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Madcap
04-13-2005, 12:41 PM
In either case, your argument against those that are "riding her hard" is illogical and wrong.

HA! You obviously don't know who you're dealing with. Like i ever needed logic in the first place. Who am I, a Vulcan?

Chick's dead. Leave her be.

Jenny
04-13-2005, 01:30 PM
Oh, Nicki (may I call you Nicki?) I would like to marry you and have babies as intelligent and lovely as you are.

I read her work both before and after becoming a dancer. While I have enjoyed dancing at time, there have been times that I haven't - and unlike many other jobs, I don't think it "averages out" to "just alright". I think there is a certain amount of social complexity to sex work (including dancing), and I don't think it comes out to EMPOWERING or DEMEANING - it comes out to the the constant neogotiation that we experience every day. (For example, the last discussion panel I went to, I wound up monopolizing the entire question period - well, not me, but my question - by asking "Is there any distance, practically or morally, between legally mandating a woman's sale of her body and legally mandating a man purchasing that body?" I realize that one necessitates the other, so please nobody explain that to me. Now I see this interaction as a neogotiation that is never finished. Most people here see one side of it as being non-existant or insignificant to the point of being non-existant; Andrea Dworkin comes down on the other side (so I think y'all are way off)

Small point - there have been fairly conclusive links between use of pornography and sexual violence. Nobody claims that one reads a magazine and then goes out and commits rape, any more than doctors will tell you that one cigarette will give you cancer.

Something else that is interesting about the "all sex is rape" school of thought:

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of men who write about sexology, and women and men using similar terms to either discount or minimize claims of rape (usually acquaintance rape) or sexual harrassment. I could post that here or in the "PP" section and probably get several, if not dozens, endorsements from the precise same people who denigrate poor, dead Dworkin (in their minds, if not on this board.) Why? Because it is used to justify harrassment, not prosecute it. Really, truly - I have seen this happen. When a man does it, suddenly there is all this talk of biology, and drive and instincts and how true it is, even if it isn't PC. I, (incidentally), seriously wonder if anyone who propogates these theories has HAD sex, or if they just "understand" it from a clinical standpoint.

I am now leaving work. I may post more on this later - I tend to ramble, and then forget what I was saying. Just like in real life.

Nicolina
04-13-2005, 02:53 PM
Oh, Nicki (may I call you Nicki?)
Please do.
8)

I would like to marry you and have babies as intelligent and lovely as you are.
I want Kat and Cali to be my maids of honor. And can mr_punk be our best man?:P
Everyone else is invited too, right? :)


I read her work both before and after becoming a dancer. While I have enjoyed dancing at time, there have been times that I haven't - and unlike many other jobs, I don't think it "averages out" to "just alright". I think there is a certain amount of social complexity to sex work (including dancing), and I don't think it comes out to EMPOWERING or DEMEANING - it comes out to the the constant neogotiation that we experience every day.

I have also had both negative and positive experiences in the sex industry, and I agree that the effects of a person's involvement in it can be far-reaching and complex. Overall, however, I feel that I gained more from my time in the industry than I lost. I went into that in more detail in the body of the essay (what I posted was just the introduction and the conclusion). I wouldn't say that stripping is inherently empowering (any more than I would say it is inherently demeaning), but I will say that my experiences as a dancer gave me a sense of agency regarding my own sexuality that I hadn't previously possessed.


(For example, the last discussion panel I went to, I wound up monopolizing the entire question period - well, not me, but my question - by asking "Is there any distance, practically or morally, between legally mandating a woman's sale of her body and legally mandating a man purchasing that body?" I realize that one necessitates the other, so please nobody explain that to me. Now I see this interaction as a neogotiation that is never finished. Most people here see one side of it as being non-existant or insignificant to the point of being non-existant; Andrea Dworkin comes down on the other side (so I think y'all are way off)

Wait, I am confused--especially about that last sentence. Can you clarify?


Small point - there have been fairly conclusive links between use of pornography and sexual violence. Nobody claims that one reads a magazine and then goes out and commits rape, any more than doctors will tell you that one cigarette will give you cancer.

Do you have any references? Isn't it true that in countries where pornography is less regulated and more available, sexual violence is less prevalent than it is here? Yes, I can think of all kinds of other cultural reasons for that to be true....but I really am not aware of any studies that conclusively link these two phenomena.


