Is Porn Bad for You?

[compared2what?]

I don't think Dworkin was insane either; what's more, I think she was right about many things, just as she was also terribly wrong about many things, too.

then i might find out as i go along. as of now i haven't seen it yet, but as i said, for me, it's early days. don't think i can be held accountable for what she was wrong about though.

*

No. Of course not. It would be on-topic of you to state in what way you feel her work as an anti-porn activist illuminates the question raised by the thread title. Though.

I think it serves as an excellent example of the counter-productive nature of opposition to pornography as a means of bringing about sexual equality and freedom

What do you feel it teaches us?

[compared2what?]

REQUESTs FOR CLARIFICATION, IN ACCORDANCE WITH BLANC'S STATED PREFERENCE FOR SAME.

I'm a bit reluctant to chip in again as what I have said has been misinterpreted

Where? When? By whom? Could you provide some examples?

Because I wouldn't want anyone to misinterpret you. But it's not clear to me whether anyone has.

and so probably I'm not being the best advocate for the pov of the women used in porn. The thread has been most useful in demonstrating the methods of self delusion and self justification which in other situations (discussing mainstream news presentation of almost any conflict for instance) would be hauled out for dissection. Your eyes don't deceive you PW how could they? How could it be that actions usually by choice carried out in private were willingly and freely filmed for universal free viewing? Not making this point well I know, but if your daughter wouldn't do this, how many other daughters do you really think would? So how does this material come to be there in floods? 3 possible explanations - coercion, payment, choice. Which is most likely? Which fits? I put them in the order that I find most credible, and have to say the last two get a very low ranking in my book.
I don't mean this to be read as judgemental or as wanting repression. But for me it is inescapable that the hugely increased pornography availability has not lead to a reduction in sexual crime ( anecdotes reported by psychiatrists about interviews conducted with the kind of criminals who live by self delusion and trying to impose those delusions on others are not particularly convincing as evidence btw), nor has it resulted in a huge increase in for example marital fidelity, individuals personal experience and their feelings about it aside. I don't happen to think that we need more legislation or different legislation, at least I can't think of anything which would be particularly helpful. I think we need existing legislation to be enforced, and some kind of awareness to develop in response to the hard sell that porn is all good we get from the media. I'm tempted to say Barracuda, facetiously, that it seems that after all , apparently, people can be turned blind, and deaf as well.

I'm glad you're back. It doesn't read as judgmental. And if it did, that would be fine, as long as the judgments didn't casually toss whole classes of people many of whom are very vulnerable individuals -- eg, addicts, men who consume porn -- whose sufferings and sensitivities you cannot know into an undifferentiated less-than-human trash heap.

I'm not blind. Nor am I deaf. Nor am I dumb. And nor am I entitled to suggest that other people are simply because they don't see and hear what I do. Nobody can see all human truths remotely.

I mean, I could say that I was a survivor of addiction, since I am. And I could also say that I know at a glance that someone I see in a pornographic photograph is an addict, since I'm certain that I do. I've known a lot of addicts who didn't survive their addictions, some of whom were kids of both genders who prostituted, were raped, beated, burned, you name it. Drug addiction (and drug trafficking) are both highly germane to this topic, objectively speaking. People are enslaved and tortured in the service of both.

Am I entitled to suggest that you or anyone else here is blind and deaf to the suffering of those people, or complicit in the crimes committed against them? Not by my standards. Would it be in-bounds for me to take the position that you had no excuse for not acknowledging them as central? Or, ftm, me, in my capacity as a regular, old non-experiencer of RA who has nevertheless known pain and a bunch of other feelings too on a lifelong basis, validly? Again, not by my standards.

I really, really like you. And I learn from you. And I appreciate you. I don't see what you do. But I do not say your eyes deceive you. I say, as you do, that mine do not deceive me.

That seems to me to be fair. Am I wrong?

___________________

That question again, restated for extra clarity:


Hi blanc!

Posters (such as myself) who disagree with you are not suggesting that you're blind and deaf to human suffering. On what grounds are you suggesting that posters (such as myself) with whom you disagree are blind and deaf to human suffering?

And if that's not what you're suggesting, what exactly are you trying to say when you continually recur to that theme? As for example, with this analogy?

