I used to like The F Word pre Jess McCabe (poss. trigger)

[Lost Clown]

Yes, she's analyzed it and concluded " that intention and attitude is more important to equality than the sex acts me and my partner engage in."
Which could serve as an equally good defense of prositution and porn. Which was my point.

Is she using this to justify using other people? No. Is she saying that she feel comfortable doing this only when she is with someone she loves and trusts, yes. That, to me, is a HUGE difference between what she's saying and what people say to defend prostitution. Has she ever defended porn other then alluded to the fact that she thinks erotica (egalitarian "porn") is a good thing? NO.

delphyne:

For someone to have been a member here for two years but still be on the "egalitarian" porn bandwagon, which Maggie has rightly said has nothing to do with the rad fem fight against pornography .... well if we can't convince you who can we convince?

Well guess what, I think that erotica can exist too, and I said in my earlier post so too do Dworkin and MacKinnon or else why would they distinguish it from porn in their civil rights ordinance? (I use their definition of erotica so I should at least credit them with that.) (Laura did mention earlier that egalitarian porn = erotica for those not paying attention)

[delphyne]

Announcing that pornorgraphy is erotica doesn't make it so, Lost Clown.

Also I don't think Dworkin and MacKinnon make any reference to erotica in their anti-porn ordinance. Perhaps you could point me to where they did because I've obviously missed it.

This is the only quote I can find from Dworkin on erotica:

Erotica is simply high-class pornography; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer.

Great analysis Rich, that's the kind of experience I've had with BDSMers in certain large feminist communities.

[Lost Clown]

Announcing that pornorgraphy is erotica doesn't make it so, Lost Clown.

Also I don't think Dworkin and MacKinnon make any reference to erotica in their anti-porn ordinance. Perhaps you could point me to where they did because I've obviously missed it.

This is the only quote I can find from Dworkin on erotica:

Erotica is simply high-class pornography; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer.

Great analysis Rich, that's the kind of experience I've had with BDSMers in certain large feminist communities.

I'll have to pull it out when I come home, but it *is* there (it's in the part where they're describing what is considered porn and therefore falls under the scope of things that are prosecutable. It was used to define porn.). That's what most people think erotica is, and I agree with her on that. True erotica, I believe, does not, and can not exist in our society as it stands, but it is possible imho.

[Lost Clown]

Well not what I was looking for, but Diana Russell, author of Against Pornography, in an interview (seen here: http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/818)

A.M.: How do you feel about erotica?
D.R.: I define erotica as sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and respectful of all human beings and animals portrayed.
I find nothing degrading about explicit portrayals of sex per se, though erotica can of course be much broader than that. Even the peeling of an orange can be filmed to make it erotic.

And I will say that this represents my position, and I will still go find the MacKinnon/Dworkin part from the ordinance when I get home from school.

[delphyne]

I don't think it is LostClown. This is their definition of pornography -

Pornography" means the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words, including by electronic or other data retrieval systems, that also includes one or more of the following:

Women are presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities.
Women are presented as sexual objects who enjoy humiliation or pain; or as sexual objects experiencing sexual pleasure in rape, incest, or other sexual assault; or as sexual objects tied up, cut up, mutilated, bruised, or physically hurt.
Women are presented in postures or positions of sexual submission, servility, or display.
Women's body parts--including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or buttocks--are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts.
Women are presented being penetrated by objects or animals. Women are presented in scenarios of degradation, humiliation, injury, or torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual.

and there's a model ordinance here plus the Massachusetts ordinance:

http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin ... plete.html
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin ... cerpt.html

There isn't any mention of erotica there.

[Lost Clown]

I know MacKinnon made a distinction in Feminism Unmodified and I'm sure I read it in there too, like I said I will go and look into it when I have the documents in front of me instead of just the internet.

That's also *only* their definition of porn. It does not include the entire ordinance so it's not surprising that if erotica is mentioned it is not mentioned there.

Best I can do right now (found from a book excerpt which is an article about the civil rights ordinance by MacKinnon: http://books.google.com/books?id=dxISOP ... UjUG8AZQPs)

Erotica, defined by distinction as not this, might be sexually explicit material premised on equality.

(2nd paragraph)

edited to add: I just found out that this is the same thing she wrote about the civil rights ordinance in Feminism Unmodified, but you can read the whole thing online if you don't have the book (this part of it anyway)

[delphyne]

That's also *only* their definition of porn. It does not include the entire ordinance so it's not surprising that if erotica is mentioned it is not mentioned there.