Something else that is interesting about the "all sex is rape" school of thought:

There are hundreds, probably thousands, of men who write about sexology, and women and men using similar terms to either discount or minimize claims of rape (usually acquaintance rape) or sexual harrassment. I could post that here or in the "PP" section and probably get several, if not dozens, endorsements from the precise same people who denigrate poor, dead Dworkin (in their minds, if not on this board.) Why? Because it is used to justify harrassment, not prosecute it. Really, truly - I have seen this happen. When a man does it, suddenly there is all this talk of biology, and drive and instincts and how true it is, even if it isn't PC. I, (incidentally), seriously wonder if anyone who propogates these theories has HAD sex, or if they just "understand" it from a clinical standpoint.


Again, I am a little confused....What is used to justify harrassment? The idea that "all sex is rape"? Or are you talking about biology being used to justify rape? I am a big proponent, as you know, of using biology to EXPLAIN many aspects of human social behavior, but justification of a given behavior is never my goal.

Please do post more later :)

princessjefflina
04-13-2005, 03:05 PM
sex is gross
yousickos

Blade
04-13-2005, 05:15 PM
Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership.
Women, for centuries not having access to pornography and now unable to bear looking at the muck on the supermarket shelves, are astonished. Women do not believe that men believe what pornography says about women. But they do. From the worst to the best of them, they do.
Men know everything - all of them - all the time - no matter how stupid or inexperienced or arrogant or ignorant they are.
Sexism is the foundation on which all tyranny is built. Every social form of hierarchy and abuse is modeled on male-over-female domination.
These are just a few quotes from her.... she argues that sexism is male over female domination, but these quotes are without a doubt the most sexist, neo-nazi, pieces of pap I ever ever had the displeasure of reading. This was some great leader in the feminist movement? I'm sorry ladies

princessjefflina
04-13-2005, 09:26 PM
Sexism is the foundation on which all tyranny is built. Every social form of hierarchy and abuse is modeled on male-over-female domination.

shes right there
sexism really being just the belief thatphysical sex accounts for major difference in character biologically
she had potential
but she was blinded by the face value patriarchy

Madcap
04-13-2005, 09:40 PM
Her politics matter not a whit. She wasn't a blip on my radar until CO posted this on SW (of all places, she'd be spinning in her grave if dead people could spin). I never even heard of her. She certainly isn't a big deal to me, not big enough to trash her after she has died. Apparently Andrea Dworkin is serious buisiness to some folk posting in this thread. And, i know, i'd have sent this chick into fits. She'd have had seizures on me. Granted, i don't talk to chick's tits but it's the next thing, i make an effort to notice eye color at least...

I dunno about you, but my identity isn't built around whether or not some 70's femenist thinks all hetero sex is rape. Name one reason why i should give a fuck what some 70's femenist thinks? Now name one reason why i should trash her corpse over it?

It's ghoulish! So she had an idea you, collectively, don't like. I must ask, who cares? And who cares enough to whip a dead woman over it? THAT is highly uncool.

Wish the woman well, feel sorry for the folk she left behind (including a husband if i recall that article right), and then promptly forget it. Unless, that is, Dworkin's opinion means more to you than is healthy.

$0.02

Madcap
04-13-2005, 09:48 PM
Oh, and a quick couple of mouseclicks to damn near any porn site will show you just what Porno has to say about chicks. Do it now, i dare ya! Click to a porn site and count the times you read "Bitch", "Slut", and "Whore" or variants thereof. I like porno, too, but you can't deny that Dworkin kinda has a point about what it says about women. You can't deny it when it's spelled out in front of ya. Not like that.

Not to even mention guys spooging on chicks faces with their mouths open. A lot of porno is fucked up with the message it carries. And it does carry a message, everything does.

Honestly, a quick look at 90% of these sites makes me wanna find a guy running it and knock his teeth out. You can really tell which ones are run by chicks.

erotictonic
04-13-2005, 10:07 PM
Oh, and a quick couple of mouseclicks to damn near any porn site will show you just what Porno has to say about chicks. Do it now, i dare ya! Click to a porn site and count the times you read "Bitch", "Slut", and "Whore" or variants thereof. I like porno, too, but you can't deny that Dworkin kinda has a point about what it says about women. You can't deny it when it's spelled out in front of ya. Not like that.

