On Apr 2, 2:30 am, hughwoodintedsla...@yahoo.com wrote:

Wrong for the following reasons.

1. With respect to the United States there is a constitutional right
to express one's opinions in public, and such expression can
conceivably include the way one dresses. To the extent one's mode of
dress is not indecent exposure or obscene in nature, such expression -
even if it were sexually provocative - is constitutionally protected.

With respect to the U.S., the court case of 'Cohen v. California' 403
U.S. 15 (1971) before the U.S, Supreme Court is instructive. During
the height of the Vietnam war, the conviction of a man for disturbing
the peace for wearing in the corridors of the Los Angeles County
Courthouse, a tee-shirt reading 'Fuck the Draft' was found to be
unconstitutional on First Amendment free speech grounds.

If someone can do that in public, short of indecent exposure there is
no legal grounds to say that one may not dress publicly in a sexually
provocative manner.

2. Such claim that a person may not dress in a manner which might be
sexually stimulating to others, presumes to make that person's mode of
attire and the acceptability of such open to condemnation by virtually
any random passer-by on the street. Permitting such madness would
eventually lead to the sort of situation where women are forced either
by law or by the threat of violence to wear burquas.

3. Eleanor Roosevelt once pointed out that no one can make you feel
inferior without your consent. You cannot be made to become sexually
excited by someone's mode of dress unless you find that person
attractive. I remember, from maybe 20, 25 years ago, seeing a woman,
maybe 60 or 70 years old, walking along the street and passing me, and
she was wearing a bikini. On a 20 or 30 year old, it probably looked
great; on her, it looked terrible. No danger of anyone finding her
sexually excited. And I have to admit, that if it would have been
reasonable for some cute teenybopper to be wearing the same thing -
and it would have, this was a city in California on the ocean - then
it was reasonable for her to wear it. Disgusting, but reasonable.

So what you are saying is that pornographic media is entitled to
greater 1st Amendment protection of its ideas and expression than
"clean" media. Interesting argument. Hilarious, totally wrong in my
opinion, but interesting nonetheless.

Why not? Short of uninvited indecent exposure, why is this wrong or
unacceptable other than it's someone's OPINION that they don't like
it.

It sounds like you're trying to extend sexual harassment to all forms
of public displays such that any display someone doesn't like which
they claim is sexually salacious may be banned based on their
opinion. Sorry, but the right of free speech doesn't work that way.
I think someone once said that some people would push not just for
sexual harassment to apply to unwanted displays in places where a
person has no choice to be and should reasonably be allowed to be free
of such if they did not want them, such as in a work situation where
forced interaction is inevitable, but eventually to virtually all
displays in public. And that's where you're going.

You're also making the error of claiming that ideas represent physical
contact, a theory which is not supported by factual evidence and is,
quite clearly, patent nonsense. To equate showing of three women in
provocative bikinis, such as is done in the Budweiser ad with a
physical assault upon some guy who may find the ad stimulating but is
not interested, is clear insanity which ignores the meaning of words
and veers off into some form of fantasy where thoughts and opinions
have the effect of physical force.

I'm going to ignore the rest of your arguments because of the simple
fact that they presume that some person's subjective opinion as to
what is or isn't sexually exciting then becomes grounds to prohibit
the public from being exposed to certain ideas that they decide to
censor. The U.S. Supreme Court in Rowan v. Post Office, 397 U.S. 728,
held it is permissible as far as one's own personal mail being
delivered to decide that they find what a particular mailer sends to
them to be unwanted sexual material and order it stopped. I have no
problem with this as it is one person deciding for themselves that
they do not want to be exposed to something mailed to them. They are
choosing only to exclude themselves as a recipient of some material
they do not want, they are not imposing their decisions on other
persons outside of their home.

We generally do not allow people to make the decision for other adults
in general about what it is permissible to show to them. This
represents a form of prior restraint that the courts have ruled is
anathema to our society. I quote a paragraph spoken by Supervisor 246
related to the idea from my book, "In the Matter of: Instrument of
God:"

"I'll give you the short version. He wrote something stupid, a bunch
of words that say something we don't agree with. It's only words and
ideas, it's not like he beat someone up, he's not committing violence
or hurting people, he's simply saying something offensive that we do
not want to hear because we don't like it. If we suppress ideas we
don't like, the proponents of those ideas will probably fester in
secret societies and explode in double-plus ungood ways and we will
like those results even less. If we allow people to see their ideas,
and we ignore them, they've had their chance and they don't have to
feel cheated about not getting exposure. Or if we really don't like
their ideas and really need to keep them from convincing other people
to believe in them, the answer is to tell people why and they'll
learn.
"But you can't just beat people up because you dislike their stupid
opinion. If we go that route, then anyone who is willing to use force
can suppress any opinion they don't like, and maybe support opinions
we don't like. Then what you get is a society of brutality where it
isn't the best ideas that are seen by others, it's only the ideas that
have the most vicious thugs to back them up. And it becomes very hard
for people to be willing to express any opinion if someone can just
pop them one because they say something someone else doesn't like."

Now, maybe you think that you're not proposing violence to force your
ideas of what is acceptable or not as far as the provocativeness of
attire. But unless there is some means to enforce the prohibitions
then all you have is a bunch of suggestions. I'll quote again from
Supervisor 246 in my book again:

"To quote from the movie Starship Troopers, 'When you exercise force
you are using violence, the supreme authority from which all other
authority is derived.' "

Unless you, in one form or another - and court orders are still
implicit with force, if you don't comply men with guns will force you
to do so - intend to use force to make people comply, again, what you
are proposing is merely a suggestion, which is right back where you
started. Otherwise what you are asking for is the suppression of some
ideas (or images) which are in some way "more provocative" than you
like, on your say-so alone, backed up by violence to enforce your
opinion.

And it ain't far from that to the sort of situation where no American
media would reprint the Danish cartoons about the Prophet Mohammed
(peace be on him) because they were afraid of violent attacks from
radical Muslims.

Read my blog at http://www.paul-robinson.us Unlike Ray, I actually
have interesting things to say that are worth reading.

--
Paul Robinson "Above all else... We shall go on..."
"...And continue!"
"If the lessons of history teach us anything it is
that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us."