Men's Group

I would take issue, for one, with the analogy between the porn 'industry', such as it is (see below) and the tobacco industry. Whether or not people have lost their jobs from looking at smut during work, the fact remains that very few people have died from having too many hustlers in the closet, unless the box fell on their head. OTOH, my dad died of lung cancer. Tobacco IS addictive, physically, and it WILL kill you if you use it as directed, enthusiastically, for enough years.

I don't think nicotine should be illegal, but I also don't think there's a case to be made that porn, of either the industrial grade larry flynt variety or the mom n pop amateur stuff, delivers anything like the same level of inherent physical damage and addictiveness that nicotine does. A better case, I think, could be made to compare porn to marijuana- something which has been widely demonized despite the scientific evidence (or lack thereof) of measurable harm and even including numerous studies which show slight benefits. And certainly, some people DO have problems with pot; just like some do have problems with sex, or porn, or food, or gambling or any number of behaviors which many if not most people can enjoy recreationally or within certain boundaries, where a minority allows them to get out of control.

Now, onto the porn 'industry' and Larry Flynt; like other creative business models and content producers, the porn industry, such as it is, is experiencing an large internet-based dislocation. Most people don't pay for porn, anymore. And there is a great deal of porn on the internet which is made by people for no other reason than they enjoy fucking in front of a camera (or whatever)... there are enough people, now, with video cameras who happen to be exhibitionists, that there is a tremendous amount of what used to be made-in-van-nuys "porn" which is now put together by regular folks. So talking about the monolithic "porn industry" to encompass everything that's on the internet, is sort of like calling all the videos on youtube part of the "film and television industry".

What this does to Larry Flynt and his unfortunate business model, is still unclear. Nevertheless, the polemics against the monolithic porn industry which was never monolithic to begin with, are becoming increasingly dated and irrelevant.

More specific analysis on the piece you linked to a bit later.