Not to even mention guys spooging on chicks faces with their mouths open. A lot of porno is fucked up with the message it carries. And it does carry a message, everything does.

Honestly, a quick look at 90% of these sites makes me wanna find a guy running it and knock his teeth out. You can really tell which ones are run by chicks.

THANK YOU. Most porn betrays women in the worst light possible. To say that it hasn't influenced men is fucking ignorant.... just fucking ignorant. No, I don't believe it causes ALL rape... some I would agree with. But if someone looks at that shit, especially on a daily basis, how can we think it doesn't change the way a man looks at women? It influences men to believe we are nasty whores, and in the rapist's mind, we "want what we get". I can see how it could egg on a rapist. We should all be more worried about the influence of that disgusting shit on society than the writings of Andrea Dworkin, imo.

Now some porn is ok. I would even be in a porn movie, if it was done in good taste. But I don't want to see porn that calls women terrible names and demeans them. And that is what it's all about, for the most part.

Andrea Dworkin only has an extremist view, that's not to say that no truth rings in her words. I do agree that her words should not be all-encompassing, but hell, I didn't "live" in the 70's either, to make a judgement.

Madcap
04-13-2005, 10:19 PM
I would even be in a porn movie, if it was done in good taste.

Well, as a matter of fact...


}:D







(Just kidding, but curse that fact!)

Casual Observer
04-13-2005, 10:51 PM
Click to a porn site and count the times you read "Bitch", "Slut", and "Whore" or variants thereof.

Your point? Surely, some women are offended by those terms in any capacity, and an equally great many are aroused and excited by those terms in the appropriate context. What does any of that have to do with the price of corn in Kansas? Or your animated GIF signature, for that matter?


But if someone looks at that shit, especially on a daily basis, how can we think it doesn't change the way a man looks at women? It influences men to believe we are nasty whores, and in the rapist's mind, we "want what we get".

Using this fallacious pseudo-analysis, strippers do the same thing.


Not to even mention guys spooging on chicks faces with their mouths open.

And the problem with that is what, exactly? Like any of us here don't know sexually expansive and expressive women that are particular to said facials? Please...

Madcap
04-13-2005, 11:14 PM
Your point? Surely, some women are offended by those terms in any capacity, and an equally great many are aroused and excited by those terms in the appropriate context. What does any of that have to do with the price of corn in Kansas? Or your animated GIF signature, for that matter?

And that appropriate context is what, exactly, on an internet website... Frequented by strangers...

And the shit in my sig is, you guessed it, a joke... probably written by a guy, but still funny. Name one porn site out there that's FUNNY with it's depiction of what is supposed to be the object of my desire. Defend porn, i'll stick with you on that, but if you expect to tell me there is NO link i'll call you crazy. Personal responsibility is paramount, most guys will look at some cumshot and get over it, others will just look for the next cumshot, and the next, and the next...

To say no connection exists isn't ignorant, it's blind... It's not porno's fault, but to say there's no link is silly.



Edit: Plus, in my sig it's two chicks, and i get PM after PM telling me how funny it is. By chicks. How many emails do you think the Jizzler gets over his site "Sperm Shack" telling him how great it is? My sig is irrelevant, and you're smart enough to know it.

erotictonic
04-13-2005, 11:16 PM
Your point? Surely, some women are offended by those terms in any capacity, and an equally great many are aroused and excited by those terms in the appropriate context. What does any of that have to do with the price of corn in Kansas? Or your animated GIF signature, for that matter?


It's demeaning and it influences people to see women in a very bad light. That's the point.



Using this fallacious pseudo-analysis, strippers do the same thing.

Strippers do not walk around with "dirty slut" written over their heads. The point was not that porn or stripping done IN GOOD TASTE had a negative impact on society, but that demeaning porn did.




And the problem with that is what, exactly? Like any of us here don't know sexually expansive and expressive women that are particular to said facials? Please...

I don't like facials. I believe it is a disrespect to women. It's humiliating and submissive. Porn portrays ALL women as being submissive and into humiliation, when actually, very few are. It creates false expectations. Alot of the behavior, such as facials, that women seem to "like" is actually just something their men taught them to do in order to "please" them. How would men feel if at the end of every porn movie, a woman turned around and shit on their face? While a few men might like being shit on, porn would portray this as a mainstream kink, and to be expected.

