In a purely rational world, the concept of organizing communities based on sexual orientation would be as risible as any idea of community based on purely superficial characteristics such as hair colour or race. This is not, of course, a purely rational world. In response to homophobia, lesbians and gay men have been building communities predicated on the one thing they have in common: sexual desire for people of their own gender. It is apparently a myth that Innuit peoples have a huge number of words for snow. The logic behind that myth does, however, apply to the lesbian and gay communities. Sexuality is the glue that holds lesbian and gay identities together, and sexual discourse is essential in reifying those identities.
That sexual discourse is not limited to the scientific or the sanitized. Erotic(1) writing is the communal commonplace book of lesbians and gay men. Erotica(2) chronicles lesbian and gay history, from the early furtive stories where characters frequently ended up in jails, mental hospitals or miserable heterosexual unions, to the post sexual-liberation, pre-AIDS orgiastic fantasies and from the first post-AIDS tentative fumblings with safer sex to the present "post-modern" explorations of "gender-fuck".(3) Erotica is often the first source of sex education for lesbians and gay men who never see their own realities in the awkward blackboard drawings of fallopian tubes and vas deferens that constitute most high-school sex-education classes. Erotica links lesbians and gay men in smaller communities -- or places where there is no community -- with the goings on in San Francisco or Toronto. Erotica also arouses the ire of the police, customs officers, and other self-styled guardians of public morality.
As might be presumed from their generally Victorian stance on erotica, these guardians of public morality tend to be highly suspicious of new technologies. As the newest medium on the block, the Internet has become a prime target of pro-censorship forces. One of the strengths of the Internet is that it is a truly democratic medium -- it is not, and as yet cannot be, controlled by the Blacks, Turners, Murdochs or Southams of the world. Canadian libraries, freenets and organizations such as the Canadian National Institute for the Blind have cooperated to make access to the Internet available to those who cannot afford or cannot use regular commercial Internet services. Naturally this unrestricted access to information is seen as a threat to those who wish to control what their neighbours can see. In the United States they lobbied for the Communications Decency Act (now struck down) and the new Child Online Protection Act (currently under a temporary restraining order pending the resolution of an inquiry into its constitutionality(4)). In Canada, it seems that these cyber-grundys(5) are targeting public libraries and the government in their attempt to reduce access.
Lesbians and gay men have a particular interest in keeping public libraries from censoring Internet access. Recent Board hearings at the Burlington Public Library raise several important issues. The pro-censorship forces in this affair were off-duty police officers and Burlington residents. The speaking notes of Alan MacIntosh, one of the complainants, can be found on the Electronic Freedom Canada (EFC) Web site.(6) In his comments he describes the problem not only as being that people can access "pornographic" materials on the library computers, but that they can do so in an area frequented by the public (and, of course, especially including children). MacIntosh suggests several solutions including that:
the simple answer to this problem is to have the Internet accessible terminals placed in a position that can be continually monitored by staff while they are doing other job-related tasks. Knowing that the terminals are being monitored will deter people from accessing sites which are not suitable for public viewing. If people do [access inappropriate sites] the Library staff have the authority to put a stop to it and ask the individual to leave the Library.
...