I guess its the difference in viewpoint between those who would want to learn what meat does for you by asking the guy munching on a burger and those hearing the poor cow screaming in the slaughterhouse.

Please clarify.

Thanks.

[compared2what?]

ANOTHER REQUEST FOR CLARIFICATION FOR BLANC, WITH CLIFF'S NOTES; BLANC, FEEL FREE TO SKIP TO THE PARTS YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY READ.

blanc --

I'm very concerned by your insistence that the use of pornography is a gateway drug that commonly leads to a dangerous escalation of sexual behavior and appetite, when there's absolutely no reason whatsoever either in the Daily Mail article or anywhere else to think that it does.

My objections to what you wrote do not in fact arise from any kind of personal distress or annoyance on my own behalf. So please forgive me if I've given you the impression that they did. In truth, they primarily arise out of reasonable concern that by moving from speculation to certainty to apocalyptic nightmare as rapidly and with as little justification as you do here...

I'm more concerned about the effect that this has on victims who end up serving these dopamine hungry pervs than their eventual impotence. For me, those who buy into sites selling images of the rape and/ or torture of minors are guilty of aiding and abetting those rapes, and sentencing should be commensurate with that, not the typical 3 years which has been dished out in the past.Those who host those sites are equally guilty I think. If we were talking about images of another kind of crime, lets imagine for a moment that film of blowing up buildings full of innocent people became a money spinner, a dopamine spiker, a source of vicarious pleasure for the disconnected sociopaths with minimal capacity for empathy, netting the crime industry and its bankers a goodly pile through contributions from viewers, would we have been as blasé as we are about the flood of images of child pornography?

....you're basically just raising specters that have a very high potential to cause unnecessary alarm to those whose sense of personal safety is heavily contingent on the prospect of living their lives free and unmolested by sexual predators. And doing it in a way that couldn't possibly be helpful to them, due to the complete and total non-existence of pornography-induced dopamine-starved sexual predators.

I mean, possibly I misunderstood the nature of the threat you're suggesting that they pose. And if so, I apologize. But your recent recurrence to the likelihood that porn use commonly escalates to something worse inclines me to think that I didn't. In which case, please allow me to absolutely assure you, again and again, that there is not only no reason to think that's likely, but also none to think it's even possible. None. Seriously. It's never been known or observed to happen one single time. The world is chock full of omen, danger and threat, for sure. But that's just not one of them.

And....I don't know, blanc. But I'm not even sure I can think of any cultural myth the propagation if which would be more likely to cause extreme and undue alarm to sex-crime victims than the totally unsupported notion that at every moment online pornography was producing an ever-increasing number of a whole new breed of extra-insatiable and super-sociopathic sex criminals with a biologically determined need for infinitely nastier forms of sexual sacrifice. That's a pretty scary scenario even for the non-sexually-traumatized. So whom does it help to invoke it?


No offense or other harm intended. The reverse, in fact.

So. Please let me know which parts of my posts crossed the line separating fair dispute from merciless dissection. And I'll apologize for them.

____________________



These question are by far the ones that are the most important to me, because their also the ones that are the most important to the welfare or victims and survivors. And they are:

Whom do you help by maintaining that porn consumption escalates to sex predation, when nothing suggests it does and everything suggests that it doesn't?

How does elaborately describing a non-existent threat to the security and safety of survivors and victims in very frightening terms help them rather than provoke a trauma-response in them?

_____________________

Likewise:

Naively, when I first began to become aware of what has been happening for so long now, I thought the information I had would easily be sufficient to locate the films made with the suffering of the child victims I was particularly concerned about. 3 separate law enforcement officers, all quite senior, one Norwegian, one British, one American, and all concerned on a regular basis with these crimes, put me straight about this. The precise details of the room, the wardrobe with the contrast beading, the bookshelves, the position of the beds, windows, doors, the colour of the carpet and the rug covering the blood stain, not a lot of help. I thought I must have hit paydirt with a photo of an original, one off garment used in one of the scenarios, I was even more sure I had when one of the victims got some tailor made soft porn spam about it sent to her private email after the (corrupt) police force dealing with this was informed about its existence, but even that was no help because although they showed it at an international conference of law enforcement officers to see if anyone had come across it, the answer was basically the same - with thousands of new images hitting the net continuously, no-one could recall this one. Remember Wonderland? Just one of the many much publicised busts of exchangers of paedophile pornography - which actually did not manage to root out more than a handful of perpetrators. I saw some of the faces of the children, just a few hundred of them. Is that enough? There are no reliable stats, no reliable research into the connection between pornography and the criminal assaults and murder which sustain it because, for one thing, there's just too much of it, and too few people who care enough to do anything about it.