OK, I'm getting a bit confused. You said that the Anti-porn Ordinance gave a definition of erotica. It doesn't. The model ordinance and the Massachusettes ordinances on-line don't mention it, neither do any of the ordinances published in In Harms Way which I've just dug off my bookshelf because I thought my memory was deceiving me. Dworkin obviously isn't taken in by the tried and tested distraction of bringing up "erotica" whenever pornography is being criticised which is why she calls it high class pornography and MacKinnon only appears to mention it passing in the article you linked to - she says what it "might" be, she certainly isn't being definitive and it's not the point of her argument. Neither MacKinnon nor Dworkin ever argued that creating erotica was the answer to the harm pornography does to women.

Why do anti-porn feminists even need to concern themselves with erotica? My life is pretty full without erotic or pornographic material featuring in it. I know some so-called feminist blokes like to call the porn pics they take of their girlfriends to masturbate to later "erotica" but do we really need to provide them with those types of ready-made excuses? Hasn't someone here already said we can't fuck our way to freedom? Whether they did or didn't, it's been said before and it's true.

[bluecoat28]

Why do anti-porn feminists even need to concern themselves with erotica? My life is pretty full without erotic or pornographic material featuring in it. I know some so-called feminist blokes like to call the porn pics they take of their girlfriends to masturbate to later "erotica" but do we really need to provide them with those types of ready-made excuses? Hasn't someone here already said we can't fuck our way to freedom? Whether they did or didn't, it's been said before and it's true.

I agree with delphyne that we can't fuck our way to freedom. I bought "erotica" a few years ago and it ended up being pseudo-lesbian porn for heterosexual guys anyway. "Feminist" porn is an "if you can't beat 'em join 'em" response to porn culture.

[xochitl]

Is she using this to justify using other people? No. Is she saying that she feel comfortable doing this only when she is with someone she loves and trusts, yes. That, to me, is a HUGE difference between what she's saying and what people say to defend prostitution.

Actually, this is almost the same thing, verbatim, that women like Nina Hartley say in their defense of prostitution and porn.

[xochitl]

**Edited to remove double posting**

[xochitl]

My belief, and I know I am not alone in this as Twisty has oft said the exact same thing, is that when it comes to things like BDSM (not porn, though, only things that concern your sex life) if it gets you off and you want to do it, that's great, cheers to you; all I ask is that you analyse it and understand why this is (and I think we'll all agree that it's social conditioning). Be aware of why you enjoy the things you do, because none of us are perfect feminists.

I searched the IBTP archives for "BDSM" and can't find the posts that you are alluding to. I did, however, find this:

" . . . [L]ike it or lump it, BDSM is patriarchy, the whole patriarchy, and nothin’ but the patriarchy, in a black latex nutshell. It is, I unwaveringly assert according to the Honor Code of the Blaming Spinsters, the eroticization of a vastly horrific social order that has, over the millennia, generated the suffering of untold millions, and against which I am sworn to vituperate. BDSM’s got it all: sex, power, rape, pain, dominance, submission, the false pretext of freedom, delusions of superiority, sublimation of the orgasm at all costs, women who think it liberates them, a conservative orthodoxy, compulsory conformity, absurd, exaggerated gender roles, and a silly dress code. It is profoundly anti-feminist, anti-intellectual, anti-individual, and unattractive.

Do it, do it, do it till you’re satisfied, whatever it is. Just don’t kid yourself. You’re gettin’ off on patriarchy. Which is not to say that patriarchy-blamers can’t be all “yay, BDSM!” Because if pain and humiliation get you off, what better way to achieve it than by hanging a sign on your ass reading “I blamed the patriarchy but all I got was his stupid orgasm.”

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy. com /2006/02/28/501/

I also think that it's worth noting that no, we don't all agree ("we" meaning the women posting on this thread) that social conditioning is the root of BSDM (rather than it being some innate desire to be dominated or to feel pain during sex).

[laurelin]

What I have never understood is the argument that BDSM is not 'harmful'. Inflicting pain on someone is the definition of harm! That's the whole damn point!

The consent thing bugs me too, as it seems to deny personal responsibility for one's harmful actions. The action that one has done is the same whether the person 'consented' or not- why chose to harm? I always thought that we as people should have the conscience to say that there are things we will never do, whether we are asked to do them or not?

