"The Patriarchal Punch" and The Liberal Lack of Imagination: on society, story-telling, and speaking out

[image is from here]

This post follows up where the last one left off. The link to the last one, for those who want the beginning of this exchange between myself and two people over at the blog, sexgenderbody, is here. The two other people involved in this exchange are named Arvan and letseatcake. For a time I thought these might be one and the same. It gets clearer they are not. Or it was clear all along and I simply didn't realise it. Likely the latter. I could joke here: those liberals, they all sound alike. But I won't. ;) Seriously, the distinction each contributor makes are increasingly clear, also in terms of each of their stories. I rarely find people who are liberal who are willing to engage with me to this degree. I'm not sure I'll engage further, but I was willing to take these next steps into the precarious land of liberal lack of imagination.

Here we go. Put on your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night.

Thank you for such a lengthy and well thought reply

Julian,

Thank you for such a lengthy and well thought reply.  I can definitely respect the time and effort you place in your writing both here and at your own site.  It is clear that you have a passion and that you want to make a difference in people's lives and I applaud that as well.  I often tweet posts from your site. 

I disagree with your assumptions though.  I do not agree that porn is rape.  Rape is rape.  Forcing a person to have sex against that individual's will is rape.  I know plenty of porn performers and none of them are being raped.  I have heard the argument about those people having been duped and brainwashed and no longer free to choose.  That statement presumes to know the minds of other people. 

How do you know that a man watching porn is ashamed?  How do you know that he is choosing porn over intimacy.  How can you prove those things?  How can you know the minds of another person or an entire swath or people?

We're not even talking about real people here, just hypothetical 'men' and 'porn performers'.  It's impossible to know the thoughts of another person to begin with and I dare say, fruitless to ken the thoughts of a hypothetical person.  Suggesting to know the motives of 'men watching porn' is no different than claiming to know the values of people based on their race, their religion, their education or their sexual preference or any other form of prejudice. 

It's conjecture, based on judgment and it's a very human behaviour.  You do it, I do it, we all do it.  We observe, we judge and we speak based on our judgments.  The challenge for us, is to lay aside our judgments and listen to each other as we define our own lives.  The world is not black & white and our experiences are not the same as other people's.

I don't take a book written by someone as a proof. [I should have called him out on this point, but went on. This is bullshit. He has taken much he has read in books to be the proof of a lot, and this gets us back to the intellectual dishonesty that is prevalent among liberal thinkers and doers. They make claims when it suits them, never owning when they do what they ask those radical thinkers to do and to prove.] A book can be only an opinion.  An opinion that agrees with you or me or anyone is merely agreement.  Agreement is not proof.  Agreement is agreement.  People agree to all sorts of things that are not true.  A fact is a fact, independent of agreement.  The boiling point of water is what it is, regardless of opinion or agreement.  The tree in my yard is a tree, no matter what I think of it or how many people agree with my opinion. 

I think you weaken your argument by stating opinion as fact.  If you are anti-porn, just say so.  You're entitled to your opinion just as anyone.  If you believe that porn is rape, just say so.  No one can ever tell you that your opinion is not your opinion.  If you share how porn equals rape in your life, meaning your relationships, that is powerful and compelling.  If you state that porn is rape for all men, you turn the conversation into one where you need to actually prove that this exists in the minds of all men watching porn.

The same goes for shame.  If you feel shame or are in relationship with someone who feels shame, share that.  Declaring that shame exists in the minds of hypothetical 'men' is neither tangible or provable. 

The idea of this site is that we practice articulating our own sex, gender and body identities, in our own terms and listen to one another as we would define ourselves.  So, I invite you to make "I" statements and not broad judgments of what other people are thinking or doing or their motives.  I'm not saying that you can't have your opinions, but that all people are welcome here including sex workers and others working in the porn industry, many of whom already do.

If you have experienced shame in your own life regarding sex or porn, then share that.  I would find it much more powerful than proselytizing about 'porn = rape' and the shame of hypothetical men.  You will find that some people agree with you, while others do not.  But, let us identify ourselves rather than you telling us what we think and what we are doing and why we are doing it.
- arvan

Submitted by arvan on 2 January, 2010 - 13:03.

Julian.

I thought about your response well into the night, so thank you for challenging my assumptions and causing me to think outside my box.  I do hope you can consider that I truly have love and personal freedom at the core of my intent.

I agree I can be crass at times, in my writing, and saying things like "Get over it," can be taken harshly.  What it really boils down to, however, is the title of my blog.  Does Porn = Infidelity.  The answer is no.  The literal, indisputable fact is NO.

My question wasn't whether the porn industry is moral or sexist or abusive.  I can't speak to that, because I've never been in porn.  I have several friends who have been, though, and I've heard truly positive reports from them.  Each individual is different, and while you may have book upon book of painful stories from people in the porn industry, that is not everyone's opinion, and people are free to make their own choices.

Thank you for your comment.
Submitted by letseatcake on 2 January, 2010 - 15:29.

Hi Arvan,

I appreciate your willingness to engage.

My accusation to you is of intellectual dishonesty and liberalism. The dishonesty, in my view, shows up in several ways. First, you misstate what I write. No where (and I surely welcome you to quote me) do I state anything like "all porn is rape". This is the kind of misread that allows people to think Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon said "All sex is rape" or "all men are rapists" when neither ever did. I am asking you to own the political function of misstating people's words. It is, when done against radicals by liberals and conservatives, usually a designed to protect the status quo. That is what I see happening here. And we may disagree about what constitutes the status quo.

For more, see: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mackinnon.asp

Why did you misstate what I wrote? I don't ask this in anger at all. I ask you sincerely, because I'm curious to know how anyone arrives at their own versions of someone else's writings. It may, for example, be helpful to me to know what I stated that was so vague as to be easily read as "all porn is rape".

Dishonesty point #2: And this is classic liberalism.

