The Internet is for PORN!

Today a patron came to the desk complaining that some dude was looking at 'disturbing' porn on one of the public terminals. Libraries of late seem to be getting all puffed up about privacy and free access to information, and I was under the impression that so long as people did not break state obscenity laws, they could do whatever they wanted with their computer time. I sort of stammered that I would ask my boss what to do about it (she later went over and told the guy to get off the computer.) I would ultimately have kicked him off the workstation because he was a teen, and teens have to use the teen computers, otherwise they'd overrun the entire building. However, my initial unverbalized reaction was, 'dude, I have been running my ass off here for 6 hours at the reference desk. I don't even have time to go to the bathroom because there are so many people here who need my help, and you come to me bitching about something you only saw because you were nosy and looked over somebody's shoulder?'

I think porn is a little gross, seeing as how I'm not a guy. I think it's particularly gross that people feel comfortable looking at porn in a place where everyone else can see. [keep both your hands above the table! jesus!] But you don't have to go far to see nekkid ladies. They're on the cover of novels by Zane and Jerome Dickey, and on the album art of various CDs. I helped some kid with his MySpace account and saw that one of his Friend's profile pictures was that of a naked woman with her hands covering her nipples. Are we gonna tell people they can't look at any of this either? I understand that many of our patrons--sorry--customers don't have computers at home and thus cannot get their rocks off in private. But maybe we're governed by some sort of civility or unspoken law of behavior that says we get said rocks off in private? I don't know.

Some people argue that customers are creating a hostile work environment for employees by displaying pornographic images on their computers. While I don't seem to have the same attitude toward pornography as most of mainstream America (I could care less that it exists, people will have unacceptable attitudes toward women whether there are nekkid pictures floating about or not...) I do understand the bit about a hostile work environment. For example, I would perceive my workplace to be hostile if there were lots of customers looking at white supremicist or Nazi websites. Note: I did see that some person was looking at Storm Front, and I did find this threatening. What can I say, I grew up watching 'Eyes on the Prize.' I would be equally upset if somebody were looking at Fred Phelps' website, or some the site of some radical branch of religious faith that exhorted people to exterminate non-believers. However, we have no rules that require us to kick people off computers for viewing sites that perpetuate hate or hate speech. So what's up with that? I guess those of us who don't fear the titty but do fear real hate have no recourse.