Disclaimer to cover my scaredy-cat arse: I'm not saying that participating in BDSM which is consensually chosen is as cruel as inflicting BDSM on an unwilling person. Also I'm aware that there are different degrees of BDSM with different levels of harm, etc.. I'm also not trying to come down all moralistic. I'm disagreeing with the logic that claims that if one harms another with that person's consent, that somehow makes not harmful.

Hope that made sense.

[Lost Clown]

That's also *only* their definition of porn. It does not include the entire ordinance so it's not surprising that if erotica is mentioned it is not mentioned there.

OK, I'm getting a bit confused. You said that the Anti-porn Ordinance gave a definition of erotica. It doesn't. The model ordinance and the Massachusettes ordinances on-line don't mention it, neither do any of the ordinances published in In Harms Way which I've just dug off my bookshelf because I thought my memory was deceiving me. Dworkin obviously isn't taken in by the tried and tested distraction of bringing up "erotica" whenever pornography is being criticised which is why she calls it high class pornography and MacKinnon only appears to mention it passing in the article you linked to - she says what it "might" be, she certainly isn't being definitive and it's not the point of her argument. Neither MacKinnon nor Dworkin ever argued that creating erotica was the answer to the harm pornography does to women.

Why do anti-porn feminists even need to concern themselves with erotica? My life is pretty full without erotic or pornographic material featuring in it. I know some so-called feminist blokes like to call the porn pics they take of their girlfriends to masturbate to later "erotica" but do we really need to provide them with those types of ready-made excuses? Hasn't someone here already said we can't fuck our way to freedom? Whether they did or didn't, it's been said before and it's true.

Well I'm sorry that I confused their talking about erotica and the ordinance with the *exact* words of the ordinance. (that's pretty damn nit-picky. STill said it, didn't she?) And no one was arguing that erotica was the answer to porn, far from it. Just saying that they would like to see us move from a world of one to a world of the other. But don't ask me about it since I'm not in their heads, but Laura never said that erotica will deliver us from porn.

And I don't give a flying fig about creating erotica. I'm just sick of people who say that they think it can exist being accused of not being rad fems. That's bullshit and the only reason I said anything. *I* think it can exist. (MacKinnon does, Russell does, do you want me to find more esteemed anti-porn activists who do? DO we really need that?) Do I go around talking or thinking about it all the time? HELL NO, but I'm still a rad fem and I *will* continue to take on anyone who says I can't be because I do not believe that sexually explicit material is inherently pornographic. It's a ridiculous way to alienate people. Just because we haven't found another magnetic polarity doesn't mean it can't exist. (I.e. just b/c we can't conceive of egalitarian erotica (I have a hard time myself at times) doesn't mean that it can't, or won't exist at some point.)

IS this a ridiculous thing to be telling people that they aren't rad fems over? YES! This does not mean we do not hate porn any less then you do or that we are any less committed then you are. We are wasting energy we SHOULD be using to bring down the porn industry, who we're ALL against (believe it or not, but we are).

[Lost Clown]

Do it, do it, do it till you’re satisfied, whatever it is. Just don’t kid yourself. You’re gettin’ off on patriarchy. Which is not to say that patriarchy-blamers can’t be all “yay, BDSM!” Because if pain and humiliation get you off, what better way to achieve it than by hanging a sign on your ass reading “I blamed the patriarchy but all I got was his stupid orgasm.”

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy. com /2006/02/28/501/

I also think that it's worth noting that no, we don't all agree ("we" meaning the women posting on this thread) that social conditioning is the root of BSDM (rather than it being some innate desire to be dominated or to feel pain during sex).

This is what I'm talking about. Twisty and I have one mind over the BDSM thing, but do I think we have a right to tell Laura what she should and shouldn't do in her bedroom? No. Do I think it's sick and twisted that we're having a conversation about something that she publicly analyzed on her blog for over 2 years? Yea, especially with her not here.

Would I be acting the same way about someone who *hadn't* thoroughly analyzed why she liked BDSM? No, but then again I have never ever ever got the attacks from Laura about my BDSM posts as I have from the YAY!-BDSM crowd. It's not like she has "I do BDSM-ask me how!" stamped on her forehead. Why? Because she understands that my critique is valid, that BDSM is rooted in patriarchal socialisation.

[delphyne]

You know Lost Clown you used the Anti-porn ordinance to make an appeal to an authority that doesn't exist. As this is a rad fem space I think it's probably a good idea to be accurate about who said what and who we are quoting, particularly if it's about putting forward a position that is antithetical to rad fem politics. You can call it nit-picking if you want I'd call it accuracy. You wouldn't have complained if it was in the Ordinance so why the fuss when I point out it's not?

