A New Type of Censorship - Personal Intimidation

My friend UL over at What We Saw Today shared a traumatic story about being stalked and threatened on the Deviant Art website. Please read her post to get the full back story.

Many of us have shared our fears and concerns about legal and corporate censorship of our art. We've mentioned the slippery slope (sorry for the cliche) of censorship and where it can lead to. During those writings, I never thought of a new type of censorship that became apparent in UL's post - personal threats and intimidation.

After reading about the stalker that threatened UL physically, I have now seen the most personally damaging form of censorship. This is not a government, corporation, or conservative sect going after her, it is a fucked-up individual. This individual could not argue or debate the point logically so she had to resort to violent threats and insults. She made it personal.

As a result of that and the refusal of dA to support its positive members by following its own rules, UL is taking her art down from dA. I don't blame her. I am going to cancel my four-day old membership today ( I have not posted a single photo yet) .

This violent story shows the deep divide that is tearing our culture and country apart. We can no longer civilly debate issues anymore. We have to shout at each other until one submits. You may have seen this during the recent health care town hall meetings where the opposition yells so loud, no debate can come from it. They don't want us to speak. They censor us.

I am proud of my home state of Montana. When the President visited it last week to hold a health care town hall meeting, opposing views were expressed, debate and dialogue were encouraged. Outside, the protesters, both pro and con, were civil. No gun nuts came armed to show their stupidity. My hope out of this is that the extreme fringes will be shown as dangerous ideologues over time as our "not-perfect, but a damn big improvement" President shows what true compromise and respect, though not agreeing, tactics can accomplish.

Sadly though, that is on the national level. So many of the freedoms of art, expression, and thought are being torn apart by individuals who can not tolerate opposing views. I am a progressive libertarian. I believe gun owner's have a right to own firearms, yet we need gun regulations. I am pro-choice, but I respect pro-life advocates who believe in the sanctity of life and are opposed to the death penalty as well. I have some issues that are absolutes for me and will not budge on them, but I will not go and shout someone down or violentlythreaten those opposing me over these issues.

Dr. L. I have two messages for you. First, both you and your art are important, timely, beautiful, erotic, relevant,sexy and needed in these dark times. Second, keep doing it and screw the narrow-minded fuck-ups that have shown their lack of honor and credibility. You are above them.