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sam wrote:How much respect would you have for a person who says they're a peace activist but they're not against war itself, just the bad wars?
Porn should be reformed...
Fundamentally, porn itself – the explicit representation of the human body or sexual activity with the goal of sexual arousal and/or sexual relief –is not harmful. What grates is that so much of the porn that is being produced and disseminated is so very, very dire. Much of the contemporary porn available is tacky, limited, demeaning, badly executed, badly scripted and – often, but by no means always – exploitative to those that participate in its production and consumption. It is the type of pornography that is saturating our culture that is harmful, not porn itself.
... I visited some classes and gave an anti-pornography slideshow in the evening to a large and receptive audience. During the question-and-answer period that followed, a young woman raised her hand. Clearly troubled by what she had heard and seen, she asked, “Well, what if we all just get together and tell the porn industry that this isn’t what we want -- that we want something more complex, more diverse, less hateful and one-dimensional? Wouldn’t they have to change their ways and give us what we want?”
There are many assumptions lurking in this query that we would do well to challenge, but what I want to highlight is the faith that’s being shown in the wonders of the capitalist marketplace. To this very bright, progressive, feminist young woman, here in this bastion of liberal-to-radical politics, it seemed plausible to think that -- in this connection at least -- the market will solve all of our problems. Now in making this assumption, there is something important that she fails to understand, namely that the cultural products of mega-corporations are much more like advertising than they are like art. When powerful and profit-hungry entities go hunting for market share at any cost, what those entities will produce and sell is whatever gets the most people in the gut the fastest and makes them want more of that now. This will never be equality. It will never be complexity. It will never be anything thoughtful or meaningful or reflective. Not ever.
Let me share one more anecdote from Alt College that will help me go a bit deeper with this idea. That afternoon, I had visited the Gender Studies senior seminar course to talk with the students about feminist politics and pornography. At one point in the discussion, a young woman raised her hand, and here is what she said: “Well, these days things are different. People in my generation want sexuality to be an important part of their lives; they want to be free and open with their sexuality. So that’s why they want to make and use pornography.” There’s a sweet kind of humor here: every generation thinks it invented sex! But more relevantly for our purposes, there are two massive assumptions underlying this young woman’s comment, both of which we need to challenge whenever we see an opening to do so.
The first assumption is that, for some experience or activity to be important, real, and considerable, it must be made into an image: take a picture, roll video, turn on the webcam. As Gail [Dines] is fond of pointing out, we live in an image-based culture. Everything has to be made into an image, and we derive our conception of who and what we are largely from the images that surround us. But here is a question: when you are doing something -- virtually anything -- are you more or less free in doing it when you know someone is watching? What if they’re taking pictures? What if they’re going to show those pictures to a whole bunch of people you don’t even know? (Are you feeling free yet?) For instance, do you dance crazier and more freely when you’re by yourself in your bedroom, or out at the nightclub when your image is being projected on the big screen?
The second assumption underlying this young woman’s comment is that, for some experience or activity to be important, real, and considerable, it must be made into a commodity (that is, bought and sold). But here is another question: when you put some activity into the marketplace -- that is, you decide to sell it instead of just doing it -- does that make you more or less free in doing it? For instance, suppose you like to make music. Up until now it’s been a hobby, something you do in your spare time, but now you’ve decided that you want to get signed with a major label. All of a sudden you’re not free to make any old kind of music you want, are you? Now it’s “What do they think they can sell? What’s in vogue this week, and are you it, and if not, can they make you into it?”
So we face a bizarre phenomenon in many discussions of pornography, in that it’s only with respect to sex that many otherwise progressive and leftist people assume that putting something into the capitalist marketplace makes it more free (or is evidence that one is free in doing it). We need to find ways to challenge the naïve and regressive conceptions of freedom as the freedom to enter the marketplace and/or to choose among the options that the marketplace offers us. We need to suggest to people that -- in many everyday contexts, but perhaps especially for the most intimate and potentially-creative activities of our lives, like sex and sexuality -- real freedom in that activity means neither selling it nor letting somebody with a profit motive tell us what it is supposed to look and feel like.
My final suggestion this morning is one that’s been made before, and that is that we need a vision of alternatives. The makers of ostensibly-feminist porn claim to be providing such a vision, and that’s why their message is appealing to many: we sense a need for alternatives, and that need is real, but more commodified images isn’t it (and particularly not the ones they’re giving us). But it is true that our side needs to be more than just, as Dworkin once aptly put it, “the morbid side of the women’s movement.” There’s something to that, inevitably, and rightly so: there is no way to face down the industries of sexual exploitation without confronting some very ugly realities. We must not flinch from that task, and we must continue to find ways to help others face those realities without dying inside. But we can’t just be “Atrocities R Us.” We have to give people (including ourselves) some inspiration and some room to move. This is a tall order and I’m almost out of time, but in closing, here are three quick ideas for moving in this direction.
First, note the connection to my point about withdrawing from the market. To open up the space for new thinking and experimentation, we need to detox, to get out of the path of the porn culture’s cynical, manipulative, and hateful messages. To start thinking our own thoughts and dreaming our own dreams, first we have to get away from the bastards who are shouting at us through megaphones. Second, we need to draw on our own experiences of love and sex as joy and communion (and encourage others to draw on theirs). As radical feminists have long emphasized, patriarchy constructs our sexuality very profoundly, and even the most enlightened among us are not immune to that construction. But the construction, for most people at least, does not go “all the way down.” Despite everything, many people do have experiences of mutual and egalitarian sexuality -- or at least hints or glimmers of it -- and that’s really good news. We need to encourage people to tap into these experiences, hints, and glimmers -- to remember what they know from their own lives, that no pimp or corporation sold to them or ever could, and to want more of it.
