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pornography

Censorship, pornography and divine swan-on-human action

The Prime Minister has declared that Internet service providers should by default block access to pornography, and that some “horrific” internet search terms to be “blacklisted” on the major search engines, not bringing up any search results. The main motivation of the speech appears to be that access to pornography is “corroding childhood” by having children inadvertently seeing images or visiting websites their parents do not want them to see. There is no shortage of critics, both anti-censorship groups, anti surveillance groupstechnology groups and people concerned with actual harm-reduction. There are two central problems: defining pornography, and finding its harms.Read More »Censorship, pornography and divine swan-on-human action

Professional roles and private lives: How separate are they?

The Daily Mail likes to ‘out’ teachers as porn stars. It did so again last week. The standard response to the discovery that a teacher stars in adult films or ‘moonlights’ as a stripper is to sack him or her, even if (as in one case) two decades have elapsed since involvement in the adult entertainment industry. The thing is, as is frequently noted in these teachers’ defense, they haven’t done anything illegal. Moreover, what they were doing was done in their own time. So, what can be the justification for dismissal? Are they still in the role of teacher at home?

I think there are three possible avenues for justifying dismissal: character assessment, capacity to fulfill role, and duty to be a role model. Personally, I’m not sure if I am convinced by any of them and am keen to hear what you think.Read More »Professional roles and private lives: How separate are they?