March 19

Events

• Current events

• 1821 - Birth of a sex tourist - Explorer Sir Richard Burton was born on this date. He visited the Islamic world in the late 18th century and wrote of its mystery. In 1885 he published the first ten volumes of his translation of the Arabian Nights." At the end of that work was a "Terminal Essay," that included an 18,000-word section on the history and anthropology of man-boy love. Only 50 copies of that essay were printed and for private circulation only. He was quite concerned that because the subject matter was controversial, he might be arrested at its publication. He wrote, "I don't care a button about being prosecuted and if the matter comes to a fight I will walk into court with my Bible and my Shakespeare and my Rabelais under my arm and prove to them that, before they condemn me, they must cut half of them out." In the end, he was not prosecuted. The work was groundbreaking in its day, as this subject had not been written about with anything approaching scientific detachment. Burton wrote, "I propose to discuss the matter sérieusement, honnêtement, historiquement to show it in decent nudity not in suggestive fig-leaf."

• 1981 - Wanda watch a Veedee-O instead of read a book? - A sex education book for 8th graders called Ms. Wanda Lust and Captain Veedee-O on Venus angered parents in Ocean City, NJ. who protested its use on this date. The text of the book, published in 1972, was by Sol Gordon and the illustrations by Roger Conant. Their work was designed to be used with children for educational purposes. The duo were also responsible in 1973 for a book called Drug you?: survivor's handbook, also designed as an educational tool.

• 1996 - Half a million? Then there must be a lot of customers, too, right? - A report in India was released on this date calling for tougher measures to protect children from sexual abuse amid signs that growing numbers of pedos were coming to that country. It was believed that pedos were coming to India instead of south-east Asia because of India's lax laws, cheap and abundant child prostitutes and a reportedly lower incidence of AIDS. Of an estimated one million child prostitutes in Asia at that time, India was said to have the greatest number - with it being somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000. It was also reported by the Coalition on Child Prostitution and Tourism that most child prostitutes were serving local men, not foreigners.

• 2002 - What? A fresh controversy? They must have really struck a nerve. - The Brass Eye special, which satirized the media's treatment of pedophilia, was nominated for the award for "best comedy" and the award for "innovation" by the British Academy of Film and Television on this date. After the show was aired the previous August, the country's Independent Television Commission and the Broadcasting Standards Commission issued orders to the network to apologize for airing the program. Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell charged that it contributed to the destruction of "all the boundaries of decency on television." In response, Channel 4's then CEO, Michael Jackson (no, not that Michael Jackson!), defended the program and said, "We would not hesitate to ... transmit such a program again." Britain's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children issued a statement after the nomination was announced expressing "regret that a program that trivializes the abuse of children should be considered worthy of an award." The show lost the awards in both categories.

• 2002 - Hey! I have an idea! Let's make a stupid law! - In an act The Register called "Child-protective mania," The state of Pennsylvania ordered ISPs to censor the Internet on this date. The legislature passed a law requiring ISPs to block access to kiddie porn Web sites. Under the scheme, residents would have to be prevented from accessing the sites, which would be identified by the state attorney general's office. The law was backed up with penalties ranging from $5,000 for a first offense to fines of $30,000 and seven years' imprisonment for a third offense. The PA legislature didn't offer any guidance as to how the blocking is to be accomplished. The fact that active KP URLs often changed on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, to avoid prosecutions in the first place made the law virtually unenforceable, anyway. The Register called it "pure self-congratulatory legislation with no appreciation of the practicalities, and no hope of accomplishing anything worthwhile. Business will be burdened with extravagant requirements and Draconian penalties; and the public will be burdened with censorship, all for no good reason." Well, if it distracts the legislators, it can't be all bad.