Flaming Liberals

For more than two years, the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography has mired itself in the subject, studying the effects of smut upon the nation's life. In a preliminary report leaked last week, one of the commission's panels argues, among other things, that pornography does not contribute to sex crimes, delinquency or any other antisocial behavior.

That is hardly news; a Danish commission, for example, came to the same conclusion some time ago. But the U.S. report also finds that "persons who hold sexually, socially and politically liberal attitudes generally report more arousal to sexual stimuli" than conservatives. Liberals might be flattered by the report's argument that "a strong response to erotic stimuli requires imagination, the ability to project and sensitivity."

But the distinction is difficult to prove. For one thing, pornography has been a private enthusiasm, so that epochs of conservative outward rectitude, such as Victorian England, have produced lush undergrowths of erotica. And anyone who has ever attended a smoker with conservatives in, say, Prairie Village, Kansas, knows that the gusto for smut is nonpartisan. When he heard of the report, California Congressman John Rousselot, a conservative Republican, grumbled: "How did they determine it? I know they didn't interview me."

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