Whom does it help to evoke the blood stains left behind by child victims whom you describe yourself as utterly powerless to find, help or assist via a pornography-focused approach?

How could that do anything other than remind survivors and victims who are now free and recovering of the horrors they lived through as small children far beyond the reach of any loving, caring adult?

_______________

And finally:

How many acts available on internet porn sites are criminal? Do you know, does anybody know? Can anyone reliably determine, by looking alone, all of which are criminal and all of which are not?

No, I don't see how anyone could. Not you. Not I. Not anybody. That being the case, in light of your disavowal of interest in further legislative restrictions on porn (on the one hand) and your own experience of the futility of trying to locate or help or identify victims of rapes that have already occurred by working backwards from pornographic pictures of it, could you clarify something for me?

What purpose does it serve to insist that people who care about the suffering of those who were or are forced to work in pornography must focus their attention exclusively on the nightmarish possibility that any and all pornography might depict real acts of sexual predation about which absolutely nothing can be done?

Because I'm not at all clear about where you hope to get with that. Consciousness-raising in itself is just one part of advocacy/activism. And nobody here is in denial about criminal sexual abuse in the porn industry anyway. So there's automatically a pretty thin line between consciousness-raising and propaganda in this context.

Further, there's a pretty thin line between constantly urging people to think of women and children being raped when they think about or look at pornography and urging them to look at or think about pornography in which women and children are being raped.

So.

The horrible realities to which you point having been roundly acknowledged by all, what does it avail you to stop the discussion from moving toward the question of how best to oppose them by returning again and again to the argument that they be acknowledged anew?

Sorry to be so dull. But please clarify. I don't ask any of the above in anger or with hostility. I sincerely am troubled by those concerns and worried for you, among other things.

Thanks.

[compared2what?]

I'm done here and elsewhere on the board, pending replies that require my attention. Except, maybe, a post or two in the lounge.

Cheers, everyone.

[Project Willow]

Apparently the ubiquity of porn is leading to a kind of western voluntary genital mutilation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2011/dec/08/muff-march-designer-vagina-surgery?fb=optOut

The Muff March against 'designer vagina' surgery

"Keep your mitts off our muffs!" "I love my vagina!" "You've put my chuff in a huff!" These are some of the slogans of the Muff March taking place along London's Harley Street Saturday morning. Its aim? To raise awareness of the increase in gynaecological cosmetic surgery – both on the NHS and in private clinics. The march, which has more than 300 supporters on Facebook, is organised by campaigning group UK Feminista and performance artists The Muffia, who dress up in nude bodysuits decorated with lavish pubic hair.

At its most modest, the Muff March is against the pornography-influenced obsession with removing pubic hair. But it's also about protesting against the sort of surgery that makes you cross your legs. Typical procedures on offer include labiaplasty (trimming or removing the labia) and vaginal rejuvenation (tightening – usually referred to by "designer vagina").

In the US this industry is worth $6.8m (£4.4m). In the UK the latest figures come from a 2009 report in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It revealed that in 2008 the number of operations increased by 70% compared with the previous year: 1,118 labiaplasty operations on the NHS. (There were 669 in 2007 and 404 in 2006.) And that's just the NHS. The Harley Medical Group reported over 5,000 inquiries about cosmetic gynaecology last year, 65% for labial reduction.

...

I recently heard of a woman GP very concerned by the number of girls in their mid-teens coming to her worried about what their genitals looked like: she thought it was becoming an issue largely because of the fashion for shaving off pubic hair, which made them more self-conscious. Of course, there are rare cases where there is an underlying medical reason for this surgery, but they are just that, extremely rare. A doctor who has treated women seeking labiaplasty told me: "When you examine them, they are completely normal."