Third and finally, as we continue to tell people what sexual freedom isn’t, we should also encourage them to think deeply and creatively about what it is. What would real sexual freedom look and feel like -- the kind that everyone can have, instead of the kind that amounts to freedom for some at others’ expense? We need to richly imagine, and encourage others to richly imagine, another world: one in which no woman or girl is ever called “slut,” “prude,” “bitch,” “cunt,” or “dyke”; in which no woman, man, or child ever has to fear rape or suffer its damage to their spirits; in which men do not control their own and other men’s behavior by the threat of being seen and treated as women; and in which lesbian love and connection is not reduced to a pornographic fetish for men. In this world, every woman and girl sees her own body as beautiful, no man or boy is made to see his as a weapon, and people take part in sexual activity only when (and only because) they expect to enjoy it and to be honored and fulfilled therein. It can be painful to think in this way, because we become more acutely aware of just how far away we are from this better world. But the third wave has one thing right: desire can be, or can become, a form of power. We need to use the power of our desire for this world -- our desire to bring it into being for ourselves and for our children and our grandchildren -- to unite us and to animate our thinking and strategizing about how to take our culture back from the pornographers.
KatetheGreat wrote:I thought we took an issue to porn also partially because it commodified women.
We become things that are easy to consume and dispose of.
I guess it would be easier to tolerate pictures that seemed mutual and healthy, but I would take issue with the idea that men still feel the need to buy images of women under the assumption that he is entitled or "needs" access to several naked women as a man.
So if we "reformed" it, would this change that aspect? I worry about that issue.
a place where ALL feminists are welcome to air their views
The writer of the f word article suggests the creation of egalitarian porn alongside changes in the education system and this seems to make sense to me. We can of course just hope that people will start to reject the hatred and abuse shown in porn once they grow up in a more enlightened society, but why not ensure that there is some nonmisogynistic material out there just in case? It would be nice if we could magically remove all the nasty material, but that isn't going to happen, however many censorship laws are brought in, so trying to provide some kind of alternative seems sensible to me.
I thought we took an issue to porn also partially because it commodified women.
We become things that are easy to consume and dispose of.
I guess it would be easier to tolerate pictures that seemed mutual and healthy, but I would take issue with the idea that men still feel the need to buy images of women under the assumption that he is entitled or "needs" access to several naked women as a man.
So if we "reformed" it, would this change that aspect? I worry about that issue.
Laura wrote:By most people I dont just mean porn users - you think the average woman who doesnt use porn but who is unaware of the radfem arguments against it is likely to be aware of the origins of the word or what porn really represents?
But I don't think it is feminists' place to be saying what is and isn't an acceptable sex act.
Laura wrote:But I don't think it is feminists' place to be saying what is and isn't an acceptable sex act. Wrt BDSM - yes it can be abusive, especially when taken to the stage where people live as sub/dom - but I have never been comfortable with the out and out condemnation of any act that could fall under this acronym. How do you know what is going on in people's head when they tie each other up or xyz? Why am I not a feminist if I like my sex partner to cause me some pain, because it gets me off, when it is consensual, when s/he is doing it because I want her/him to?
WTF? BDSM is inherently harmful!!! Consent is no excuse!!! We have to utterly reject any patriarchal visions of sex, i.e. predicated upon domination/submission and sado-masochistic dynamics!!! We have to advocate a healthier vision of sexuality which relies on equality... Laura, have you ever heard of healthy sexual politics? Radical feminists have addressed that as well, you know...
Laura wrote:As I said, I'm not sure about all this, but people's desire for sexual imagery and stimulation isn't going away and while all there is to meet that desire is misogynistic porn we're all screwed. So I think the idea of trying to make feminist erotica/porn isn't a bad one and I'm not convinced that the creation and enjoyment of egalitarian, ethically produced sexually stimulating imagery is inherently wrong and antifeminist.
Laura wrote:I know, Maggie. Thing is, I have tried and tried and TRIED to remove any trace of enjoyment of BDSM type activities from my sex life and sexuality and just have nice, loving, communicative etc sex. It made me unhappy. I felt I was acting the whole time. I wasn't doing what my body enjoyed, but what my politics told me was 'right'. It LOOKED like my sex was more 'equality based'. But in my head, in my relationship, in my boyfriend's head, was anything different? No, it wasn't. Equality, respect, lies in the beliefs you hold, in the intentions you have towards the other person and the way you make those intentions felt. My boyfriend can tie me up and fuck me and I can do the same to him, in the spirit of respect and care and wanting to make the other person happy, within the confines of an equal relationship.
I agree that feminism shouldnt be left outside the bedroom - we need to analyse everything we do. But I have analysed it, and my assessment is that intention and attitude is more important to equality than the sex acts me and my partner engage in. There are elements of BDSM that are abusive as I said - sadism certainly seems to me to be at odds with respect for others - but to write off anything could fall under BDSM as INHERENTLY HARMFUL just seems excessive, and thoughtless, to me.
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