COLUMN: An $80,000 waste of time and money
One of the first questions ever posed to Paula Houston, Utah’s “Obscenity and Pornography Ombudsman,” was if a naked mannequin in a store window represented pornography.
Huh? A naked what?
A naked mannequin.
I know, it sounds ridiculous, like something in The Utah Statesman police blotter, and I’m sure you’re shaking your head right now, so I’ll ask two burning questions: First, what precisely is an ombudsman? And lastly, what kind of socially ham-fisted individual believes a mannequin to be profane or pornographic? I’ve seen naked mannequins before and believe me, the dark side of my mind never awakened, nor did anything akin to excitement or arousal grip my mind or body.
Bizarre and moronic questions are common in Houston’s everyday life because she is an ombudsman, or, more appropriately, an ombudswoman. In case you’re still in the dark, an ombudsman is someone who investigates consumer complaints against businesses, and after analysis and research, tries to mediate the two parties grievances. I tried an Internet search for ombudsman and received 34 matches ranging from the “Small Business Ombudsman” to the “Gender Equality Ombudsman.” As far as anyone can verify, Paula Houston is the first Porn Ombudsman in United States history. And she’s wasting her time in Utah.
Aside from the sporadic nudie bar in Salt Lake City, Playboy, Penthouse and the late-night erotic movies on Cinemax, Showtime and HBO, Utah is virtually porn-free. I’m serious. Apart from surfing the flesh highway on the Internet, folks in Utah have to drive to Evanston, Wyo., to purchase anything with the letter X stamped on the package. Our great state is clean as a whistle, so the idea of Houston eradicating porn is fittingly amusing and equally pathetic.
Despite the misappropriation of $80,000 (that’s her paycheck), I’ll be the first to applaud Ms. Houston if she directs her indistinct authority at low-class people who manufacture and peruse child pornography. I’ll do the same if she endeavors to inform children and parents about pornography on the Internet and how they can avoid its uninhibited sexual contents. But from what I read, Ms. Houston is spending her time listening to a pair of bored housewives with no regard for freedom of speech or freedom of choice.
Enter JoAnn Hamilton, member of Homes Offering Moral Empowerment (HOME) and American Mothers, Inc., and say hello to Gail Ruzicka, a cranky, 60-year-old mother of 12 who just happens to be president of the Utah chapter of the Eagle Forum, a national union of conservative zealots.
If Ruzicka and Hamilton have their way, Houston will spend her time “encouraging” businesses to stow from the public eye such magazines as Jane, Redbook, Seventeen, Cosmopolitan and People, because, as Ruzicka infers, and as Hamilton said, “Sexual awareness opens once, and it’s a tragedy if it happens in a grocery store. Redbook, Mademoiselle, Allure, those magazines have pushed it to the max. Our children are walking through grocery checkout lines and seeing sexually explicit pictures and that puts them on the path to sexual addiction.”
I wonder how many sexual addicts admit shamefacedly their craving for pornography started with Saturday trips to the grocery store. I’m sure it’s possible, but I’d bet my car on the number zero. Furthermore, I take offense to anyone – citizen or politician – who recommends we confiscate mass media products that “everyone” feels are unacceptable. That is complete and utter nonsense from lazy parents who lack the precision, maturity and gumption to speak with their children about sex and other topics they might see on television or in movies, read in magazines, books or newspapers, and hear as chatter from their schoolmates or neighborhood pals.
It’s impossible to shelter our children from the world. It’s there, whether we like it or not. Wanting to create a perfect, sanitized world, one lacking bumps or bruises, is a world devoid of joy and happiness. Untainted life belongs in a Bradbury, Orwell or Huxley novel, not in our day and age. However, that’s what Gail Ruzicka and JoAnn Hamilton want – a world and a state that can fit nicely into their narrow realm of thought. Both women and other small minded rabble want to hop on the Paula Houston express, hoping they can convince an $80,000 waste of taxpayer funds to topple First Amendment rights.
I think they’re going to embarrass themselves.
But it would be terribly sad, indeed, “chilling,” if they ever succeeded.