Some experts suggest this is a new form of body dysmorphic disorder. Others see it as a depressing but logical extension of the pornification of our culture. As it becomes more acceptable for young people to watch porn (where a "standardised" genital appearance is encouraged and many of the women have no pubic hair), so young women having their first sexual experiences are being measuring – and measuring themselves – against this weird porn "norm". As one woman who has sought surgery says: "I browsed through one of my brother's Playboys to see what the girls looked like. Some seemed to have very small or almost no labia." In a world where not even your labia can ever be pretty enough, it's time to fight back. Forward march, muffs!

http://ukfeminista.org.uk/events/event/muff-march/

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
The number of women getting ‘designer vagina’ surgery is on the rise:

* Between 2007- 2008 there was a 70% increase in the number of labiaplasty operations carried out by the NHS
* In 2010 the Harley Medical Group received more than 5,000 inquiries about cosmetic gynaecology, 65% of them for labial reduction, the rest for tightening and reshaping

The increase in vaginal cosmetic surgery is being driven in large part by the ‘pornfication’ of culture and the beauty ideals peddled by the porn industry.

WHAT’S THE MUFF MARCH?
On Saturday 10th December we’ll be donning a muff and marching down Harley Street – famed for its cosmetic surgeries. Marchers will be speaking out against surgeons profiting from body hatred and raising awareness about the growing pressures on women to seek labiaplasty. We’ll also be drawing attention to the fact that demand for cosmetic surgery increases over the Christmas period.

And we’ll be staging a synchronised muff dance….

WHY ‘MUFFS’? We’ve taken inspiration from the Muffia – a fantastic feminist performance artist group. Proudly wearing ‘muffs’ is also a challenge to the porn norm of women having to remove their pubic hair.

[compared2what?]

^^I remember the first time I read about those surgeries (in Allure, maybe '97-ish), I was so horrified I stopped buying and reading beauty mags then and there.

Thinking to myself: "Okay. All women at the gym of all ages have been brazilan-waxed up like strippers for a couple of years now, it's the new normal, I'm used to it, it's fine. However. While I certainly like to think that I hate myself as much as the next woman, there is NO WAY I am going to pay some doctor $10,000 to cut my pussy up with a knife. I mean, no. NO. THAT'S ALL. JUST NO. THIS HAS GONE TOO FAR."

I agree that it's pretty scary. IOW.

[Project Willow]

I've always been rather like a man in this regard, envying the more endowed ladies. Now wondering if I could get labia augmentation.

Baaaaaaaaaah! NO. Yes, it's beyond shocking. Joining the muffia sounds like fun however.

[Nordic]

Where the fuck do all these women and girls get the money for this nonsense?

I don't think insurance will pay for this crap.

Some people just have too much fucking money.

[vanlose kid]

Apparently the ubiquity of porn is leading to a kind of western voluntary genital mutilation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2011/dec/08/muff-march-designer-vagina-surgery?fb=optOut

The Muff March against 'designer vagina' surgery

"Keep your mitts off our muffs!" "I love my vagina!" "You've put my chuff in a huff!" These are some of the slogans of the Muff March taking place along London's Harley Street Saturday morning. Its aim? To raise awareness of the increase in gynaecological cosmetic surgery – both on the NHS and in private clinics. The march, which has more than 300 supporters on Facebook, is organised by campaigning group UK Feminista and performance artists The Muffia, who dress up in nude bodysuits decorated with lavish pubic hair.

At its most modest, the Muff March is against the pornography-influenced obsession with removing pubic hair. But it's also about protesting against the sort of surgery that makes you cross your legs. Typical procedures on offer include labiaplasty (trimming or removing the labia) and vaginal rejuvenation (tightening – usually referred to by "designer vagina").

In the US this industry is worth $6.8m (£4.4m). In the UK the latest figures come from a 2009 report in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. It revealed that in 2008 the number of operations increased by 70% compared with the previous year: 1,118 labiaplasty operations on the NHS. (There were 669 in 2007 and 404 in 2006.) And that's just the NHS. The Harley Medical Group reported over 5,000 inquiries about cosmetic gynaecology last year, 65% for labial reduction.

...