Madcap
04-13-2005, 11:46 PM
Andrea Dworkin, serious buisiness... Give the woman a kiss on the cheek, you might as well...

Nicolina
04-14-2005, 12:07 AM
Apparently Andrea Dworkin is serious buisiness to some folk posting in this thread.

As a matter of fact, Madcap, I do take these things pretty seriously. I've given a lot of thought to this area of feminist philosophy, for a few reasons:

1) I consume and enjoy pornography (including some of the stuff where people don't give each other roses and say 'I love you' before going at it missionary-style on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace ::) ) I have also been a participant in the production of pornography, and it's important for me to consider whether or not my role as a consumer and producer of pornography has caused harm to other women.

2) I consider myself a 'feminist', though I am at odds with much of the feminist dogma. It's important to me to consider how my ideas and experiences fit into a broader feminist philosophy.

3) My involvement in the sex industry has been a big part of my life, and it's important for me to understand the causes and effects of this involvement. My decision to become a stripper was entirely voluntary, and overall I enjoyed the job. If there are feminist thinkers who believe that all sex workers are hapless victims who were coerced into their jobs, and that anyone who thinks she enjoys sex work is deluded, I like to know where those theorists are coming from.

I can understand if you find this discussion unimportant, because you're younger than I am, you're not a woman, and you haven't been heavily involved in the sex industry.

My intent is NOT to trash Andrea Dworkin here. I don't have any feelings of malice toward her. I just don't like her ideas, and I'm discussing them here, because they have, in fact, been influential for some folks. I apologize if you think it's inappropriate, but I don't think I've said anything particularly disrespectful about Dworkin as a person.

Katrine
04-14-2005, 01:25 AM
Oh, and a quick couple of mouseclicks to damn near any porn site will show you just what Porno has to say about chicks. Do it now, i dare ya! Click to a porn site and count the times you read "Bitch", "Slut", and "Whore" or variants thereof. I like porno, too, but you can't deny that Dworkin kinda has a point about what it says about women. You can't deny it when it's spelled out in front of ya. Not like that.

Not to even mention guys spooging on chicks faces with their mouths open. A lot of porno is fucked up with the message it carries. And it does carry a message, everything does.

Honestly, a quick look at 90% of these sites makes me wanna find a guy running it and knock his teeth out. You can really tell which ones are run by chicks.

Sadly that's the only type of porn that gets me off! /:O But I also think that stripping is demeaning and degrading, and I continue to do it. I know better than to think those pervs leering and slobbering have ANY respect for me as a person. But I think that has to do with a masochistic nature, which isn't uncommon for many people to exhibit.

Dworkin extrapolated on biological differences to suit her own agenda. I think everyone should be aware of her theories and how they fit into the bigger picture of feminisim and woman's role in society.

Madcap
04-14-2005, 05:06 AM
Niccolina~ At least you're approaching it with more than "Whip the dead chick for her ideas she had while alive."

I don't like her ideas either, if those ideas are what i think they are based on this thread (Like i said, not even a blip on my radar, never heard of her). But she was a human who lived and died and THAT is something for me to consider. I also don't think that porno makes Rapists, if that's what you got from my post (Personal responsibility, none of this 'devil-made-me-do-it' crap). But i do think that that type of man is attracted to porno, probably moreso than the next guy.

Wwanderer
04-14-2005, 08:36 AM
Her politics matter not a whit. ... I never even heard of her. ... Name one reason why i should give a fuck what some 70's femenist thinks?

Wow, how ironic! This is surely the cruelest and most hurtful thing that has been posted about Dworkin in the whole thread, the sentiment that would probably have most dismayed and hurt her. Of course, caring nothing about her, there is no reason to care about that either. But surely those who take her ideas seriously enough to criticize and debate them do her more honor than those who shrug and say, "Who cares what she thought?" Neh?


It's ghoulish! So she had an idea you, collectively, don't like. I must ask, who cares? And who cares enough to whip a dead woman over it? THAT is highly uncool.

This seems to be the bit that particularly bothers you...the impropriety of criticizing the departed, particularly the recently departed. And, I think it must be admitted that this is considered bad manners in many circles. However, many (including me) also feel that there is a certain unbecoming insincerity in the conventional "speak no ill of the dead" attitude that turns even the biggest assholes into saints in their obits. A matter of taste, imo.