You request for me to write "I" statements, as a prerequisite to being heard more. Please point out the "I" statements in this:

It's the wives/girlfriends that seem to need a better understanding of porn* and its purpose.  The point of porn is to give men the visual stimulation they enjoy to help them get off.  That's IT.  It isn't about what their wives should be doing in bed, or how perky and fake their wives tits should be.  It's not about viewing women as objects.  It may be about viewing THOSE women as objects, but the ultimate goal is to have an imaginary girl to shoot their wad all over.   

Women, instead of being threatened by this, why not embrace it and use it to your benefit?  I assure you, "Honey, let's watch some porn tonight and rub each other off" will make you one of the hottest women your husband could ask for, because you're real and you will fuck him, and you are a dirty whore who wants his load all over your (insert husband's favorite body part here).  He knows you're not really a whore, but he's willing to pretend with you, and he will still love and respect you in the morning, I promise.

The irony is,  even if you are the dirtiest little slut your husband could ask for, he'll still watch porn, because men also like variety.  He did it before you, he'll do it after you, and he'll do it while he's with you (whether you know about it or not).  Porn is a healthy expression of a single person's/ couples sex life, so please save the guilt and shame for church and GET OVER IT.
 

Radical views are asked to be restated, re-expressed, worded differently, etc. Liberal views, typically, are not. Any views that don't really seek to radically transform the status quo, are acceptable and seen as generally truthful. Those that do seek such transformation are not socially acceptable and are not usually seen as obviously truthful.

So, for example, I could post something here that says "Sex is and individual matter" or "Gender definition belongs only to any individual" and you would never think to ask me to rephrase those comments as I statements. (Please correct me if that's not so. But in my experience, you do not correct yourself or request this "I" statement criteria for others who state what you believe, generally speaking.)

This means that those of us who have radically different experiences of the world are always placed in the position of "only ever being able to have an opinion, subjective at best, insane at worst". You didn't say that. I'm pointing out something here.

Truth is controlled by those with the power to maintain the status quo who benefit materially by the status quo being more or less as it is, or becoming "worse" in the sense of more exploitive and more dehumanising, or warmer climatically, for example. You exercise such power in the way you engage with me above. Do you see that? You get to state Truths in your original post, and when I counter with other Truths you ask me to restate mine as "mine" without similarly challenging yourself to state your own just as "subjectively". Why?

Now, on to what I did say. (I hope.)

I said that for the multi-billion dollar a year pornography industry to exist, rape must happen a lot within that industry. This is, perhaps, akin to saying that for capitalism to exist, poverty must also exist. Each depends on the other. This doesn't mean that rape did not exist before pornography any more than it means death did not exist before AIDS. but AIDS does, in populations without access to health care, cause death. And pornography does require, in places where disenfranchised people are exploited and used to make pimps wealthier, rape. That isn't saying, at all, that "all porn is rape". I hope that's clearer. Let me know, please.
This is not simply or even primarily "my opinion" or "my experience". And to state what I do above only as "my opinion" would be dishonest and politically irresponsible, in my view.

This is my experience: those of us with race, gender, sexuality, class, education, ability, age, and regional privileges (such as being from The West) often speak in ways that support the status quo without owning that that's what we're doing. I see you doing this.

So "everyone defining their own gender" for example, begins to appear to be something radical, except for the pro-status quo liberalism that underpins it. That liberalism, which, by definition is "pro status quo"--despite the histeria of the Right wing to the contrary--means that those with certain experiences and entitlements are never made to account for how they got them. Whereas those who don't have those experiences and entitlements are repeatedly asked to "phrase that as an I statement please". Do you understand how political that is to do?

Please, only speak with Ruchira Gupta and Yanar Mohammed about "gender" and "sexuality" and it will become very clear where your privileges and entitlements exist. Please go to Phnom Penh and ask to be directed to the places where white men buy children for sex. And conceive of who, generally, is being used (up) by men's desire and acted upon need to have 24/7 access to raped women's bodies. Note that I did not say that all women in pornography are raped, necessarily.

Please study the degree of overlap between the following: pornography and prostitution--in the actual world, in reality, and prostitution and trafficking. If you know to the degree to which those systems overlap, in reality, not in my perspective of it, then you would conclude, I wager, that "for the pornography industry to exist, massive rape must occur".

What the heterosexual men who look at pornography I know  want to believe--an opinion to be sure--is that none of the women and girls they are looking at are being raped or have ever been raped. Or, they just don't care. They don't care to know what her story really is. Was she incested or wasn't she? Was she pimped or wasn't she? Is not their "assumption" that all the images of dehumanised women they get off to are not of women who have experienced rape in ways that traumatically relate to her being there, in front of that camera, naive, to use a kind word? Politically self-serving, to be more accurate?

In privileged territories, among privileged people, we can "choose" to do things that most people cannot choose to do. So the rich can chose to work or not to work outside and inside the home. They can hire people to clean their houses and hire people to buy and sell their stocks so that they don't have to work in the capitalist sense.

Sexual liberals with various forms of privilege--not all forms but some--can afford to think of gender and sex and sexuality as "individualistic" matters, because you don't know how enforced it is being, today, against the bodies of female and male human beings trying to live human lives in desperate and dangerous conditions.
I am asking you to learn more about those desperate and dangerous situations before you write the last three paragraphs of your post above similarly in the future.

And, as for my "proof": it is everywhere, if you want to know it. Just go to where pornography is mass produced, to the industrial-strength pornographers and procurers and women and girls used as sexxx-things, to experience DP and gang "sex" and massive humiliation, and you tell me what levels of "meaningful consent" you see present there. I'll trust your judgment. But you have to look deeply into the women's eyes, okay? And tell me what level of presence of spirit you see in them.

