NEWS RELEASE from MORALITY IN MEDIA, Inc.
NEW YORK (21 August 2003) – Robert W. Peters, President of Morality in Media had the following comments on the mainstreaming of pornography, in and near to the heart of the New York Times:
“In Sunday’s (August 17, 2003) New York Times, Dana Kennedy wrote (“The Fantasy of Interactive Porn Becomes a Reality”) what was little more than a promotion piece for what amounts to little more than ‘virtual prostitution.’ As Ms. Kennedy described it, ‘new technology, involving holographic porn,’ will enable the DVD viewer to be not only the director but also ‘sometimes a de facto participant, as well.’
“More specifically, Ms. Kennedy described how one of the biggest interactive DVD sellers, ‘called Virtual Sex With…, say with Jenna Jameson or Tera Patrick,’ actually works:
‘The actress is shown looking at the camera the whole time and talking directly to the viewer. Her costar is never really fully revealed. Only his hands and other crucial appendages are visible, depending on the sex act that the viewer gets to choose.’
‘”It’s the closet you’ll ever get to having sex with our girls without really having sex with them,” said Joone…who also directed the “Virtual Sex” series…”When you’re watching a regular porn movie…You’re basically a voyeur. This way it is a first person experience. If the girl is in a missionary position, the camera is looking down at her as you would be if you were actually there with her. You’re the God of your world at that moment.”‘
“If Ms. Kennedy (or her editor) was troubled by this unholy and possibly illegal application of hologram technology, you’d never know it from her article. She might as well have been describing the birth of a child, with both a physician and the father/husband present for that joyous moment.
“But this week, porn starlet Jenna Jameson didn’t just get a free plug in the NY Times. On Tuesday, just blocks away from the Times’ headquarters, a three-story-tall paid bill board went up in Times Square, featuring Jameson, with her bottom half ‘covered’ with what looks like a G-string and her bare breasts partly covered with her hands, and the words, ‘Who Says They Cleaned Up Times Square?'”
“Now, according to pundits at the Times, nothing is legally obscene any more. But just for the record, in New York State it is still a crime to sell, mail, deliver, distribute, transmute, exhibit, or advertise obscene material and to produce, present, direct or participate in an obscene performance.”
MORALITY IN MEDIA is a nonprofit national organization working to curb traffic in illegal obscenity and to uphold standards of decency in media. MIM operates the obscenitycrimes.org website, where citizens can report possible violations of federal Internet obscenity laws.
Author: MIm 08/21/2003
