The Problem of Pornography

The Problem of Pornography

For a walker through Times Square or the downtown areas of many American cities a stop for a newspaper means a confrontation with the tastelessness of Screw and Hustler; a glance at a record shop window discloses an album-cover photograph, reproduced on a rooftop billboard, of a bound woman, while a nearby movie marquee promotes the dubious delights of an X-rated movie featuring children. One is overcome by a sense that the texture of public life has become coarsened and that some natural boundary between public and private worlds is being wantonly violated by a barrage of pornography. It is hard to resist crying out, Enough!

The cry, though, is or can be a prelude to a call for censorship, and the uneasiness tha...