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SCREAMED_WITH_JOY
December 02, 2002
Rev: July 16, 2006
Rev: January 19, 2007
Dworkin/Mackinnon were instantly
transformed from "serious
thinkers" to "radical extremists" CORRECT
outside the mainstream of feminism
the moment it was clear that they
were a political liability.
And yet there are still some people carrying the
torch for a more sexually repressed feminism...
For example, Robert Jensen, the author of:
"You are what you eat: The pervasive porn industry
and what it says about you and your desires"
[ref]
My summary: Some guys like really
silly porn, so masculinity is fucked.
Feel guity enough and ye shall be
saved. What, me puritanical?
One of the things that occurred to me is that he only gets to
talk to people who reinforce his point of view, e.g. women
who think porn is just oh-so-icky:
"Many of the people in the audience, particularly the
women, tell me that they find it difficult to hear about
these things, even when the acts are described with the
kind of clinical detachment I try to maintain. One woman
approached me after a lecture and said, 'What you said
was important, but I wish I hadn't been here. I wish I
didn't know what you told us. I wish I could forget it." "
If you're wondering the sort of things he was saying
to these women, interestingly enough he does not
talk about anything like heavy sado-masochism, he
describes porn like this:
"[...] then he enters her vaginally from behind
before he asks, 'Do you want me to fuck you in the
ass?' She answers in the affirmative; 'Stick it in
my ass,' she says. "
And to him, this is an example of the:
" [...] pornographic mindset, in which male pleasure
defines sex and female pleasure is a derivate of
male pleasure. In pornography, women just happen to
love exactly what men love to do to them, "
That's it: it's *really* terrible that
men like to fantisize about women who This is an odd one, because
want to do the same things that they traditionally the feminist
want to do. complaint has been about
rape fantasies...
What would be better?
(There the defense
Men are supposed to fantasize is that there's a
about forcing women to have difference between
sex, because women are far too fantasy and reality,
pure and innocent to want to and the one need not
do anything like that? lead to the other.)
Men are supposed to sacrifice
themselves to women's
pleasure, and ask for nothing
more?
More likely: no one is supposed to want to
do anything that Jensen wouldn't want to do.
Don't you know you're
supposed to be Normal?
But there really are people who
like receiving anal sex, and some
of them are even women; however if
there are any in the audience at
his talks it's unlikely that
they're going to feel confortable NORMAL_PERVERSION
standing up saying "But I *like*
being fucked up the ass sometimes."
He wonders why people get so upset
with his line -- even going as far
as to label him "puritanical", or The thing that's really
"fascist", imagine that -- but I strange about it is that the
think that this is one of the main Jensen's of the world seem to
reasons. have no understanding of this
point.
There are a lot of people like to
think of themselves as being They hear the
discretely private about their risque criticism, and yet
activities, but when someone like this don't hear it.
comes along and implicitly attacks
them (casually assuming that they
don't exist!); all of a sudden they
realize that they're not just being "There are many points in the
discrete: they're in the closet. pornography debate on which
reasonable people can
disagree. Legal strategies
One of the movies he raise important issues about
talks about sounds freedom and responsibility,
pretty dorky (by my and definitive connections
standards): cheerleaders between media consumption and
rubbing their faces in human behavior are always
semen on their pom-poms. difficult to establish. More
generally, sexuality is a
The standard Humorless complex phenomenon in which
Feminist looks at these wide human variation makes
fantasies of degradation universal claims suspect."
and dismisses the genre
as a symbolic assault on Well duh.
women --
But isn't that what you're doing?
But if you'll peruse How can you *miss* that
some personal ads, this is what you're doing?
you may notice that
there's actually a "I can be fairly certain
shortage of tops... that what little I have
written here so far will
There are large cause some readers to
numbers of people -- condemn me as a sexual
male and female -- fascist or a prude."
who *like* playing at
being "degraded". Don't you dare talk mean to me!
And you're not allowed to call
To make this sort me a fascist, because I used
of criticism, you that word already.
have to deny that
their desires are "I had about 25 hours of
valid. tape to watch. I treated
the work as any other
There's something scholarly project."
wrong with them --
a reflection of a He's an expert on pornography
twisted world we after watching a dozen porn
must work to movies? This is like
untangle. dismissing Western poetry
after skimming some Rod McKuen.
(But aren't ORIENTAL_TWIST
"universal "I found myself struggling to
claims understand the sexual arousal
suspect"?) I felt while watching, and it
took me some time to deal
emotionally with the
'Brutality?" you brutality of the material and
might think he was my sexual reaction to it."
watching some of
the hardcore S&M Repeat after me:
that might be a "get over yourself".
problem case, but No one cares how you
it doesn't seem so masturbate.
from his
descriptions.
"I was alternately aroused
and bored by the tapes --
predictable given how
intensely sexual, and at the
same time rigidly formatted,
the genre is."
Real men know how
to fast forward.
Someone needs to tie
this man down and
make him listen to a (He seems to "struggle" a lot.
lot of Susie Bright. The word occurs 10 times
throughout the article.)
Or at least,
Wendy McElroy
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