Because I have a tendency to be provocative, I've decided to remove myself from most of this commentary and simply quote the sources.
Hopefully this will allow people to focus on the merits and substance of the postions, rather than the person presenting them. I hope this helps temper the debate on the subject and on the arguments presented. With that, lets proceed...
The following positions are from the web site of the Feminists for Free Expression
Sexual Harassment
FFE is deeply concerned about sexual harassment in schools and workplaces, and believes that gender-based harassment -- like all serious social problems -- requires thoughtful, fundamental solutions. We are alarmed by the facile proposals popular today among some policy-makers and activists who claim that banning a list of "bad" words and images will improve the condition of women. It will not. Such quick fix solutions ignore the substantive causes of sexual harassment and establish restrictions on words and images that will harm women's interests. Without this country's tolerance for a broad range of words and images, women could never have founded a feminist movement -- considered dangerous and sinful by many Americans -- 25 years ago. Without that tolerance, the goals of women will be harmed today.
Sanitizing workplace speech in defense of women workers enshrines archaic stereotypes of women as delicate, asexual creatures who require special protection from mere words and images.
-- From FFE's brief to the United States Supreme Court in Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc.
Those who focus on sexual speech, presuming it to be inherently offensive to women, miss the point. Gender-based harassment should be illegal whether or not it relies on sexual language or imagery. A woman is likely to be more intimidated by comments that she is "slow" or "dumb" than by sexual jokes. Moreover, women themselves make and enjoy sexual banter. Overbroad restrictions on sexual material infantilizes women and shores up destructive Victorian stereotypes that women are (or should be) so pure that any expression about sexuality offends and demoralizes them. This is not a feminist position.
The Internet
Although most of the calls for censorship of the Internet have been in the name of protecting children, some have come in the name of protecting women from "harmful" sexual imagery. Yet, not all women find the same material offensive, and offensiveness is no reason for censorship. Indeed, many people have found feminist ideas to be offensive. In 1994, one online provider closed a feminist discussion group because of the group's provocative ideas. The best protection for women's ideas and voices is complete constitutional protection of free speech. Historically, censorship in the name of "decency" has hurt women by restricting access to information about reproduction and sexuality. It has never reduced sexism and violence. Previous centuries have seen much more censorship than we have today and yet much more discrimination against women. The best counter to speech some women may find offensive is not restriction, but adding more women's voices to the mix.
Arts Censorship
Recent years have seen increasing demands for censorship of artistic expression. Attacks on books in libraries, demands for censoring television and prosecutions of bookstores and museums have become a popular response to words, ideas or images that some Americans find offensive. Feminists for Free Expression is deeply concerned about this trend, for censoring disagreeable ideas will not make the disagreeable realities go away, and only distracts people's attention from addressing the real causes of social ills. Censorship harms all groups working for social change -- especially women.
Feminism, like any other movement to remedy oppressive attitudes, depends on freedom of speech. Without the liberty to protest, parody, and mock sexism, and to communicate information about women's lives (including their sexual lives), women could not have made progress toward equality in the workplace or broken down sexist stereotypes in our culture.
Pornography
Historically, censorship has hurt women. Information about sex and reproduction has been banned under the guise of "protecting" women -- from the jailing of birth control advocate Margaret Sanger to the "gag rule" against abortion counseling in federally funded clinics to the attacks against National Endowment for the Arts grant recipient Holly Hughes. It has never reduced sexism or violence.
No research, including the Surgeon General's report, finds a link between "kinky" or "degrading" images and violence. Exposure to such material does not cause people to change their sexual preferences or commit acts against their will. The derailed impulses of child abusers and rapists are caused by childhood traumas. ''They are not," wrote leading researcher John Money, "borrowed from movies, books or other people."
Violence and intimidation existed for thousands of years before commercial pornography, and countries today with no pornography, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, do not boast strong women's rights records. Men have forced women to do things -- sexual and nonsexual -- for centuries. The problem is not sex, it's force.
If one group may be censored because some find it offensive, all groups may be censored, including women. The best protection for women's ideas and voices is the Constitutional protection of free speech.