run-down collection of multi-family homes who shouldn't expect better. Northampton has had mob-associated businesses before. Porn is everywhere. In short, why bother to oppose the porn shop planned for 135 King Street?

We reject this defeatist attitude. As Sojourner Truth, Sophia Smith and other famous Northampton residents have shown, a handful of determined people can have a major impact on the course of events. We're sorry some people have such low expectations for our city. It wasn't always so.

It's absurd to argue that because we can't make everything perfect, we should accept decline. Should we abolish the police because they can't catch every criminal? Never correct children because we don't see every bad thing they might do? Give up on ourselves because we've made mistakes in the past? We have singled out Capital Video and its plans for 135 King Street for special attention because they appear to specialize in despairing, misogynistic porn, their track record is bad (just ask Kittery), and because this location--surrounded by homes, schools, churches and counseling centers--is especially inappropriate for any kind of porn shop. We hope other sellers of porn take note of our campaign and reconsider what they're doing.

It's just a porn shop. Why are you so excited? Shouldn't you devote your attention to more important issues such as homelessness, AIDS and war?

We feel that women are important. We feel the health and safety of porn workers are important. We are concerned about the phenomenon of porn addiction, where the victim seeks more and more porn, even to the point of loss of family and problems with the law in some cases. We also feel that in an age when close to half of American marriages end in divorce, with ugly consequences for children, that the infidelity promoted in Capital Video films merits concern.

As for our wars, securing the rights of women in Afghanistan and Iraq appears to be a point of pride for George Bush. He specifically criticizes the Taliban for "public whippings of women". Does this really sound so different from the Bondage, Domination and Gangbang categories at the Capital Video-affiliated site, AmazingAdult.com? Or consider these images from magazines sold by Capital Video, including one captioned, "Tied to the post, Tracy takes a fearful whipping." Ironic that we might effectively lose at home what we fight for abroad.

Businesspeople have the right to do whatever they want as long as the law does not expressly forbid it. If the people oppose a porn shop, why didn't they get a law passed earlier?

The City of Northampton can't legislate everything. A quality democracy has to depend heavily on the good judgment of all the people. The law can have a hard time distinguishing between Oh My and Capital Video, but your average citizen can make the distinction easily.

In general, we prefer to see fewer laws enacted rather than more, but this increases the people's reliance on the judgment of landlords and other businesspeople in the community. If businesspeople fail to exercise good judgment, the people are justified in regulating them. See Hadley for an example of good judgment in action.

There are many cities in America that have all grown in accordance with the law, yet they are not as livable, walkable, or cherished as Northampton is. We are benefiting from the wise decisions of many people who have gone before us.

We've all heard from businesspeople, and real estate developers in particular, that New England has too much regulation and it's impeding growth. However, when businesspeople ignore the reasonable concerns of the community, the people's mistrust of business grows, encouraging the regulations that business finds onerous.

What's the big deal? All businesses have their flaws. Why don't you protest Dunkin' Donuts or Wal-Mart?

This argument only makes sense if you consider a woman to be equivalent to a sugary treat or a case of toilet paper. One can only imagine the public outcry if Dunkin' Donuts or Wal-Mart began referring to women as "sluts", "whores" or "a nasty bitch" in their sales literature, all terms found at one time or another on Capital Video's website, Amazing.net. It is plausible to argue that the benefits of a Dunkin' Donuts or a Wal-Mart outweigh their problems. This is much more difficult in the case of a Capital Video porn shop. We also observe that Dunkin' Donuts and Wal-Mart are much more responsive to public concerns than Capital Video is. See, for example, their PR pages: Dunkin' Donuts, Wal-Mart.

Lots of people use porn. Major corporations transmit it and profit from it. That means it's normal and mainstream, so why criticize it?

In America not so long ago, the majority of "normal, good people" either owned slaves, benefited from the slave economy, or didn't oppose slavery. George Washington was a slaveowner. So was Thomas Jefferson. In hindsight, we see that that didn't make slavery right. Similarly, the fact that many people accept, profit from or use porn doesn't mean porn is beyond reproach. The evidence for the harm of porn keeps piling up, and it's time for us to grapple with it.

Women enter the porn industry of their free will and are well-compensated. Why criticize their choice?