-Ww

ironjocelyn
04-14-2005, 07:08 PM
Small point - there have been fairly conclusive links between use of pornography and sexual violence. Nobody claims that one reads a magazine and then goes out and commits rape, any more than doctors will tell you that one cigarette will give you cancer.

This is misleading. There is plenty of correlation, but that doesn't mean anything. There's also plenty of correlation between sexual violence and brushing one's teeth, one has nothing to do with the other, brushing one's teeth and viewing standard pornography are both so prevalent in the general population that you can't draw any conclusions based on just that.

The links that have been established concern specific types of pornography related to specific types of crimes, which makes sense because we enjoy looking at what we ourselves like doing. Adults like watching other adults get it on. People with sexual attraction to children like looking at children, and sadists like snuff and torture garbage, and other stuff like women fucking themselves with firearms. It isn't rocket science, your fantasy material reflects your fantasy. I personally think that a lot of extreme feminists and right-wingers deliberately confuse the issue by claiming all pornography contributes to crime simply because they don't like it, which really pisses me off. It's basically just a roundabout way of expressing the belief that women shouldn't be sexual beings and that having/enjoying sex is dirty, and it makes me angry and sad that other women buy into that shit.

Some claim it does contribute even though it isn't a causal relationship, for standard pornography at non-compulsive/ritualistic levels, I just don't buy it. And there's no evidence to show otherwise, despite how much some have looked for it.

polecat
04-14-2005, 09:15 PM
Boy, big thread with way too many topics flying around to focus on just one.

Andrea Dworkin- like most extremists (can we all at least agree she can be considered an extremist?), has both practical value and impractical value. The change she wanted was coming from the right place (i.e. less victimized women in our culture), but everyone wants to argue how effective, how proper, how accurate and the means by which she founded her fight. The foundation of her logic was all based on her own reality and her own perception of how things "are", when we all know that our individual perception of reality are formed on our own experiences. As someone that went through a lot of trauma, prostitution, exploitation and constantly demeaned, she found personal salvation through a set of perceptions and only wanted to share that salvation the only way she knew.

As far as I'm concerned, if wrongfully convincing someone the Aztecs were actually space aliens and the mothership is landing in 2010 is the only way to get someone out of being victimized, that one life is worth the misdirection. Once saved, if the individual isn't too damaged, they can begin a life of self-discovery, or choose one of blind prejudice and ignorance. Either way, they are in a better place. I'd rather have a bunch of women independent and free of sexual slavery/exploitation thinking men are actually space aliens than sufferring... but that's my personal opinion and not something I could ever do myself... but I also recognize that my own 'truth' may not be possible for others with a more closed mind, prejudices or different background/history.

In some cases, this is simply taking someone out of a very bad place and into a less bad place. It may not be the 'truth' by other's perception (and actually thwart future progress by some amount in those 'saved' through this different perception), but it may be the only 'truth' some of these women can digest to get them out of their situation.

Worst case is- her extremist views did bring more attention to female exploitation, so this is not an all bad thing. The question was- if mainstream society is willing to overlook what they consider unfathomable and instead focus on the key issue. Many have from her works and efforts- be they agree or strongly disagree with her methods and ideologies.

On pornography? What can I say... I never have liked it and find that, at least to current, in my life it's never had any place. I both agree and disagree that it can be linked to rape, but that's only because of my perceptions of rape from a Californian viewpoint of what kind of 'rape' clicks in my mind as mainstream here.

There is no doubt some people are justified to think pornography has ties to 'rape'- but a different kind of rape than I'm used to being privvy to seeing/experiencing here. In small, hick-towns, men that are heavily into pornography, heavy masturbators and also fairly devious.. these are the kinds that like to get women drunk, slip them things in their drinks and achieve non-consentual sex/rape in this fashion. They objectify women and the pornography helps balance this mindset with their activities. Does it create them? I don't believe so as they've been doing it since the 50's before pornography was even readily available. Does it strengthen or fortify their practice? Certainly, I believe it can.

I look at this as a different form of rape- it's not coming from a psychopathic person that sees women as vile, digusting creatures that deserve to be raped in utter hatred as opposed to dehumanized into mere sex objects for their pleasure. Pornography builds upon the latter concept, not the former. In Amsterdam, Europe, and even here in Bay Area, pornography is rampant and even mainstream, yet rape is substantially lower than in other regions. It's mainly reduced to only those rapists that would also get off from killing their victim as they would raping them... just the rape leaves a longer lasting torment. Both objectification misogyny and psychopathic misogyny are forms of rape, but pornography doesn't illustrate an "all women are vile" mindset.. just one of "all women are sluts to be objectified as sex toys for self-gratifying pleasure."