Also, we may simply disagree on the level of values. I am against exploitation of human beings for profit. That necessarily means I take a very critical stance with regard to capitalism and patriarchy, also to white and Western supremacist systems of thought and behavior. Read Yurugu for more on that, if you wish. And read the books I recommended on pornography above. One of them, especially, is filled with "I" statements, and makes the point that those are most useful in intimate interpersonal relationships (Love and Pornography). Its primary author is a student of non-violent communication or NVC. The book is a fascinating study of how to employ NVC in intimate primary relationship, rather than engaging in the blame and shame strategies that too often play out.

So, I don't ever say "all porn is rape". And if you check, you'll never find such a statement in my writings, and there are hundreds of pages of my writings on this subject and related matters. But here we also come up against the matter of "who gets to define terms". I argue that politically and structurally, those with privilege believe they do and believe those without their privileges and structural locations do not get to be validated as Truth-tellers by the elites, even when they know they do speak Truth. Pro status quo statements will be put through an interrogation process that statements that meet up with status quo values--liberalism, individualism, queer theory within the "liberal arts" academy, for example--do not have to meet.

I say this: if and to the degree that pornography is what it actually means: "the graphic depiction of wh*res", and "wh*re" is how it is used against women, a term/action of derision and degradation and stigma, negative stigma, despite the best efforts of Queer Theory majors to make it "not so", that pornography lives up to its meaning, and to be a "wh*re" in whatever language, in whatever patriarchy, does not usually mean be treated with respect or dignity or to be viewed, even, as someone who is easily raped, easily physically violated, easily transgressed upon physically and psychically. So "the wh*res" are disbelieved when they say "He raped me" in way that, sociologically and historically, a white men was once believed when "my wife was raped by a Black man" when he, not the Black man, raped her. (See the film or the book, To Kill a Mockingbird.) And note, within the U.S., who the appeal to be validated has to reach: not ever only Black women, but always some white men--who wrote and defend the laws of white men.

Once a society's elite has pointed the finger and said "those are the wh*res, those are the n*ggers, those are the f*gs", we know a lot about what groups are entitled to speak Truth, generally, and which are not. The ones who--collectively, not individually--point and name others are "the privileged and the entitled". The ones who collectively, not individually, are pointed out and named as such by non-others, are those who must carry the burden of being so labeled and treated accordingly.

Tell me honestly, Arvin, how many women do you know who were pimped? How many women do you know well who were on the street at twelve, or fourteen, picked up by pimps, seasoned, and turned out? How many women do you know with that background who were made to pose for pornographers so that their dehumanised, traumatised bodies and beings could be "Sold" to heterosexual men?

I will state clearly this:
I  know there are people who choose to become pornography and who get a great sexual thrill from being in pornography or being pornography for someone else. I know there are people who choose to shop, to become consumers. And many of them get a thrill from buying. They have agency. But they don't have the option to know life without pornography, without patriarchy, and without capitalism. Why is that?

I know there are people who choose to engage in sadistic activities. I know there are people who choose to be bosses, supervisors, and upper management.

I know there are women who first learned "what sex is" from their father's pornography, which described or displayed women as creatures who LOVE and LONG for rape. These women fight in side themselves about their fantasise about being raped and they carry deep and unnecessary and harmful, self-distorting shame about the fact that the only way they can achieve orgasm is by fantasising being raped. And of course fantasising about "rape" isn't being raped. She has the agency to think about it, after all, and, to some degrees, to not think about it. Then again, so too do those of us who have been sexually assaulted. I put it out of my mind usually, but it is triggered back into my present.

I know there are men who don't feel much of anything when using pornography: no measurable shame, no measurable guilt, no measurable sense of witnessing an atrocity. I'd say at this time, in 2010, those men may even be the majority.

I don't support any notions of sex as "bad" or "shameful" because it is sex. I don't support any notions of "masturbation" being harmful, unless one's practice is auto-erotic asphyxiation.

Feel free to quote me, but please don't misstate what I write. Deal? And let me know when you find out what Ruchira Gupta and Yanar Mohammed know as Truth that you do not yet know.

I will leave you with some personal stories, as I do agree they can resonate with people more than "expressed ideas".

A white, working class heterosexual young man I knew well once, and know less well now, "lost his virginity" to a young woman who would not and could not have sex unless she was watching pornography on the television screen. This was before the era of everyone with some class privilege having their own laptop. Both these people were white. (I don't know if she's still alive.)

He learned, uncomfortably, that sex = using pornography while with a woman. He had seen pornography before, and had purchased some, but always figured "that's what guys do when they don't have someone to make love to". When with a woman he cared about--and those were the only women he was with, sexually--he wanted to "make love" and so was confused by this girlfriend's behavior and needs. He was perplexed because he'd learned that girls wanna make love, but boys wanna fuck.

He remained confused and their relationship ended because he felt increasingly uneasy about always having sex when she watched pornography at the same time. He wanted to know what "making love" felt like and clearly she was not interested in doing so, by his terms, not mine.

He left her and later met a feminist woman who finds pornography (including of women) to be objectifying, degrading, and subordinating of women as a class relative to men as a class. She just "gets it" that that's what material that is designed to depict "women as wh*res for men to use and abuse" does to people who enjoy it. She's not an expert on pornography. She does hold a Master's Degree in Social Work, however. She's a heterosexual middle class white woman. She let him know that not only was she uncomfortable incorporating pornography into their sex life, but that she wanted to make love, have fun, enjoy sex, have great sex, that didn't need or involve mass producted images of women graphically depicted as wh*res. He was agreeable.
They have a great sexual relationship.

I have spoken with him in great detail about his sexual history. When he told me about his first girlfriend, I asked him, "Do you know anything about her life prior to the two of you meeting?" He said "A little". I asked him to tell me what he knew. He told me that she had a really awful, abusive father. I asked him "What does 'abusive' mean?" not wanting to presume anything. He said "he raped her for years when she was an adolescent". I asked him to imagine why she might need to view pornography while having sex with him. He pondered this, but still seemed a bit confused.

