Posts by giovanni tiso

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  • Speaker: Won't Someone Please Not Think…,

    __This is truly quite remarkable.__

    There's a statement I have no idea how to take.

    Positively, positively. I think it's quite a remarkable forum you've got there.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Speaker: Won't Someone Please Not Think…,

    In a way, yes I am -- authoritarian societies have always been insensely aware that logos is ever but as powerful as icon .

    Thou shalt not make graven images.
    Seriously, don't let me catch you graving images, okay?

    I wonder what kind of authoritarianism you're referring too, though. A written text can articulate a political argument and is therefore very dangerous indeed. In pornography, however, description is somewhat privileged to argumentation.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Speaker: Won't Someone Please Not Think…,

    We've run a workshop on helping writers deal with the emotional impacts of writing this kind of thing.

    This is truly quite remarkable.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Speaker: Won't Someone Please Not Think…,

    The other thing writing allows you to do is get inside the heads of the participants. It makes it possible to make issues of consent much more clear-cut

    Not following you there. You can write a story in which a woman or child is sexually assaulted and then starts to enjoy it, and it won't be any less problematic than the same story represented in any other medium.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Speaker: Won't Someone Please Not Think…,

    Funny old world, isn't it?

    It most certainly is, but we're not seriously surprised that pictures are more readily censored than words, are we? There is a reason why we refer to a particularly vivid description as being "graphic", and I think that most people would recognise this hierarchy of affect.

    The issue of pornography adds a layer, of course, as Emma observed: writing about sex involving children is not the same as filming sex involving children (regardless of whether the latter might be simulated). But drawing sex involving children is also different than writing about it. If you believe that pornography corrupts, you'll aim to ban all forms of representation, but the written form generally comes last in the pecking order.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Hard News: Something odd and unresolved,

    This whole thing remindes me of News on the March. Perhaps Citizen Key has his own Rosebud and it will be the subject of the next instalment.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Speaker: Won't Someone Please Not Think…,

    Luther Blissett (an Italian author collective some of you might know for the novel "Q") wrote an invective a few years back called Suffer the Little Children on the hysteria surrounding paedophilia and how it became an instrument to enact draconian censorship laws and control communication on the Internet in a broader sense. The public prosecutor of the particular case they attacked ended up suing the publisher and managed to have the book withdrwan from publication and destroyed, and the websites carrying it were ordered to delete it, but of course it can still be read in all its cached glory thanks to Google.

    The summary in English is here, under "Lasciate che i bimbi affair"

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Don't cry for me, Argentina,

    DPF speculates that it's a job in the PM's office...

    Okay, so I'm now effectively hoping you won't be back here too soon. Bugger indeed.

    Russell, do you think you could schedule reruns of the Asian Crime Wave series? I'd offer to supply the popcorn.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • Hard News: Misconnection,

    I feel like a PC World letter writer...

    I tell you, this is Personal Computing gone mad.

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Don't cry for me, Argentina,

    Let us all quote Douglas Adams until Keith changes his mind.

    "It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever developed the expression "as pretty as an airport""

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report

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