As humans, we draw all sorts of lines that rely upon double-standards as well. While some may fight that 'pornography is only fantasy, so therefore it isn't real and shouldn't be censored' yet at the same time some of these people feel 'pornography illustrating sex with children should be abolished', even if all involved are over 18 and either digitally enhanced or some other form of imagery to illustrate incest or statutory rape. Where do you draw the line on 'fantasy' and subjectively societal damaging principles? How much do we each believe what is an 'act' or imagery versus something leading or suggestive? How much do we trust the American mainstream public to make those designations? etc.etc. These lines are most often fuzzy and all over the place depending upon our principles and beliefs. Many are indeed double-standards that should at least invoke some more self-discovery and exploration of our hard, fast lines.

Madcap
04-14-2005, 09:16 PM
Wow, how ironic! This is surely the cruelest and most hurtful thing that has been posted about Dworkin in the whole thread, the sentiment that would probably have most dismayed and hurt her. Of course, caring nothing about her, there is no reason to care about that either. But surely those who take her ideas seriously enough to criticize and debate them do her more honor than those who shrug and say, "Who cares what she thought?" Neh?

Actually, i'm just secure enough not to care whether someone thinks all hetero sex is rape, or that i think i know everything (Wait, i DO know everything! nevermind that second one). You can answer that one yourself jusy by asking yourself "Is all hetero sex rape?" It's a yes or a no, no need to agonize over it. Dworkin wouldn't have given a fig what i thought either, if i read her right.




This seems to be the bit that particularly bothers you...the impropriety of criticizing the departed, particularly the recently departed. And, I think it must be admitted that this is considered bad manners in many circles.

This is indeed the part of it that bothers me. Glad someone picked that up.



However, many (including me) also feel that there is a certain unbecoming insincerity in the conventional "speak no ill of the dead" attitude that turns even the biggest assholes into saints in their obits. A matter of taste, imo.

That's just it, she had some extream positions that doesn't make her an asshole. Hitler, now he was an asshole. Dworkin was an extreame person from an extreame time (the '70's), that's it. Remember that '70's radical that got caught a few years ago, she tried to kill someone (a cop i think) like 25 years ago and just got nailed for it. She was a housewife now, hardly the same person she was when she was wearing a beret and screaming about the "pigs." It's the same with Dworkin. People change over time, and attacking a dead woman for books she wrote a decade or more (maybe much more) before she died seems silly.

You didn't know the woman and i didn't know the women.

But, like you said, matter of taste i suppose.

Jenny
04-15-2005, 07:27 AM
Nicki - I should clarify things here. My post (as may seem obvious) was not meant to be a point by point refutation of your position. It was really just more the first two things that your post made me think of. The lack of clarity is probably due to excessive caffeine - now that I don't dance instead of drinking too much liquor, I drink too much coffee. And this is going to be more of the same - I am a compulsive rambler.


I want Kat and Cali to be my maids of honor. And can mr_punk be our best man?
Everyone else is invited too, right?
Well, now we need some ushers and a flower girl


I have also had both negative and positive experiences in the sex industry, and I agree that the effects of a person's involvement in it can be far-reaching and complex. Overall, however, I feel that I gained more from my time in the industry than I lost.

Well, yeah, of course you have - I realize that nobody can spend any time doing any job (or for that matter anyThING) without a spectrum of experience. But that is almost as simple as saying that "I like it" or "I don't like it" -- it is relevant and important, but it doesn't necessarily address a greater social meaning (and of course all anti-pornography feminism is based around the idea that pornography has a social/cultural effect, not just an individual one. Although, I personally agree with Naomi Woolf (even though she betrayed the sisterhood)... and I'm going to finish this at the end).