I said, "Maybe she can't be present to sex, because sex is trauma to her. Maybe, for her to have sex, she has to find a way to not be present, to lose herself in images of people being used as she was used by her father, more or less". This held resonant meaning for him. Pieces of a puzzle fell into place.

I told him this as well:
I was sexually abused as a child, by three heterosexual males, two of them adult men. I later got into using pornography because it allowed me to feel aroused without feeling much else. I didn't have to feel "out of control" or "afraid" or "terrified" or "painfully vulnerable" or "unsafe". And I realised that while I never desired to incorporate pornography into my sexual behavior with men--once I was a man, that I had trouble being present during sex. I didn't turn anyone into pornography, but I did need to objectify them or parts of them to feel sexual arousal, often. I just realised, over years, and a lot in retrospect, that for me to be sexual with others, and often alone, I had to fantasise myself out of the present into realms that took me away from what was actually happening--me, allegedly a whole person, with another whole person. So there was fantasy and there was objectification, and there was dissociation. And when I was present to sex with others, sometimes it was okay, but often later, the next day, I'd feel triggered. Sometimes during the sex--and I include acts of kissing as "sex"--I'd feel triggered and would need to stop.

I live in a society that, without scratching the surface too deeply, recommends an a good thing, unequivocally, "incorporating fantasy into your sex life if it's getting a bit dull". I live in a society saturated with pornographic values and images. I live in a patriarchal, pro-porn, pro-materialism, inhumane capitalist society.

I want something better for that first girlfriend of that white man I used to know well, and for him, and for his current girlfriend--the feminist, and for me.

And I want something radically different for all girls and women (and boys and men and trans folks) rented and traded, sold and trafficked as sexual slaves and sexual things, for men's pleasure and men's profit.

What's wrong with that, in your opinion?

Submitted by Julian on 2 January, 2010 - 15:56.

I am realising that letseatcake and Arvan are two people. I apologise for confusing that fact in my comments just above.

Re:
I agree I can be crass at times, in my writing, and saying things like "Get over it," can be taken harshly.  What it really boils down to, however, is the title of my blog.  Does Porn = Infidelity.  The answer is no.  The literal, indisputable fact is NO. 

I think that statement of TRUTH carries unowned assumptions that I'd like to challenge.

Infidelity = among other things, being unfaithful, being dishonest, being untruthful.

I think men who use pornography and who tell their female partners to "get over it" or to "not worry" are being grossly unfaithful, dishonest, and untruthful about what they are doing, including in the act of telling their partners to "back off". I think they are not owning their actions as political and hurtful, and are not fully owning their selfishness and self-interest, and the degree to which, perhaps, they cannot NOT look at images of pornography. They may not look for hours a day. They may only look for several days a lot, then not at all for a while, but they can't NOT have the access, and they won't want to NOT have the access. Correct me if I'm wrong about that.

So, given that we are free to define terms, I'd argue that using pornography often or usually involves various levels of self-deceit, self-deception, misperception of reality, and disregard and overt shaming of female partners' feelings and wishes. That's not "fidelity" as I understand the term.

And the graphic depiction of women as wh*res, I believe, most certainly involves many levels and degrees of dishonesty, deception, and degradation. And that, as well, doesn't equal "fidelity". And I don't use the word in the Right-wing sense, as right-wing men are notorious liars, users of women, and, particularly and especially, users of women in systems of prostitution. Just ask any prostitute who has worked both the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention in an election year. Hands down, the Repub men use more women as prostitutes, and disproportionately have the funds to do so, which is partly why such men are against taxing the rich--it might result in them having less unincumbered access to incested and raped women, and women who experienced neither but reinforce, in men's minds, the idea that some women are wh*res, by nature or by god.

Submitted by Julian on 2 January, 2010 - 16:21.

Julian,

If you accuse me of liberalism, I can only say "thank you".

You stated that rape must happen a lot within the porn industry.  Where is your proof that it occurs?  Then, prove how that is different from the rape that occurs at a drug store when a manager rapes an employee.  Rape is rape.  Abuse of power in the workplace is abuse of power in the workplace.  Porn is sex on film.  Sex is something that all animals do. 

I happen to agree that patriarchal, sexist, militaristic, corporate models of abuse, domination and violence exist.  Porn exists within these items, just as carpentry, organized religion, philosophy, and any other form of commerce and industry.  Rape occurs in all of these fields and professions as well.  So does slavery.  Sex work, porn and the viewing of porn do not have the same meaning to all people.  That's my point.

As for your statements that you claim I misunderstood, I can begin by apologizing for any misinterpretation.  I show you your own words and ask you about them.

I think men feeling shame about looking at raped women is an appropriate feeling to have.

What men?  How do you know that they feel shame?  The quote you referenced was about porn and your response conflated porn with rape?  How can you prove rape and prove shame in the hypothetical minds of the nebulous term 'men'?  You mentioned in your last response that I was twisting your words.  I just want you to look at this and notice how exactly I took you to mean that rape = porn.  So, if I got your meaning wrong - what were you saying there that you could have stated differently?

Porn is not rape.  Porn is sex on film.  I don't like all porn.  I don't like violent or degrading porn.  But, I don't conflate porn and rape when discussing  porn.  I'm willing to talk about rape, even my own.  I am willing to talk about slavery.  These things are not synonymous.  Rape is rape and porn is sex on film.
- arvan

Submitted by arvan on 2 January, 2010 - 16:48.

"I think men who use pornography and who tell their female partners to "get over it" or to "not worry" are being grossly unfaithful, dishonest, and untruthful about what they are doing, including in the act of telling their partners to "back off".

While I don't agree men who say that would be dishonest or untruthful (as they are quite clearly being honest), I do feel those men would be very rude.  I did not quote men as having said those, things, I said those things.  I am ok with being rude.

"they can't NOT have the access, and they won't want to NOT have the access. Correct me if I'm wrong about that."

