Oh, how American society has changed! Such a writing as this would be unimaginable not many years ago -- it used to be that "consuming" porn was relegated to creepy, back alley shops.
-- From "Publicly, a whole new lewdness" by Monica Hesse, Washington Post Staff Writer 11/12/09
. . . the increasing popularity of laptops and handheld devices, and the prevalence of wireless Internet access, means there's a greater chance of becoming a bystander to a complete stranger's viewing proclivities. Like being exposed to the cigarette smoke of a nicotine addict on the street, people are inhaling secondhand smut.
Last fall, some airlines announced they would work on filtering in-flight Internet access to prevent the surfing of inappropriate content (dirty DVDs brought on by passengers, however, would be nearly impossible to filter). But this secondhand smut can also happen on the ground. On buses. In gyms. In movie theaters.
Perhaps this is the real problem: the increasingly blurred boundary between public and private. If we are so accustomed to burying our noses in tiny screens, carrying our entertainment in and out of the house, perhaps people are simply getting confused as to where they are.
Those afflicted with secondhand porn say it's not that they oppose adult entertainment. The trouble was knowing that they couldn't escape it, not until the plane landed or the Metro doors opened.
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