Why you think the net was born? Porn, porn, porn

This is the summary of the article that's titled something like "The ethics of internet porn." The presentation is going to be in two weeks, but I'm getting in early because: I have work to do; it gives you time to think about it so there can be discussion in the tute; I still have no internet at home (I know it's 10 on a Saturday. I'm at uni. So I'm an addict. I also haven't slept in the past 24 hours, and have been here since Friday); I have a lot of non-Arts work to get done in the intervening space; this is probably going to be a large part of my essay; I wrote this a while ago; etc. Pick your favourite reason. Any questions, queries, or concerns can be posted here, but I'm not actually sure how many people check this regularly, so it might be good to ask me in the tute, and I can make responses either on- or off-line (or both).

Shortest summary: amateur porn is empowering, support more amateur porn. This public service announcement proudly funded by the Australian government.

Short summary: Porn is immoral. However, immoral and unethical aren't the same thing. Amateur porn can cater to a market of interests that may not be catered for by a commercial market for lack of demand/saleability. Amateur porn also blurs the distinction between producers and consumers of porn. Despite the fact that porn is evil incarnate, the general empowerment of consumers and minority groups that amateur porn can give means that amateur porn is ethical.

Longer summary and critique: The opening of the article is an assumption that porn is completely immoral. Which is actually ridiculous, because the reasons that are given are essentially just an unquestioning assumption of some of the ideals of the Christian right and the feminist left (porn exploits women, porn makes sex something that isn't special, etc.). And it isn't actually a stretch to object to each of the reasons that are raised. That aside, the remainder of the article is an exploration of the ethics of porn production. The essence of this exploration is that porn doesn't necessarily cater to those with specialist sexual interests. Amateur porn tends to be produced by those who can't find professional porn, or aren't satisfied by the available range of professional porn. This also includes who derive their sexual exitation from the manufacture of porn. This ability to satisfy those that are left no other recourse is what, according to the author, makes amateur porn ethical. (In hindsight, I may have skipped a bit of summary in here, but the article also makes the valid point of saying that morals and ethics aren't the same thing. I think they're a lot more closely linked than the Foucaultian view apparently proposes, but I also don't entirely agree with the Foucaultian view as presented in the article. I think the issue is actually a lot older, and more detailed than Foucault)

This view actually presents a couple of interesting contrasts to other articles in similar fields. Nagel's article on perversion moves perversion (which is part of some of the reasons given for the immorality of porn) out of the realm of morality entirely. For Baudrillard, on the other hand, porn represents one of the definitional retreats from the genuine. Inasmuch as that's unethical (and I'd say Baudrillard definitely thinks that it is), then porn is highly unethical. Which is interesting also, because that comes pretty close to the communist definition of immorality that the article uses.