I think this sort of the link between your post and the question about the difference between women selling their bodies and men buying them. Is what an individual enjoys really at issue here? I mean some people enjoy having their feet and fingers cut off. And -- this is Melonie's big contribution to my thinking here (I mean, it's stuff you know, but you know it so deep down that you don't think about it) -- the contradiction liek that between empowerment and humiliation (I.E. of "selling" and "buying") permeates every aspect of the business. Like (again, thank you Melonie) as we all lobby (not in the legal sense, just, you know, casual lobbying) for greater acceptance and respect in our cultural setting, we complain that as we get that respect and acceptance our money diminishes because our livelihoods are (at least indirectly) based of lack of acceptance and respect of women's sexuality. The idea being that sex is commodity that men seek out and women horde, right? (the social reasons and history for that we all know, and you could probably tell me better than I could tell you). I mean, why else would you have a sex industry in the first place? So we stretch boundaries and reinforce them at the same time (how many times have you read other women on this site saying that men go to clubs because their wives/girlfriends (by implication the non-dancer/sex trade community) are frigid, fat and ugly, thus just emphasizing the lack of sensuality/sexuality of the "normal" woman compared to us (who are, by all accounts, sex fiends)? We make money being sexually available to men, but at the same time expect them to not want to have sex with us - I mean, it is rude and socially unacceptable to ask us to sleep with you after you have bought a dance (or, god forbid, not bought one), but at the same time we are behaving (especially - obviously - during the aforementioned dance) in an extremely sexually provacative manner.



Wait, I am confused--especially about that last sentence. Can you clarify?
Andrea Dworkin comes down on one side of the neogotiation instead of living in the complexity, and essentially acknowledging that it is never really concluded - she determines that it is uniformly damaging on a social and personal level, despite claims of the people involved to the contrary (which many people here do have a rightful problem with). However I think that too many people here (of course, not you, Nic) come down too hard on the other side, insistenting (rather simplistically in my opinion) that dancing is all GOOD for society, that it contains no damaging mores and no issues worth examining. I up for a good "Dancers! Dancers! rah, rah, rah!" as much as the next chick, but in the context of exotic dancing cheerleading, not pretending to actually examine what stripping for money MEANS in society.


Again, I am a little confused....What is used to justify harrassment? The idea that "all sex is rape"? Or are you talking about biology being used to justify rape? I am a big proponent, as you know, of using biology to EXPLAIN many aspects of human social behavior, but justification of a given behavior is never my goal.
well, there you go. I am the anti-you. I think what I was getting at (and not terribly clearly due to the caffeine buzz and trying to type out everything that I thought of when I read your post as fast as I was reading) was that in the context of justifyng this behaviour these theories are a lot more palatable to people (again, this is not a refutation of anything you said, just something I thought of as I was reading) than in the context of radical, separtist feminism. When men talk about how Rape is inherently exciting to men because all sex involves force (e.g. the penis being forced into the vagina) and that we need to socially accept how men like to rape women, it is a lot more accepted - at least in terms of being rational discourse - than women saying that Rape is inherently exciting to men because all sex involves force and therefore women should eschew penetrative sex with men. (Personally, I think all parties are leaving out the entire IDEA of lubrication, and how that plays into the whole "force" issue, but it is not my fault that none of these people have ever had mutually enjoyable, consensual, hetero, penetrative sex). If I may interject yet another anecdote, once I went to a reading called "Clitlit" which was specializing in writings by transgendered persons (incidentally, another great example of people who stretch sexual boundaries while simultaneously reinforcing them) and was disconcerted - extremely - the overt connection between "masculinity" and "violence" that seemed to be routinely accepted. An FtM had a poem that waxed very lyrical about about how he wanted to spend his first night after he had a fully healed reassignment - it involved fucking another man up the ass with a gun (not a real gun - the turn on was as much the fear of the other man as the violence of the situation). Another discussed his experienced, both pre and post transition (living as both a woman and man) of being "stalked" and "stalking" respectively - of how he could remember, as a woman, being afraid of strange men behind her, and how now it was arousing now sensing that fear in others.




