Letters

National Review, Dec 17, 2001

PORN and NR Abercrombie & Fitch, because of its history, is the perfect example of the "pervasion" you isolate and describe so well in "Porn, Pervasive Presence" (Nov. 19). Conceptually and in its detail this is an eye-opening piece. It's likely to kick up a lot of dust. Tom Wolfe New York, N.Y.

I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Buckley's article, but the words were graphic enough. Brigitte Flick Gardner, Mass.

I encourage my kids to read National Review. It is difficult to explain to them that this particular issue may not be best suited for their eyes. Is there a way to write about pornography that will not offend? I'm not certain that it can be accomplished. Yet, if anyone is able to meet that challenge, it is one so talented as Mr. Buckley. Sherm Johnson Carmel, Ind.

Thanks. But what we attempted in the text was not so much description as revelation. -Ed.

You have a history of setting an example with your own high standards. This is just as important as the content of the articles and pictures, especially in a society that has lost its own standards. People need examples to get back on track. I hope you will make this article just a momentary blip on a good record and decide to return to providing that example. Daniel Thompson Elkhorn, Wis.

Don't you think that printing pictures of lovely naked people, under the auspices of "Gee, ain't it awful?" is, uh, kind of tacky? Sara Clancy Issaquah, Wash.

Yes, if that had been the editorial objective. -Ed.

Porn is not "everywhere," as your Nov. 19 cover states. There are still a few places where its contagion has not yet arrived. Our monastery is one of them-that is, until this issue came in the mail. When it is necessary to discuss moral evils related to such a volatile human passion as sex, caution and restraint are necessary to avoid defiling oneself and others. The Brigittine Monks Amity, Ore.

Reverend Fathers: Only monastic life could explain your assumption that our illustration was unrestrained. -Ed.

Expecting to get a conservative, Christian article about the destructive effects of pornography, I was once again duped into turning the pages to offensive nude pictures. I will never again read your magazine, and when asked my opinion about your publication, I will fervently denounce it because of the trap the editors have fallen into: giving in to the world. I never got to read the article by Buckley; it may have been excellent. The pictures themselves were so incredibly maddening, they prevented me from reading anything else in the issue. How do you expect to have loyal readers if you don't warn them about the offensiveness you have published? Kelly Peacock Austin, Tex.

We like readers who read, not alleged readers who affect to do so, but simply gesticulate. -Ed.

The filthy tide in this area will be turned back, I believe, not by law but by custom, and customs in a capitalist society are influenced largely by market pressure. Only when a systematic boycott is prosecuted, not against the purveyors of porn, but (in a phrase our president might use) against the advertisers who harbor them, will change occur. An organized boycott can pick its targets, concentrating its fire on one product at a time, working its way down from the most egregious porn-carrier. Who better than NR Online to coordinate this? Jeremy Abrams Tokyo, Japan As a libertarian, someone who does not accept the interference of big government with my freedoms, how can I trust big government to best decide what people do with their bodies? How can you be conservative and against totalitarianism and still be against one's right to do whatever one wants with one's body? Irineu Carvalho Sao Paulo, Brazil

Obscenity, as the courts agree, is something other than merely the exercise of free speech. -Ed.

Buckley nailed the issue squarely between the eyes and left it quivering for all to see. I found myself offended and shocked by the photo of the nude young woman he provided as evidence of the depths of depravity to which our hallowed institution of snobbish clothing, Abercrombie & Fitch, has now sunk. Perhaps to remind myself that I was in fact offended, I found myself returning to the photo often, while savoring each biting point of Buckley's essay. Matt Travis Fall City, Wash.

At this juncture, WFB's article on porn may be irrelevant. The Playboy Channel is irrelevant; the people who habitually watch its fare are already lost. More to the point would be the A&F catalogue phenomenon (or the commercials aired during the World Series). Here you are seeing a much more dangerous trend. Watch any TV series, with its subtly corrupting view of the American scene. Or catch a Jay Leno monologue on any night and garner the latest in tastelessness. John McAuliffe Teaneck, N.J.

The cover of your magazine was misleading, inasmuch as there was no porn inside. It was not even "kind of porny." Nudity does not constitute porn. Page 40 may have been a first for NR, but nothing on it was pornographic. C. P. Hall II Brookfield, Ill.

The pornographic ascendancy is part of a larger sociological trend. In 1960 the median age at first marriage for U.S. women was 20; today it is 25. Yet surveys tell us that today the average American woman first has sexual intercourse at age 18. The typical woman, in other words, is sexually active while single for seven years. Robert Stacy McCain Washington, D.C.