We would argue that many women who enter the porn industry do so without appreciating their slim chances of a positive outcome. Others have their judgment clouded by drugs, sexual abuse and our pornified culture. STDs are endemic to the industry, and most porn actresses certainly exit the business quickly enough. As for the supposed rich pay, this is enjoyed only by a few. U.S. News reports (2/10/97):

"There is a constant demand for new talent, and few actresses last more than a year or two... Checks sometimes bounce. The borderline legal status of the industry makes performers reluctant to seek redress in court... The highest-paid performers, the actresses with exclusive contracts, earn between $80,000 and $100,000 a year for doing about 20 sex scenes and making a dozen or so personal appearances. Only a handful of actresses--perhaps 10 to 15--are signed to such contracts. Other leading stars are paid roughly $1,000 per scene. The vast majority of porn actresses are "B girls," who earn about $300 a scene. They typically try to do two scenes a day, four or five times a week. At the moment, there is an oversupply of women in Southern California hoping to enter the porn industry. Overtime is a thing of the past, and some newcomers will work for $150 a scene."

When you reproduce pornographic material for analysis and criticism, are you not exploiting the people depicted?

In a sense this is true, and unfortunate. It's the case anytime one holds up another's work for critical examination, but sometimes there's no other way to make a point but to show a picture. Describing scenes of torture and misery with words is one thing. Pictures are more compelling, less mediated. It was the photographs from Abu Ghraib that made it such a scandal.

Pictures are important part of how porn works. Countless images from porn show abusers what to do and help them believe abuse is normal. Pornographic pictures are also used to season victims--especially children. We want people to see the raw truth and judge for themselves.

Examining pornography and pro-porn arguments is critical to understanding how porn is harmful, its addictive qualities, and the toxic, narrow version of sexuality it sells. We appreciate that porn advocates may be upset or embarrassed by having their materials used in this way, but their interests must be balanced against the harms the sex industry imposes on third parties and its own participants. We will not refrain from using the industry's copious amounts of self-damaging evidence against it. This includes cases of commercial exploitation of other people's likenesses without their consent, a far less defensible act than referencing material to make a political argument.

Some adult websites expressly forbid making any public use of their materials without permission. When you quote from them, are you breaking the law?

No, not as long as we stay within the bounds of fair use. Federal case law overrides any claims pornographers might make that their material can't be reproduced for public purposes. The courts give broad protection even to parodies and critical commentaries that copy the "heart" of the original work, because the public's interest in debate trumps commercial considerations. The adult industry is famous for supporting robust free speech protection even for works that some may find damaging, offensive or embarrassing. We are claiming our right to the same protections. See more about this.

Some of your data dates from the 1980s. Is it still valid?

We've seen nothing to indicate that the older studies are no longer valid. If anything, porn in America has become more violent, degraded and pervasive over time, so there's no reason to believe its harmful effects have lessened. Our ever-growing Impact of Porn category cites many recent studies as well as the older ones. The fact that many studies over a wide span of time find problems with porn supports our case.

Certain kinds of controlled experiments on the impact of porn are no longer allowed by ethics panels, because the past results were so disturbing. See the discussion of the Zillmann-Bryant study in our review of Pornified.

You haven't proven beyond all possible doubt that porn harms people and communities. Unless you do, why should I support you?

100% certainty is probably unachievable in any social science. After scouring the Internet and online bookstores for months, and receiving hundreds of comments from the public, we have become aware of a handful of studies and papers that purport to show that porn is harmless or even beneficial. We haven't found these studies to be particularly compelling (see example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4, example 5). The strong majority of the evidence is in fact that porn is harmful to people and communities. Marital counselors, divorce lawyers, police departments, serial killers, academic researchers, city planners and ordinary citizens report that porn is a serious problem (see our posts in Impact of Porn). The evidence has certainly been enough for many US courts, which have upheld regulation of adult businesses across the country. See the Alameda case, the Renton case and this law article (PDF) on adult use zoning.

Your blog talks a lot about how porn hurts women, but it exploits men, too. Don't you care about men?

Absolutely. We are concerned about everyone exploited by porn. Some of the men in Capital Video's all-male movies appear to be quite young. On balance, however, women get the worst of things at Capital Video, so we made that our first focus. For example, it's far easier to find bondage magazines in their Wethersfield (CT) store that involve women than those that emphasize men.

Now that Capital Video has dropped the viewing booth element from its proposed porn shop, have they met your concerns?

Even without viewing booths, we're not ready to assert a Capital Video porn shop will be harmless. Obviously, for instance, we believe that many of the movies and magazines Capital Video sells are toxic.

Capital Video and its owner Kenneth Guarino have a long track record in the adult business, much of which gives us cause for concern. We don't trust that they care about their impact on the communities they do business in. They put up lots of resistance when Kittery asked them to clean up their viewing booths and take the doors off. We also note that Guarino has long-standing ties to the mafia and has been convicted of conspiracy to evade taxes.

Aren't adult bookstores protected by the First Amendment?

Obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. Under the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Miller v. California, an expressive work (such as a book or movie) may be regulated or banned if: (1) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work as a whole appeals to the prurient interest; (2) the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (3) the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

Because adult book/video stores may contain some protected (non-obscene) content among their thousands of titles, courts have ruled that a city cannot ban such stores outright. However, cities may impose reasonable restrictions to combat the negative "secondary effects" of adult businesses. These include zoning restrictions, special permits and health inspections, and limiting the hours that the stores may be open.

In City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, Inc. (1985), the Supreme Court upheld an ordinance that banned adult movie theaters from locating within 1,000 feet of any residential zone, single- or multiple-family dwelling, church, park, or school. The Court found that the ordinance was a content-neutral "time, place, and manner" regulation because it was designed to serve a substantial governmental interest and did not unreasonably limit alternative avenues of communication. The interests at stake were to prevent crime, protect the city's retail trade, maintain property values, and preserve the city's general quality of life.

These are the same issues that concern NoPornNorthampton. Given the wide availability of online pornography, and the fact that Northampton already has a shop selling sexually oriented media and novelties (Oh My on Conz Street), as well as mainstream video stores with adult offerings, there are ample alternative channels of communication for would-be porn consumers.

Finally, the First Amendment does not apply to sex toys, lubricants, condoms, and other retail goods with no expressive content, which Capital Video also plans to sell in the King Street store.

Some of your allies attack porn as "hate speech". Is this not proof that NoPornNorthampton does in fact support censorship?

The phrase "porn is hate speech" is indeed used by some of our allies. We share many of the same goals, but our approach and reasoning are not always the same. Similarly, our positions overlap with those of some conservative religious organizations, but we are not identical with those, either. For example, we favor gay rights and gay marriage. Porn attracts criticism from across the political spectrum and that's because it's broadly harmful.

NoPornNorthampton cares deeply about freedom of speech and values education over censorship. We favor narrowly tailored laws acceptable to the courts to meet citizens' reasonable concerns.

Our blog shows the effects of porn and adult businesses spread beyond the immediate consumer or porn worker. This takes them from the realm of private choice and makes them a public matter.

With respect to your zoning proposals, shouldn't we let the marketplace decide? After all, if you don't like adult businesses, you don't have to shop there.

Zoning doesn't seek to ban adult uses, but to relocate them away from vulnerable populations and reduce the secondary effects that impinge on their neighbors, whether or not they shop there. Zoning restricts where you can locate many kinds of businesses, such as bars, restaurants and manufacturing plants, because of factors like noise, traffic and pollution.

We observe that Northampton lies on an interstate highway (I-91), such that even if no local residents patronize adult businesses, out-of-town traffic might be enough to sustain them.

The New York Times notes, "People do not, as a rule, buy pornography in their own neighborhoods. As a result, pornography and sex-aid stores tend to be near mass transit, ideally as near as possible, so little time is spent walking to and fro. 'This is not impulse buying,' said Carl Weisbrod, who for many years headed offices charged with the oversight and redevelopment of Times Square. 'It's people who come from wherever to make specific purchases.' As a result, he added, 'there's a desire in the industry to be in transit hubs.'

Would it be fair to say that adult-use zoning doesn't reduce the overall harm from adult enterprises, but merely shifts it from rich to poor neighborhoods?

There are two major types of adult-use zoning, the cluster method and the dispersal method. The cluster method aims to gather a city's adult businesses into one district. An example was Boston's Combat Zone. It is indeed reasonable to argue that you're more likely to find such a district near weaker, poorer neighborhoods.

In recent years, the dispersal method is the more commonly used. Dispersal zoning aims to put a reasonable distances between adult enterprises and homes, schools, and houses of worship, and between each adult enterprise. This is the type of zoning NoPornNorthampton advocates. Rather than directing adult enterprises to where poor people live, dispersal zoning seeks to direct them to where nobody lives. This truly minimizes the impact on everyone, rich and poor.

There is evidence to suggest that adult enterprises impact residential areas more than commercial and industrial ones (examples: Indianapolis, Oklahoma City). There is also evidence that a concentration of adult enterprises has a higher negative impact on the surrounding communities than an area with one isolated adult enterprise (example: Dallas).

From a real-world standpoint, adult enterprises like to locate near transit hubs and in places where they are less likely to get "guff". This means they frequently seek out neighborhoods which they perceive to be 'weak', economically and politically. Working-class people busy making ends meet are less likely to have the time, resources, expertise or connections to give an adult enterprise major resistance (example: Minneapolis). Dispersal zoning empowers all neighborhoods to reduce the harm of adult enterprises.

Is there really evidence that porn increases crime? I thought they hadn't proven a link between watching porn and violent acts.