Please do post more later
Regarding pornography - I think that everyday, regulated pictoral spreads (e.g. in Jane) are just as "damaging" (assuming that there is in fact some damage to be talking about) as the more (how shall I say?) SPECIALTY magazines. There are, for example, huge concerns about child pornography whether or not is victimizing individual children because it is seen as being damaging to children as a whole (and I am not comparing women to children - I am comparing one social phenomena to another). We see this type of publication as something that is OBVIOUSLY going to contribute to a bad, bad prediliction, right? But, pedophiles don't NEED systemized pornography - they can masturbate just as well to Tiger Beat, right? I have no points here, and certainly no conclusions. I mean, I come down on your side here - I like porn. I even like semi-violent (though I must stress the semi) rape-fantasy porn. I'm certainly not advocating making porn illegal, or more inaccesible than it is now. I like sex, but I do think sex is a contruct - I mean, think about what sex means, the definition - the sex act is completed with the male orgasm. I'm not saying that women don't come, that men don't want women to come or that men are bad lover, or that women don't like sex - but the female orgasm (in terms of social understanding of sex) is optional, whereas the male is integral.

Jenny
04-15-2005, 07:43 AM
This is misleading. There is plenty of correlation, but that doesn't mean anything. There's also plenty of correlation between sexual violence and brushing one's teeth
Tooth brushing perverts.


The links that have been established concern specific types of pornography related to specific types of crimes, which makes sense because we enjoy looking at what we ourselves like doing. It isn't rocket science, your fantasy material reflects your fantasy.
Well considering that pretty much every theory in every discipline over the past 50 or 60 years has explored and/or understood the fact that what we look at can DETERMINE what we like, how we live etc., this seems just as simplistic. I mean, I used to hate the way capris looked - but put them in enough commercials and on enough attractive mannequins and I find myself coming round. Never worked on the pointy, pointy elf shoes though.


Some claim it does contribute even though it isn't a causal relationship, for standard pornography at non-compulsive/ritualistic levels, I just don't buy it. And there's no evidence to show otherwise, despite how much some have looked for it.
Well, that depends on what evidence you are looking for. There have been psychological studies done on sex offenders (unrelated to legal procedings such as parole), psychological studies done on test groups of every age, and there have been statistics gathered. Statistically (and this, I personally think is the most suspect, because all countries that "limit" pornography have thriving black markets and I personally think some of them may "fudge" their numbers a bit) comparable societies (such as, for example, Singapore and Hong Kong) in which one stringently limits pornography has a dramatically lower rate of sex crime, although the rate of other crimes (such as drug trafficking, etc.,) remains approximately the same. However I do recognize that certain countries that have very wide access and liberal porn law have low rates of sex crime as well.
Psychologically - well, it is pretty much what you would expect. People (especially young people, which is when "porn addiction" would usually start) become less shocked the more they are exposed to a given thing and require a "jump" to retain the orginial excitement. They also begin to see this "less-shocking" behaviour as more and more mainstream, normal and, eventually, desirable. This is not revolutionary theory, nor is it hugely debated in many areas besides this one.

ironjocelyn
04-15-2005, 11:45 PM
Jenny- I think our opinions are actually fairly similar. I don't think a country like Singapore could be used in any kind of comparison though because the rate of reportage is so off.

People can certainly condition themselves and become compulsive and eventually become sex offenders. But I just don't see the porn itself as having a causal relationship to that. It's an aid, but I believe the desire was already there. That's just my opinion though and I'm totally cognitive oriented, many believe the stimulus can come first. I agree about the desensitizing and as you pointed out the concept is hardly new, but it's a pretty big leap from desensitization to addiction, paraphilia, and/or sex offenses. Especially when (most of) society frowns upon that kind of behavior and punishes. Someone viewing some deviant porn, I don't think they could condition themselves into a sex offender if the desire wasn't already there. I do agree though that for paraphiliacs and sex offenders the porn incites them, but again, they already have compulsion problems. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it can incite and accelerate paraphiliacs and sex offenders, but I believe that would have happened anyway. I don't think it can incite/inspire the same kind of behavior in someone who doesn't have those desires already. I mean, I've seen a lot of crime scene photos of posed bodies and photos taken by sex offenders of their victims being tortured, and while I have become more desensitized to them I am surely not about to go kill someone and masturbate to their posed corpse. That's an extreme example, but the leap from stimulus to violence (or forcing non-consensual activity like drugging someone, that is such a pussy way to power trip) is still very large no matter what the specific circumstances.

Madcap
04-15-2005, 11:49 PM
Devil-made-me-do-it crap is, indeed, out the window. But there is a point when something healthy... becomes unhealthy. Porn doesn't make rapists or sex predators, but you can sometimes see who is and who isn't by the types of Porn they consume, and quantity. That = link.

Keep in mind, i'm not saying porn is bad, but even Buddah said "Moderation."