There are services available, such as Clean Net, which do their best to screen out unsuitable sites, however even those services can be beaten by a programmer who knows which key words to use and not to use. It still comes down to the Library staff being responsible for the material coming into the Library.(7)
These proposed solutions would have a disproportionate effect on lesbian and gay library users. Internet screening services have a dubious record of incorrectly screening out sites that mention lesbian and gay issues as inappropriate sexual material just by virtue of the site's use of the words "lesbian" or "gay". Mechanical screening that looks at combinations of words would be even more likely to block sites that discuss safer sex for lesbians or gay men and, especially invidiously, coming out support groups for lesbian and gay youth (the words "child" or "teenager" in conjunction with "lesbian" or "gay" set off especially loud alarms in the minds of the cyber-grundys). A complete analysis of all the various options for screening or blocking software is outside the ambit of this paper, and would, furthermore, be redundant. Ample information regarding filtering software is available both in general electronic freedom sites(8) and on the sites of organizations such as the U.S. group Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation,(9) or the youth anti-censorship Web site Peacefire.(10)
MacIntosh's suggestion that the library staff should directly monitor what their users are browsing would also be disproportionately harmful for lesbians and gays. Although librarians tend to be among the least homophobic professionals, the thought of anyone watching and judging whether Web sites are "appropriate" would tend to have an especially chilling effect on lesbians and gay men. Those who are closeted would fear being outed, and those who were out would fear being subjected to homophobic tirades. As with the monitoring software, the question of how Web sites would be judged is not clear. The Canadian Library Association "Position Statement on Intellectual Freedom"(11) states that:
Libraries have a basic responsibility for the development and maintenance of intellectual freedom.
It is the responsibility of libraries to guarantee and facilitate access to all expressions of knowledge and intellectual activity, including those which some elements of society may consider to be unconventional, unpopular, or unacceptable. To this end, libraries shall acquire and make available the widest variety of materials.
It is the responsibility of libraries to guarantee the right of free expression by making available all the library's public facilities and services to all individuals and groups who need them.
...
Both employees and employers in libraries have a duty, in addition to their institutional responsibilities, to uphold these principles.
How would a library staff person fulfill the duty to uphold principles of intellectual freedom at the same times as serving as a monitor and censor to library users' Internet use? Supreme courts in both the United States and Canada have struggled with balancing the constitutional values of freedom of expression with the societal need to be able to say "it's just not appropriate for you to see that." If these great legal minds have not been able to arrive at a balance that is not discriminatory against lesbians and gays -- and Butler does not strike such a balance -- then how is a humble library intern supposed to do better? The Burlington Public Library resolved these issues by deciding to provide a mixture of computers with filtering software and computers with privacy screens so that only the user can see the Web sites being accessed.(12) This compromise is a model that lesbian and gay activists might wish to remember, since Burlington is unlikely to be the last city targeted by the cyber-grundys.
It has often been said that when the only tool one has is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail. The Canadian Government's only means of regulating the media is the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), and, strangely, the Government is beginning to think that the Internet looks like a broadcast medium. Yet the original purpose for the formation of the CRTC was regulating the limited spectrum of broadcasting frequencies and ensuring that those stations that had a broadcasting license disseminated a certain amount of information(13) relevant to Canadians. Radio and television are one-to-many networks. That is, one producer of information sends it out to many individual recipients. The Internet is a many-to-many network; its prime characteristic is that every consumer of information can also be a supplier of information. In effect, the Internet encourages people to recognize their own areas of expertise or interest and share those with the rest of the world. Any attempt by the CRTC to regulate content on the Internet is not only misguided, it is bound to fail. The Internet grew out of military information networks created to allow communications to continue after a nuclear conflict.(14) One side effect of this is that any means less harsh than nuclear warheads has little chance to shut down or change areas of the Internet. Any time a local government attempts to close down particular sites, citizens of other countries step in to reproduce the information on servers outside that jurisdiction. Canadians whose Web sites fell afoul of CRTC regulation could just move those sites "off-shore".
It is also possible that the CRTC means only to regulate Internet Service Providers (ISPs). There are two models of regulation that the CRTC could apply to ISPs: content regulations or service regulations. The CRTC currently regulates the content that radio, television and cable "broadcasters" are allowed to show. Clearly this would not be applicable to ISPs because, unlike broadcasters, they do not control the information that individual users send or receive. The CRTC also regulates the services and prices of telecommunications providers. These regulations do not limit or change what one can or cannot say on the telephone, just how much one must pay for the privilege of so doing. Service regulation developed at a time when telecommunications were handled by monopolies. The Internet Service market is highly competitive, begging the question of why there could be any present need to regulate service.