I feel you are wrong about that.  My post isn't about porn addiction.  There are many men who could NOT look at porn, but I feel that is their choice to make, not their partner's.

As far as women being called whores being deceitful, degrading, etc., i am not talking about abusive behavior.  I personally enjoyed being called a dirty whore by my loving partner.  It is, in a sense, role playing.  It is not degrading to me, quite the opposite.  I am turned on by the fake degredation, because that's a role neither my partner and I take on in "real life."

Read more: http://sexgenderbody.com/content/does-watching-porn-cheating#comment-496#ixzz0bUfkA4Px

Submitted by letseatcake on 2 January, 2010 - 16:53.

Hi Arvan and letseatcake,
I'll reply to each of you in this comment.
First, to Arvan:

*If you accuse me of liberalism, I can only say "thank you".*

I suspect that is because you don't realise how dependent liberalism, as a worldview, and as a practice, is on rape, genocide, and ecocide. And if you want to understand how this is so, read the work of John Perkins and Derrick Jensen (also Robert Jensen, unrelated), along with Marimba Ani's Yurugu, and Conquest by Andrea Smith. To not understand what the consequences are of a worldview you hold is to be willfully ignorant. I posted some of what is above at my blog and the first comment I got was as follows:
See here for the whole post: http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-pornography-being-sham...

One person wrote, about my efforts above:
Ugh, an exercise in male privilege dressed up as honest inquiry. I see nothing in that discussion but mistruths delivered with a lot of smugness. I applaud you for fighting for women's equality and humanity. I wouldn't have the patience to try to penetrate that willful ignorance.

Another wrote:
*I don’t see masturbation, pornography or sex as a problem in itself.*

No it is never a problem when it is men as a group who demand and expect women be made sexually available to them 24/7. But then, given our world does supposedly revolve around men and their rights, demands, expectations, entitlements etc. whilst women continue to be constantly told, exhorted, ordered to serve men's needs, including being men's sexual stations; bolstering men's flagging egos; not challenging male-centered views etc. it is not surprising such myopic claims are being made.

Are women human? Not according to these individuals who claim to be 'objective and impartial.' So obviously [the "obviously" is meant to be read as sarcasm] pornography is 'harmless fantasy' rather than filmed prostitution and male sexual violence against women and children.

Always denial, denial and yet more denials because the realities of the pornography and its brother the sex industry cannot be accepted by men as a group because doing so means yes, women are indeed human and yes, women like men demand dignity, respect and justice. 

Yet more evidence of how male power operates, because apparently only males have the capacity to define what is and is not violence against women. This explains why pornography is not male violence against women but simply 'fantasy!' 

Thank you Julian for very succinctly debunking the lies concerning pornography which is not only about male pornographers and their cohorts who promote male hated and contempt for women but also earn vast sums of money by filming men engaged in committing sexualised sadistic torture against women.  


[I'll interject. I have been called many things by many people. "Succinct" is not usually among them! Thanks, Jennifer!!!! All my political friends would be laughing about that. But I know what you mean. It can take hours and hours and hours of wasted time trying to make someone hear you. And I don't quite take that much time. (And it remains to be seen whether it was all wasted.) But, again, thank you! I'll add: one thing that became abundantly, sickeningly clear in 2009 was that white women hold the power to name reality over women of color and do so in racist/misogynistic ways. So it's not only men who hold this power. But, just as trans folks are not THE most powerful enemy of women, white women are not the most powerful enemy of WOC. But they sure can act like it at times. 2009 will go down in herstory, for me, as proof of that. Sadly. I hope you don't witness that there in the UK. But it is not uncommon here, I'm sorry to say.]

*You stated that rape must happen a lot within the porn industry.  Where is your proof that it occurs?*

I know it does. Where is your proof that it doesn't? If pimps value gross sexual exploitation and violation, including but not limited to rape, and pimps run the sexxxism industries, how is it that you think it even possible that rape is not part of those industries? Do you think their behavior gets better for the camera? Just do an internet search on "double penetration" and tell me what you find, how much respect for women you see there. Get back to me on that. Do a search on "cum on my face" and tell me the dignity being shown those women. And also do a search on "feminist pornography" and compare the figures: how many hits you get on searching "double penetration" and "cum on my face" vs. "feminist pornography. That'll clue you into what the pornography industry actually is. It's not "feminist pornography" and it's not run by feminists, even the pro-sexxx kind. And any pro-sexxx feminist in the industry will quickly alert you to that fact. White male pimps, in the West, are in charge of the industry in this part of the world. They rake/rape in billions of dollars annually selling what? Respect for women. Hardly. The proof is sprayed all over the internet, go look at it. I'm not sending you the links.

*Then, prove how that is different from the rape that occurs at a drug store when a manager rapes an employee.  Rape is rape.  Abuse of power in the workplace is abuse of power in the workplace.  Porn is sex on film.  Sex is something that all animals do.*

OK. The rapes may be no different. And I never said they were. (Again, you're putting words in my mouth. NOT quoting me. Why is that? I quote you exactly and you "restate" my words. That's not respectful either.) The workplace for someone in a drugstore doesn't ask him, let's say the employee at the cash register is a him,  to take penises into his mouth, buttocks, and other areas before going home for the day. Can you see how rape is more likely to occur to a woman who is being paid to be physically penetrated by penises all day or all night, than it is for someone who sits at a computer or works a cash register, or restocks shelves? To me, that's a no-brainer.

Rape happens most in the bed, actually, not in the pornographer's "studio". Men generally rape women they know, women they are involved with, even if only on a date, but also to girlfriends, wives, and the women they rent for sexxxist use and abuse. Those men consume pornography, to varying degrees, yes? And what they take in from the pornography shapes their tastes in sex, whether you acknowledge it or not. That is why Halloween costumes now sexxxualise nine year old girls. Because industry pornographers earn billions by selling the idea that women are wh*res who love to be raped. They sell this idea, dressed up or dressed down, to men, and not only to men. And just like all advertising, it has an effect. If it didn't it wouldn't be profitable.