And maybe you missed it but Laura was defending a piece that did make the claim that egalitarian porn (in schools of all places) was the answer to the misogyny of porn.

Also who said you weren't a rad fem because you argue in favour of erotica? The answer is no-one. All that's being argued here is that it isn't a rad fem argument. The pornhounds used erotica or "egalitarian" porn to hide behind, most of us are well aware of that.

I do not believe that sexually explicit material is inherently pornographic. It's a ridiculous way to alienate people.

Yeah well if it means alienating men who like to call their porn (home-made or otherwise) erotica or the writer of this article I'm prepared to take that chance.

[xochitl]

This is what I'm talking about. Twisty and I have one mind over the BDSM thing, but do I think we have a right to tell Laura what she should and shouldn't do in her bedroom? No. Do I think it's sick and twisted that we're having a conversation about something that she publicly analyzed on her blog for over 2 years? Yea, especially with her not here.

Would I be acting the same way about someone who *hadn't* thoroughly analyzed why she liked BDSM? No, but then again I have never ever ever got the attacks from Laura about my BDSM posts as I have from the YAY!-BDSM crowd. It's not like she has "I do BDSM-ask me how!" stamped on her forehead. Why? Because she understands that my critique is valid, that BDSM is rooted in patriarchal socialisation.

Wow, you must have interpreted that post from Twisty waaaay differently than I did!

And who's telling Laura what to do? Straw man argument. As far as the "sick and twisted" argument--I should have seen this coming. Someone writes publicly about how they are anti-porn but pro-BSDM. She says that there is something innate about her desire for BSDM. No one here in this thread asked her, she just offered up her own experiece, here, on an anti-porn blog, about how she loves for her boyfriend to tie her up and fuck her (in the spirit of equality).

In other words, she put all this out there for public scrutiny--statements that are both personal and political, that apply to herself as well as society at large, and to feminism itself. But when I question how her defense of BSDM is different from the defense of porn, when I question the notion that there is something innate about BSDM, when I question the idea that people's "intentions and attitudes" are more important in the struggle for women's liberation than specific sexual practices . . . well, that just makes me so sick and oppressive! How dare I?

Now, I have never read anything Laura has written other than what she posted here. So it may be the case that, as you say, she realizes that BSDM is "rooted in patriarchal socialization." But that is most definitely not what she said here. This is what she said here:

" . . . I also think that sexual taste is as wide ranging and varied as the human race and that, free of any kind of socialisation, it is likely that I would still like certain things which I have seen labelled 'inherently harmful'. Yeah, I can't know for sure, but having engaged in things in the past that I now know were due to issues I had, linked to growing up in patriarchy, I think I can tell the difference between what I enjoy and what I was warped into engaging in. "

[KatetheGreat]

Just to be difficult here, I want to raise another point.
If the woman seems to enjoy it in the film, would that be a great deal more radical than the movies we have now? I thought a great deal of porn, even the mainstream porn, portrayed women on some level enjoying or getting off on what is being done to them.
I believe Jensen has drawn attention to some instances where the woman appears to be starting to cry, and indeed some men get off on those moments of pain. But there are also great deal of men, at least men my age, who love hearing that women choose and love to be porn stars. And they believe that most women, deep down, are the same way.
Porn stars need to boast about how much they want every cock or to be slapped around.
It's very validating for men to hear this after having to deal with complex women on a daily basis. If the porn stars they watched were claiming not to enjoy it, men wouldn't feel as reassured in their self-serving fantasies.
That is a large part of porn's appeal; showing the audience not only what is being done, but making them think that deep down she wants it or enjoys it. And she needs to be appearing to enjoy it. This is plain enough when you see the way porn stars talk, when you read escort ads or even the descriptions on the back of a video box. It all suggests that the women are happy or eager to do it.
So this is partially why a lot of supposedly feminist porn looks like the same-old, same-old.
Portraying enjoyment is not enough to make a difference.

Would Nina Hartley be ok by that definition? She professes to enjoy what she does, and therefore any act she films is apparently feminist porn.
If the star's professed enjoyment is all it should take to make men more considerate to women, we should already be starting to see that happen. I'm not seeing it, even with the men who profess to love these feminist pornographers.


I just think it's not going to be that simple, and if it is, it's already out there.

If people will continue to try to mass-market wank pictures for the sake of a quick orgasm, I want it to be called what it is. Porn is, by it's very nature, a depersonalized and easily discardable product. Because of that, I feel that no matter how often she's depicted moaning in pleasure, it's probably not going to result in a increased sense of depth from the male audience.