The only need that comes to mind is, again, the need to control information. The laws that govern "obscenity" are, with the sole exception of the law regarding erotica that includes children,(15) laws that restrict people's ability to make, print, publish, distribute or circulate(16) erotica. The Internet allows lesbians and gays (and everyone else) unprecedented access to erotic materials without fear of Customs seizure.. It also allows access to information on trials that are under press bans in Canada,(17) access to Web sites that have not been approved by Elections Canada and that discuss Federal Election candidates,(18) and quick access to news about the lives of other lesbians and gay men around the world.(19)
Whether lesbians and gays use the Internet to research term papers or to investigate flagellation fantasies (and is there a difference?), it is hard to deny that it has become a powerful tool for networking and education. As long as the Courts continue to rule that parts of the lives and fantasies of lesbians and gays are "obscene" and harmful to society, it is important that lesbians and gays support the continued freedom of the Internet.
It is equally important that heterosexuals support it. Curtailment of the freedom of any group within society to obtain and exchange information provides an ominous precedent for further restrictions aimed at other groups. Censorship efforts advancing in small increments can eventually expand to stultify free exchange of information almost completely. Those who do not welcome such an outcome would be wise to support ongoing efforts to counter censorship proposals when and wherever they arise.
1. For the purpose of brevity, this author will use the term "erotic" to cover the concept of writing intended to cause sexual arousal. Insofar as the words "pornographic" and "obscene" are more terms of value judgement than terms of legal art, they will not be used except in quoting others.
2. Also for the purpose of brevity, this author will use the term "erotica" to cover writing, pictures, video, movies and any other media in which ideas intended to cause sexual arousal can be conveyed.
3. A concept that seems to be reducible to the idea that there is nothing queerer -- or more perfectly transgressive -- than lesbians with strap on dildos having sex with gay men.
4. Information from a press release at the web site of the Electronic Freedom Foundation at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Legal/Cases/ACLU_v_Reno_II/HTML/19981120_plaintiffs_pressrel.html .
5. Thomas Morton created Mrs. Grundy for his 1798 play Speed the Plough, but the character never appeared on stage. She was only alluded to by Dame Ashfield, another character who constantly wondered what her hypercritical neighbor would say about her. By 1813, Mrs. Grundy was a catchword for any intolerant prude. (Definition from Merriam Webster's "Word for the Wise" Web site at: http://m-w.com/wftw/97aug/81897.htm.
6. http://www.efc.ca/pages/pr/bpl.macintosh.29jan98.html
7. Ibid.
8. The Electronic Frontier Canada (http://www.efc.ca/) and the American Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org).
9. http://www.glaad.org/glaad/access_denied/ (The GLAAD site specifically examines the effect of the various ratings software on access to lesbian and gay topics.)
10. http://www.peacefire.org/index2.shtml. (The Peacefire site also includes instructions on disabling or avoiding various filtering software)
11. Adopted and approved by CLA Executive Council June 27, 1974; Amended November 17, 1983 and November 18, 1985. As found on the EFC Web site at: http://www.efc.ca/pages/doc/cla.18nov85.html.
12. Burlington Public Library Board, "Internet Policy", May 1996, as found at the Burlington Public Library Web site at: http://www.hhpl.on.ca/library/bpl/policy.htm.
13. Information is used here to mean any form of data whether it is intended to inform, entertain or persuade.
14. Carroll, Jim and Broadhead, Rick, Canadian Internet Handbook, 1995 edition, Englewood Cliffs, NJ(Prentice Hall Inc., 1995, pp. 41-2).
15. Criminal Code, RSC 1985, c. C-46, s. 163.1.
16. Ibid., s. 163(1).
17. As of December 6, 1998 the alt.fan.karla.homolka Usenet group was still alive, well, and wondering when she'll be released from jail.
18. EFC member Krishna Bera mirrored an "illegal" Green Party site during the last federal election, the results are available at: http://www.efc.ca/pages/elections/ec-letter.05may97.html.
19. See, for example: egale-l@egale.ca, or queerlaw-edit@abacus.oxy.edu.