While the causal connection between media consumption and behavior is complex, government researchers have shown that the presence of adult businesses increases the crime rate in a neighborhood.

One of the most comprehensive studies on the subject is the Report of the Minnesota Attorney General's Working Group on the Regulation of Sexually Oriented Businesses. According to the statistical analysis conducted in the Minneapolis study, the addition of one sexually oriented business to a census tract area will cause an increase in the overall crime rate index in that area by 9.15 crimes per thousand people per year even if all other social factors remain unchanged. Read the full report (PDF).

Be aware that adult trade associations have begun commissioning their own "secondary effects" studies. Their interest is to portray porn shops as harmless to the community.

Won't the regulation of adult businesses put us on a slippery slope to censorship?

Most of our laws and regulations represent a compromise between competing interests. In this case, we are trying to strike a balance between the value of free expression and the health and safety of adult business patrons and neighbors. One could make a slippery slope argument on just about any issue. "If we allow local bars to stay open one hour later, soon we'll let them stay open all night." "If we reject this property tax override, the city will suffer a continuing erosion of its tax base and go bankrupt." Our proposed regulations aim to mitigate the severe, often hard-to-reverse effects of adult theaters seen in many other towns and cities. If, over time, these regulations are seen to need adjustment, the people can adjust them. Northampton has a well-educated populace (25% with graduate degrees) and a strong tradition of caring for the vulnerable and tolerance for minority viewpoints. It seems unlikely that the voters will support unreasonable restrictions on expression.

We are not advocating censorship, but mindfulness about porn and a few modest zoning and health regulations to address local residents' legimate, well-documented concerns. Experience has shown these regulations can be enacted without excessively infringing on free speech. Librarians in Western Massachusetts, for example, report no uptick in censorship pressures following the enactment of adult-use zoning in their locales.

Slippery slope arguments cut both ways. As "Lou" writes in a recent comment on the blog, "How about location--can they open a porn shop right next [to] the Bridge School? How about renting rooms in the High School? I think that there is a limit as to location--and I think that a dense residential neighborhood is not appropriate."

Doesn't your campaign smack of elitism?

Why no, the reverse is true. The most visible porn advocates have been saying that freedom of speech is so important, it trumps all other things people might value, such as a safe neighborhood, one that's comfortable to walk around in, economically prosperous, where people won't be harassed or solicited for sex.

Porn advocates appear to be indifferent to the suffering of ordinary people, whether it's porn workers with STDs, spouses of porn addicts, or cities whose downtowns can't grow due to the presence of an adult business. Despite mounting evidence of the social harms of porn, the porn advocates assert they simply know better what's good for America, and that the people can't be trusted to impose the slightest regulation on adult businesses or soon we'll all be burning books. There's no evidence that adult-use regulations in Hollywood, New York or Boston have led to censorship, but the real world seems to matter little to porn advocates. That's elitism.

We can also look at this from a power perspective. Who has access to millions of dollars, fancy prep schools, exotic cars, expensive lawyers, Ivy League MBAs and luxury homes? The porn merchants. On the other side, vulnerable young porn workers, small towns with limited resources, parents busy raising children. Who are the elite in this situation?

You are Nazis, Fascists, Puritans, Communists, left-wing zealots, right-wing zealots, and probably sex offenders, so why should we listen to you?

Yes, the other side has been doing a lot of namecalling, vicious displays of malice, and speculation about our personal lives on public streets, other websites, in comments to this blog, public forums like the one at MassLive, and in emails to us. We're sorry many porn advocates prefer these lazy schoolyard tactics to actually engaging with us on the facts.

We are amused that people have called us both left-wing and right-wing extremists. There are indeed arguments to be made against porn and porn shops from across the political spectrum. To us, that underscores how broadly harmful porn is.

There is a serious consequence to the atmosphere of aggression and personal attacks fostered by the opposition. Women who have spoken out against porn have been taunted and harassed. A large representative of Capital Video recently glowered and cursed at a citizen at a public hearing in Northampton. In hostile environments like these, many citizens withdraw themselves from public debates. Some fear for their personal safety. This does not serve the interests of free speech.

Some of your facts and arguments come from controversial sources like the Meese Commission or Andrea Dworkin. Do you endorse everything they did or wrote?

Not necessarily. We have selected out facts and arguments from many sources when we feel they have merit. These sources may present other facts and arguments elsewhere that we might question or disagree with. This doesn't mean the facts we do cite on our blog are invalid, or can be conveniently ignored.

The founders of NoPornNorthampton haven't lived here for a long time. Are they qualified to speak on this issue?