[xochitl]

Kate, those are my thoughts exactly. Perhaps you just put it better than I did. I do belive that some women--not many, but a few--really do like staying at home, cleaning up after their husbands and taking care of babies. Likewise, I do believe that some women--not many, but a few, like Nina Hartley--really do like porn. Well, good for you, best of luck. But I'm more interested in the experiences of the majority of women in the world, poor women, women of color, who don't like being used, abused, prostituted, bought and sold. To me, that's what feminism is about: making the experiences of the most oppressed women central. And if it's not, then I don't want to be a part of that movement.

[MaggieH]

This is what she said here:

" . . . I also think that sexual taste is as wide ranging and varied as the human race and that, free of any kind of socialisation, it is likely that I would still like certain things which I have seen labelled 'inherently harmful'. Yeah, I can't know for sure, but having engaged in things in the past that I now know were due to issues I had, linked to growing up in patriarchy, I think I can tell the difference between what I enjoy and what I was warped into engaging in. "

I disagree with that... I definitely agree with Lost Clown when she says that "BDSM is rooted in patriarchal socialisation."

I agree with Laurelin when she says that "I have never understood is the argument that BDSM is not 'harmful'. Inflicting pain on someone is the definition of harm! That's the whole damn point!... The consent thing bugs me too, as it seems to deny personal responsibility for one's harmful actions. The action that one has done is the same whether the person 'consented' or not- why chose to harm? [...] I'm disagreeing with the logic that claims that if one harms another with that person's consent, that somehow makes not harmful."

Here is an Andrea Dworkin quote that made me take a definitive stance against BDSM:

As women, nonviolence must begin for us in the refusal to be violated, in the refusal to be victimized. We must find alternatives to submission, because our submission -- to rape, to assault, to domestic servitude, to abuse or victimization of every sort -- perpetuates violence.
The refusal to be a victim does not originate in any act of resistance as male-derived as killing. The refusal of which I speak is a revolutionary refusal to be a victim, any time, any place, for friend or foe. This refusal requires the conscientious unlearning of all the forms of masochistic submission which are taught to us as the very content of womanhood. Male aggression feeds on female masochism as vultures feed on carrion. Our nonviolent project is to find the social, sexual, political, and cultural forms which repudiate our programmed submissive behaviors, so that male aggression can find no dead flesh on which to feast.
When I say that we must establish values which originate in sisterhood, I mean to say that we must not accept, even for a moment, male notions of what nonviolence is. Those notions have never condemned the systematic violence against us. The men who hold those notions have never renounced the male behaviors, privileges, values, and conceits which are in and of themselves acts of violence against us.
We will diminish violence by refusing to be violated. We will repudiate the whole patriarchal system, with its sado-masochistic institutions, with its social scenarios of dominance and submission all based on the male-over-female model, when we refuse conscientiously, rigorously, and absolutely to be the soil in which male aggression, pride, and arrogance can grow like wild weeds.

-- Andrea Dworkin, in "Redefining Nonviolence", Our Blood: Prophecies and Discourses on Sexual Politics (p. 72) [Underlining in the above text is mine].

Now, I'd like to let you know that this Dworkin quote above (along with another one from "The Root Cause" which I cited in an earlier post in this thread) has made me take a resolute stance against such things as BDSM! Radical feminism is about rejecting patriarchy and all its misogynistic social conditionings. That is why I personally believe that we, as women and as radical feminists, should resist BDSM and other kinds of domination/subordination dynamics, which are both the results of patriarchal trainings and what patriarchy (male dominance) feeds on "as vultures feed on carrion". A choice for (or a vision of) a healthier form of sexuality -- that is gender role-free and based on humanity, equality, respect, mutuality, and affection -- is in fact both more joyful and progressive! Trust me, this is what I believe...

By the way, I just wondered: Is there anyone else (apart from me) who agrees with that Dworkin quote above? Delphyne? Xochitl? Lost Clown? Anyone else? Please let me know (that would be nice).

[xochitl]

By the way, I just wondered: Is there anyone else (apart from me) who agrees with that Dworkin quote above? Delphyne? Xochitl? Lost Clown? Anyone else? Please let me know (that would be nice).

Yes, thanks Maggie. I enjoy reading your posts and passages from Dworkin. I do agree with the quote above. I just wish that we were in more of a position to refuse to be violated by men. I don't think most of the women in this world are in that kind of position.

I loved the "Male violence feeds off female masochism" part. How true that is!