A Michigan public library has temporarily stopped offering internet access due to a "sudden surge" in people using the computers to surf porn.
Mt Clemens library shuts down internet access
You know what? I'm okay with that, if it is indeed a temporary measure while they figure out an adequate solution.
It's not that I want to restrict access to whatever content an adult wants to view – but I also believe there's a time and a place.
As a sex-positive writer I am a bit confused by my reaction. I feellike I should be supporting equal access for all adults to whateverinformation they want, including erotic and pornographic entertainment.
And I know that filters often block non-pornographic content, so havingfilters restricts one's ability to research various medical and socialtopics. Shutting off the internet altogether is surely too drastic ameasure; it denies everyone else access to all kinds of information andpunishes or at least inconveniences a bunch of folks who were notlooking at adult content in a public place.
Yet realistically, it's hard for me to get all rah-rah about folksusing library computers for porn. Library computers are so public –
more public than books and periodicals and DVDs, all of which you cantake home and peruse at your leisure (or at least take into a carrel orsmall room, if it's from a collection that cannot leave the premises).
If anyone walking by can see your screen, it's not particularly politeto have adult content up where children and the faint of heart cansuffer accidental exposure. Part of supporting an adult's freedom ofsexual expression and exploration is recognizing that we live incommunities, and that we need to respect others' right not to besubjected to our tastes just as we'd rather not be subjected to theirs.
Saving my porn surfing for a less public place seems a reasonablecompromise.
Not everyone who uses library computers is tech-savvy, either. Ifyou don't bother to clear your history, or if you don't know how, thenext person who starts typing in a URL might get a shock when theaddress auto-fills and takes them to something they really, reallydidn't need to see. Not to mention the thousands of unscrupulous pornsites that exist mainly to install malware on the innocent gawker'smachine. Why create that overhead for the already underfunded librariesand whatever IT resources they might have?
Setting up a private adults-only computer room makes meuncomfortable too. I'd much rather let adult shops set up cybersex andporn surfing kiosks than foster a porno atmosphere somewhere near thebiology section.
Seem strange, that I would be so conservative? And yet I've neverthought that we should have no boundaries at all, that porn and sex wasappropriate everywhere and every time. I think we each have aresponsibility to observe certain cultural preferences – and themajority of people in this country would rather our libraries not beinundated with porn surfing.
Maybe bars – already adult spaces – could set up a few internet computers, if we absolutely must surf porn in public.