It is true that we are relative newcomers to Northampton. We moved here in 2003. If the depth of local ties confers legitimacy, we note that Capital Video Corporation is a chain headquartered in Cranston, Rhode Island. The profits from the King Street porn shop will flow south to owner Kenneth Guarino, while any ill effects will stay with us. Many Northampton residents more established than ourselves have expressed concern. We quote from the Gazette's June 30 article, "Neighbors oppose porn shop":

"'We're furious,' said Summer Street resident Mike Kirby, a former city councilor, who, with his wife, Lu Stone, have lived in their home for 25 years... 'We've put all this effort into our house and garden, and now this happens,' he said. 'We're shocked.'"...

"'I have mixed feelings about it,' said Joshua Miller, who has lived at 33 Summer St. for 21 years. 'I'm for free speech, I'm for freedom of expression and I'm against censorship. What I'm worried about is how pornography exploits women.'"...

"Mary Ellen Walsh, who said she has owned her Summer Street home for 30 years admitted that she would 'really rather it not' be located near her home... And she added, the establishment 'has a right to exercise free speech, but I'm going to exercise mine, too.'"

Is NoPornNorthampton anti-gay? And how does religion fit into this?

We are not anti-gay. We understand there is a diversity of opinion about sexuality within both the religious community and Northampton at large. Our campaign is focused on preventing the objective secondary effects of certain kinds of adult businesses, such as crime, sexual harassment, neighborhood deterioration, and spread of sexually transmitted diseases. We would also like to raise awareness about how porn is made and the harmful effects of porn on many people. While our spiritual beliefs inform our opinion that porn often promotes a degraded and commodified vision of intimate relationships, we aim to present evidence that will persuade people that careful judgment and some regulation are needed, regardless of religious affiliation or sexual orientation.

Your mass-mailed open letter to the Goldbergs could be viewed as offensive itself. What were your motivations?

This letter, mailed to voters in Northampton and Longmeadow on 9/27/06, describes the crime and blight known to attend sexually oriented businesses, and describes some of the movies sold at Capital Video's websites. Many readers will find this material offensive and disturbing. So do we. We take no pleasure in publicizing it. We do this only so the public will know the nature of what Capital Video sells, and understand why we are so concerned about it.

We are not trying to profit from offensive materials. We are asking businesspeople to have care for Northampton and important social values. We cite offensive documentation only the extent necessary to support our case, and hope to have to do this as little as possible.

The fact that many people find it unpleasant to investigate or discuss the nature of today's pornography helps enable porn merchants to slip into towns like ours without sufficient debate. After careful consideration, we decided that holding some of Capital Video's wares up to public view would help people understand what's at stake, and how toxic porn has become today.

Activists have found that presenting today's porn in an unfiltered fashion is "an effective and rapid consciousness-raiser about misogyny and male views of women". We have seen our opposition claim that we should go easy on porn because it's a form of "art", that it empowers women, or that today's porn is no more harmful than paintings or century-old erotica pictures. We feel the best counter to these arguments is to show people what today's porn actually is.

What did the Massachusetts Attorney General ask NoPornNorthampton to do?

On October 3, the attorney general's office wrote to NoPornNorthampton and asked us to register as a charity before proceeding with further fundraising efforts. NPN both advocates for local legislation and aims to increase public awareness about porn. The attorney general's office decided the latter activity is a charitable educational mission. We applied for a Certificate for Solicitation and received it on October 20. We are now free to receive donations, and the matter has been resolved.

We keep all funds raised separate from our personal accounts, draw no salaries from NoPornNorthampton, and document all our expenses. We have no intention or expectation of making a profit from our activism. Read a further discussion of this issue.

How can I send you a comment?

Please email your comments to info@nopornnorthampton.org. Indicate if your comments should be kept private.

How come you turned off the standard commenting mechanism for this blog?

Under our host's standard system, the primary method of accountability is the IP address. Those who heckled, harassed, or otherwise abused their commenting privileges had their IP address blocked. Unfortunately, some members of the opposition found and publicized a way to defeat this system.

By restricting comments to email, we are hoping to achieve the same level of accountability that many other blogs enjoy.

As always, we reserve the right not to publish any comment. This aligns with our overall position that private actors should think hard before publishing or profiting from meritless or harmful speech.

Number of yard signs that went missing from our lawn or were damaged beyond repair during July-November 2006: 5

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This blog contains assertions and opinions, including quotations, from numerous sources. We are not verifying the content of this material. But we are verifying that, to the best of our knowledge and belief, the material is accurately reproduced and that it is attributable as indicated. If any information is not correct or would benefit from clarification, please contact us at info@nopornnorthampton.org.