You see, an industry that earns billions annually--something sex liberals refuse to contemplate the impact of, btw--does actually inhumanely impact the larger society it exists in. That's how massive industries work; it's what they do. They leave a "carbon footprint" and a patriarchal punch. It's the patriarchal punch sex liberals tend to not want to look at while getting all alarmed at the carbon footprints of the auto industry. You can see where the concerns flow and where they do not. Things that negatively impact white men are "important to look at and remedy". Things that cause rape and subjugation and humiliation to women, disproportionately, are not seen as significantly harmful to society. In fact, they are seen as generally "fun" and "harmless". And sex liberals tell those of us who actually give a damn about rapism in society, and the industries that ensure and enforce it, to "get over it". You have one guess as to why that is. (It's not because sex liberals really want the rape and subjugation of women to end, in all forms and manifestations.)

*I happen to agree that patriarchal, sexist, militaristic, corporate models of abuse, domination and violence exist.  Porn exists within these items*

MOST pornography does. Pornography is "the graphic depiction of women as wh*res". Someone above dragged out Merriam Webster to tell me what a word means. Look up that one.

*, just as carpentry, organized religion, philosophy, and any other form of commerce and industry.  Rape occurs in all of these fields and professions as well.  So does slavery.  Sex work, porn and the viewing of porn do not have the same meaning to all people.  That's my point.*

Militarism, carpentry, religion, philosophy, and other forms of commerce are all imbued with similar values: domination of white men over everyone and everything else. Again, read Yurugu and the work of John Perkins. It's all there for the white English speaker who is academically educated to absorb, unless they refuse to. Really, it is there. And don't tell me it isn't until you've read those books.

So militarism, religion, and philosophy, for example, together, are eurocentric/white supremacist/male supremacist/anti-Life/anti-Indigenous phenomena, which is to say they discriminate rampantly against the "Dark Other" and all people considered "womanly". Here in the good ol' U.S., we enslave, we murder, and we rape, not necessarily in that order. And we don't do those the bombing form of murder on land that most white men live on. Why is that? And we don't enslave white men disproportionately. Why is that? And across ALL areas of society, white men are more likely to be rapers (of women of all colors) than the raped. Why is that? (In my experience, this is when the sex liberals and conservatives love to bring up that prison rape phenomenon, ignoring that white men are far less likely to be pulled over while driving and arrested for shit they didn't do. And white men, relative to Black and Brown men and women, are far more likely to have access to "good lawyers" and to big bucks than their Black and Brown sisters and brothers. Why is that?
Industries and other forms of commerce make poverty inevitable--and profitable, just not for the poor. The poor are the population most at risk for any number of atrocities, from flood to famine (think Katrina and the tsunami), to rape without negative or punitive consequence to the rapists, to prostitution and sexual slavery. These things are all linked, but the liberal mind wishes to separate things out: look over here, ignore what's over there. Don't EVER connect the dots.

*As for your statements that you claim I misunderstood, I can begin by apologizing for any misinterpretation.  I show you your own words and ask you about them.*
You do that once, here:

I think men feeling shame about looking at raped women is an appropriate feeling to have.

*What men?*

Those men who feel shame about looking at raped women.

*How do you know that they feel shame?*

Because I'm talking about the men who feel shame. Most of the men I have spoken to over twenty-five years, and that's hundreds, easily, felt shame when looking at pornography. I tended not to speak as much to men who were so fucking callous that they felt no shame at all about having or wanting or seeking out 24/7 access to quite-possibly raped women. The men who have been heterosexually active sometimes claim their shame is over "sex", but they don't carry the same shame about being with women sexually when the women are human and their is meaningful consent. I'm not talking there, at that point, about the men who look at pornography and don't feel shame. I address the reality of those men elsewhere.

*The quote you referenced was about porn and your response conflated porn with rape?*

No. Pornographers and pimps conflate them, not me. They make money doing it, not me. They have a multi-billion dollar a year "business" conflating rape, porn, and sex, not me. I point out the conflation, in business and in the liberal lack of imagination as a human rights issue. I don't generate it for profit. Andrea Dworkin reflects back to us, in literary form, what men actually do to women en masse and is then called a man-hater for doing so, when what she's describing is how men hate women. You see how this works yet?

*How can you prove rape and prove shame in the hypothetical minds of the nebulous term 'men'?*

One more time: I was speaking about the men who feel the shame. They write whole sentences about it all over the internet. And the ones that feel no shame write more. Do I have to send you all the links? Go to misandry.com and xyonline.net. Go anywhere at all where men congregate in order to feel manly or to question what political, not cultural, manliness is. It's all there.

Clearly, then, you must reject all law, government, philosophy, religion, sociology, psychology, anthropology, science, humanities, magazines, media, and entertainment industries, which speak about "men" all the time. Do you take similar objection with them?

*You mentioned in your last response that I was twisting your words.  I just want you to look at this and notice how exactly I took you to mean that rape = porn.  So, if I got your meaning wrong - what were you saying there that you could have stated differently?*

I could have stated exactly what I stated, and hoped that the liberal lack of imagination could read it accurately. My bad.

*Porn is not rape.*

Except when it is. [Note the value and practice of making grand, sweeping, generalising statements that aren't backed up with evidence. The privileged liberal gets to do this time and again, without owning doing so, but let a radical, privileged or not, try and do the same, and WHAM!, we are asked for "proof". When men speak, all rules are off. When women speak, all rules--men's, btw, are on her case. When whites speak, all rules are off. When people of color speak, all rules--white's, btw, are on their case. Ditto the rich and the poor. Ditto the "First World"ers and the "Third World"ers and never you mind about anything those Fourth Worlders have to say, as they aren't supposed to be invited!! Who let them in here!?]


