Artwork by
Dennis Murphy

For the students, by the students

How far is too far? Email pornography at MU
Nicki Busdieker, Corner Post Staff

February 26, 2004 - Today 23-year-old Matt Graves was set to appear in the county circuit court. Why, because this MU graduate was caught sending pornographic spam through email from an MU email account back in 2002. With this trial coming to light, questions come up about how far is too far with "pornographic" pictures, and what truly sets a pornographic picture from just a filthy joke.

"I get those disgusting emails all the time, the ones that show more than I would ever want to see," a freshmen biochemistry major, who asked not to be named, said.

What this student is talking about are the tasteless emails sent around from student to student that are thought of as "jokes," "pranks" or just "something to be funny." But are these just jokes and pranks? Webster defines pornography as "something intended to arouse sexual desire." If this is the case then who decides how the emails are intended? Is it the person who sent the email to you or is it the person who created the email? What if one person gets an arousal from the email and then passes it on? Is that a pornographic picture?

"When you surf the internet in a thirty minute time span as many as three porno pop-ups could come up on your screen," a freshman agricultural journalism major, who asked to remain anonymous, said."Even if you have a pop-up blocker some can come up. Porn just seems to be everywhere. But, if you are able to manage avoiding those pop-ups you can open your email and it is there too,"

There is no way to stop sending pornographic pictures through email. It is going to happen. Matthew Graves used his girlfriends MU email account to spread his, but what about all of those students who forward those pictures each day from their own email accounts? Is what they are doing wrong? Will it ever stop? You check your email and let me know.

Back to archive