*Porn is sex on film.* [Again with the grand, sweeping statement of TRUTH. He doesn't say what "sex" is, though. And, really, isn't this an extraordinarily right-wing view? I mean, does this mean that ALL sex on film is PORN? So that means "The Secrets" is porn? I don't think so. And, can there be sex that cannot be depicted, let alone portrayed in pornography or otherwise mass produced and sold for patriarchal profit?]

If sex means sexxx, then yes. (You are conflating the two, you know.)

*I don't like all porn.*

And I don't like all food-like products made with hydrogenated oil.

*I don't like violent or degrading porn.*

Violence (exploitation, rape, trafficking) inheres in the pornography industry and in its product, just as violence (exploitation, poverty) inheres in capitalism, structurally and ideologically. Just as cheap "foods" make their way into our diets.

*But, I don't conflate porn and rape when discussing  porn.*

The pornographer/pimps have already done it for you. All you need to do is deny what they do. You do that well.

*I'm willing to talk about rape, even my own.  I am willing to talk about slavery.  These things are not synonymous.* [But men are not willing to talk about how we sexually abuse other people. Really, we're not. And allegedly that's because none of us men ever do that. Right. I write about sexually abusing my cousin elsewhere on this blog. I think it is important for any profeminist man to speak about how and when we do sexually abuse and visually violate others, including by looking at pornography. I don't hear much applause from the anti-feminist men or the pro-feminist men on this form of accountability, however. Funny that.]

Except when they are. You are well aware of sexual slavery and rape as atrocities. You say so yourself.
*Thousands of children go up into the woods every day and do not come home.  Children are raped and killed in every country in the world.  Children, barely able to think for themselves. [In EVERY country? How could he know that? Has he been to every country and talked with every child?]


At the top of the human social ladder is .01% of the population running empires of weapons, oil, drugs, finance and bureaucracy that exists only to make them richer.  While at the very bottom of the pile, being starved, raped, mutilated, burned and murdered - are hundreds of thousands of children whose lives are forever shattered every day. [He does not ask himself to "prove" these claims. We are to accept them as fact. I don't know about the .01% figure, but I get what he's saying and agree with him generally. Note, after this next paragraph, how I don't ask him to PROVE IT.]


I don't know how the world gets fixed, how the economy turns around, how jobs come back and how we fight terrorists.  I don't know how anything gets solved.  I do know however, that I don't know how to fix all this crap, all the lies and all the cruelty. I do believe that until the children are safe from the absolute worst of humanity, we have accomplished nothing.*

You know the pain, the humiliation, the powerlessness and the shame of surviving sexual violence at the hands of a man. So do I. You "stand with" children. I stand with children and women. Every woman I have ever known has had one or more of the following happen:

She has been treated as a child, as ignorant, less intelligent and generally inferior to men, by men.
She has been sexually assaulted.
She has been called misogynist terms.
She has been coerced, sexually, sometimes with great force, sometimes not.
She has been grossly discriminated against and mistreated systematically by men of her class and ethnic group.

Why don't you also stand with women? I suspect its because you wish, desire, or need to sexxxually objectify women, look at women as pornography, and I do not. I'm gay. Not that gay men don't sexxxually objectify women or look at women as "wh*res". We do. Not all of us. But we do.

But I grew up seeing the parallels between homophobia, sexual violence, racism, pornography and misogyny. You, apparently, did not. As Arvan can tell you, Hustler's Larry Flynt and his associate, created and published an image for the cover of the magazine, of a woman going through a meat grinder, as a "ha ha" funny commentary about feminist criticisms that pornographers turn women into pieces of meat. (Which might have been funny, except that they do.) Flynt and Co. wouldn't ever admit to being misogynists, but then that's why there are anti-abuse, anti-exploitation, anti-rape feminists, right? Because without them, everyone else seems utterly confused or in denial about "where the misogyny comes from". As if it is natural, like oxygen, not mass produced  like automobile emissions and hydrogenated oil. Those men, I'll wager to say, don't respect the Earth and Life, including the lives of women, the way ecofeminists do. Is that too broad a statement to make to a pro-individualism, pro-sexxx liberal? I don't think it needs to be proven.

*Rape is rape and porn is sex on film.*

You get to name reality, sir. It really is your privilege and entitlement to do so. Never mind what reality is, or what happens in it. You want there to be a nice delineation between child sexual abuse, the rape of women, and pornography. Poof. It is so. Except that it isn't so. And all you need to do to see that, graphically and clearly, is look at ALL the pornography that is on the web and the stuff that is illegal, called child pornography. Then get back to me about those clear delineations, okay?

And I'm very sorry you were raped. As I read your story I felt tense, angry, upset, and sad. I wish Jimmy a horrid death, to be honest. Right now that's how I feel. I hope he burns in hell, even if hell is on Earth.

I'm sorry girls and women and boys are being raped now because a liberal lack of imagination, embodied in people with structural power, refuse to acknowledge how pornography, the rape of women, and child sexual abuse go hand in hand in hand, in the emotional and material world of human suffering and atrocity.

sexgenderbody quotes me as saying:

"I think men who use pornography and who tell their female partners to "get over it" or to "not worry" are being grossly unfaithful, dishonest, and untruthful about what they are doing, including in the act of telling their partners to "back off". 

sexgenderbody goes on to say:
*While I don't agree men who say that would be dishonest or untruthful (as they are quite clearly being honest), I do feel those men would be very rude.  I did not quote men as having said those, things, I said those things.  I am ok with being rude.*

That's clear.

Again, sexgenderbody quotes me as saying:
"they can't NOT have the access, and they won't want to NOT have the access. Correct me if I'm wrong about that."

And sexgenderbody replies:
*I feel you are wrong about that.*

We certainly can agree to disagree. I do that often with people I am talking with.

*My post isn't about porn addiction.*

No, apparently not. Nor are the men who use women sexxxually "addicts". You did not understand the point I was making, so I'll make it another way.

We live in a society which provides certain things to certain groups of people. To some, it offers something resembling justice. To the oppressed, no such "luck". To the privileged, it offers something called meaningful choice-making in life. To the oppressed, not so much. But what capitalist patriarchy provides to all who seek it is a shaming and condemning white male sky god and pornography, and bleached flour products, often with corn syrup or soy products, because that's what the U.S. makes in surplus, so it's cheap to put it out there for all of us to feed off of.

Sexxx, more than intimacy, more than mutuality, more than sexual equality, is marketable, made into something we can all be told we should want, even when it holds no politically liberating nutrition. So we are sold sexxx and bleached white flour, and soy products and corn syrup, ad nauseam. If you travel across the midwest, you see corn fields and soy fields, one often in place of the other, year to year. In society you see sexxx presented as sex, for all of us to feed off of.

With regard to sexxx, let's just say I'm an anti-animal abuse vegan. With regard to society, let's say I'm an anti-sexxx industry/sexxxual exploitation/sexxxual abuse "vegan". It's not impossible for me to crave "meat" but I choose not to consume "meat".

My point isn't about what any one person decides or doesn't decide to do, primarily. My point is that the poor and disenfranchised, the oppressed, do not have as much choice about what we consume, and those of us who are oppressors cannot easily avoid soy products, bleached wheat, corn syrup, or "meat". And I take issue with men who claim "meat" is good for us, if you follow my metaphor. And I take issue with anyone who makes liberal statements like "Meat is healthy! Meat is good!" while ignoring the cows being callously dragged to their death by their hooves or their necks in order for humans to eat it. Dragged in an industrial kind of way, not by "some individuals".

*There are many men who could NOT look at porn, but I feel that is their choice to make, not their partner's.*

And that evades, rather completely, the points I am making about how society works, and how liberal lack of imagination functions within it to support it being oppressive to women. I understand that this is not the topic you wish to discuss. My question to you is: why is that?

*As far as women being called whores being deceitful, degrading, etc., i am not talking about abusive behavior.*

Why not? Do you see how privileged you have to be to NOT talk about it? There are many of us, and Arvan may be among us, who experience abuse and its aftermath. Those I know personally who have survived it cannot NOT experience abuse and its aftermath. So when we are not terrorised into silence, or too dissociated to know how we feel, we do, at times, want to talk about it. It's therapeutic and politically necessary. But we don't only and always need to tell our individual story as if it is something that happens indiscriminately, accidentally, or anecdotally. We have to talk about it as a system of abusive power, powerfully and forcefully maintained by some at the expense of others.

Plantation-owning white men in the U.S. South didn't have to talk about the pain of slavery, did they? And men didn't have to talk about the what it is like to be raped as a woman, did they? They were busy, you know, slaving and raping. Why should they take the time to consider how such acts make the people they harm feel?

But why don't those who do the harm take time to question its impact and feel what it does to those they harm? That's my question. Are we not, if we want to be humane, called to speak about the atrocities we don't experience, and the ones we do? It is easy to say "Well, I'm not talking about that." But why aren't you? Who benefits from you not talking about it? Who is validated and supported when you DO talk about it--responsibly and without being snarky?

*I personally enjoyed being called a dirty whore by my loving partner.*

As Andrea Dworkin once remarked, in a statement that was similar enough to this: The question is not why are some people into S/M. The question is, why isn't everyone? That you enjoy it doesn't mean that most people who are called that term DON'T enjoy it. And if you enjoying it requires you to be defensive and in denial around people speaking out about those of us who DON'T enjoy it, then you're participation in using it for fun, is part of the oppressive problem.

*It is, in a sense, role playing.*

More than that, it is being patriarchally/politically correct, sexually.

Patriarchy demands, in many ways, the compulsory acceptance and affirmation that sex must be fused to domination and subordination, to exploitation and dehumanisation. That you enjoy it is as surprising to me as someone telling me they feel awesome because they got something they wanted on sale.

*It is not degrading to me, quite the opposite.*

And does that fact mean you have to be snide, snarky, and shaming to those of us who DO find it degrading?
*I am turned on by the fake degredation, because that's a role neither my partner and I take on in "real life."*

Given that you say you enjoy being rude when discussing sexuality, and that you show great disdain for those who speak out about sexual degradation and pornographic rape as harmful, I'd say the jury is out on that one. I'd actually argue you DO take it on, and you enact it well. Here on your blog. The evidence of that is in this post you made, above. You show disdain and shaming to women and anyone else who fights for justice and freedom from sexxxual violence and patriarchal violations that are produced by pimps and pornographers. I'd call that "taking on a role of valuing degradation". But we can agree to disagree.

Submitted by Julian on 3 January, 2010 - 02:33.

_______________

A point to follow up on another time. The claim is often made by sex liberals and pro-sexxx advocates and defenders of those powerful pornographers against the allegedly mighty spoken sword of radical feminists, that there is no harm in smbd and in being pro-porn industry and pro-systems of prostitution. The most obvious evidence that this is not so, that there IS, in fact, harm in being liberal, is how quickly the liberals will turn on the radicals who seek human rights and justice for all. They will do so with alarmingly individualistic ahistorical, asystemic argumentation about the rights of each person, as if each person EVER had rights, or EVER had equal rights. As noted in another post, there never has been a level playing field, but liberals love to pretend that this exists, against all the evidence to the contrary. Liberals love to live in ideas about equality and lack of harm, because the world of inequality and harm busts their bubble of "it's all good in pro-sexxx liberal land". It's not all good. And it never was all good. And they hear this as me saying "It's all bad" as if I actually said it. But is it there? No. But do they hear me saying it? Yes. Ah, liberals. You can't live with 'em, you can't live without 'em. And don't get me wrong: some of my best friends have been liberals!