I recently heard of a woman GP very concerned by the number of girls in their mid-teens coming to her worried about what their genitals looked like: she thought it was becoming an issue largely because of the fashion for shaving off pubic hair, which made them more self-conscious. Of course, there are rare cases where there is an underlying medical reason for this surgery, but they are just that, extremely rare. A doctor who has treated women seeking labiaplasty told me: "When you examine them, they are completely normal."

Some experts suggest this is a new form of body dysmorphic disorder. Others see it as a depressing but logical extension of the pornification of our culture. As it becomes more acceptable for young people to watch porn (where a "standardised" genital appearance is encouraged and many of the women have no pubic hair), so young women having their first sexual experiences are being measuring – and measuring themselves – against this weird porn "norm". As one woman who has sought surgery says: "I browsed through one of my brother's Playboys to see what the girls looked like. Some seemed to have very small or almost no labia." In a world where not even your labia can ever be pretty enough, it's time to fight back. Forward march, muffs!

http://ukfeminista.org.uk/events/event/muff-march/

WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
The number of women getting ‘designer vagina’ surgery is on the rise:

* Between 2007- 2008 there was a 70% increase in the number of labiaplasty operations carried out by the NHS
* In 2010 the Harley Medical Group received more than 5,000 inquiries about cosmetic gynaecology, 65% of them for labial reduction, the rest for tightening and reshaping

The increase in vaginal cosmetic surgery is being driven in large part by the ‘pornfication’ of culture and the beauty ideals peddled by the porn industry.

WHAT’S THE MUFF MARCH?
On Saturday 10th December we’ll be donning a muff and marching down Harley Street – famed for its cosmetic surgeries. Marchers will be speaking out against surgeons profiting from body hatred and raising awareness about the growing pressures on women to seek labiaplasty. We’ll also be drawing attention to the fact that demand for cosmetic surgery increases over the Christmas period.

And we’ll be staging a synchronised muff dance….

WHY ‘MUFFS’? We’ve taken inspiration from the Muffia – a fantastic feminist performance artist group. Proudly wearing ‘muffs’ is also a challenge to the porn norm of women having to remove their pubic hair.

"is porn bad for you?"

*

[vanlose kid]

and as far as i can tell, there are some things she has said that even those who are certain she is insane approve of. seems to me at least that there might be some common ground there. if that means anything.

There are definitely some things she said about pornography that I do agree with. And have agreed with. On this thread.

Yet Andrea Dworkin and I do not meaningfully share any common ground. ...

ok, thanks for telling me.

... I do not agree that the aims she was pursuing when she said the things I agree with were justified by them. Or by anything else. Her agenda was dangerous. The parts of it that she succeeded in realizing did real harm. ....

i have (had), as you must have understood unless you're incredibly dense or merely pretending to be for the sake of... what i don't really know, no opinion on or knowledge of the aims she was pursuing or the effects her pursuance of those aims or agenda might have had before i posted those two, as in 1 + 1, pieces, one of which was an interview, and the other of which was an introduction to a book written by her, which i haven't read in its entirety, nor do i plan to, as of the moment.

as for what i did post, it seems to me — and here you probably disagree on principle, as it was written by an insane fascist scumbag traitor lesbian pseudo-feminist — that she pretty much accurately describes a certain expression of the capitalist spirit which is fairly accurate, which some people, you included, i think, find problematic. that's as far as that goes.

yet

...there isn't really anything she said that many other, less seriously flawed thinkers haven't also said. As one might expect, since a lot of what she said was pretty boilerplate feminist rhetoric. When you get right down to it.

....

ok.

...

Anyway. I don't see why this whole partial-agreement-without-real-common-ground thing should be such an outlandish or difficult-to-process concept, really.

...

who said it was?

...

I mean, there are definitely some things the Women's Christian Temperance Movement lobbied for that I agree were worth lobbying for. Women's suffrage, for example. But since their lobbying for women's suffrage wasn't due to their commitment to political independence for women, but rather to the prohibition campaign's need for female voters, I and the women's temperance movement don't really have any meaningful common ground.

And they too sincerely sought to protect women from socially sanctioned iniquity and injury.

So it's really a pretty good fit, as analogies go.

well, time and context and background and all other kinds of complexities taken into account, no, not really, as an analogy. but since we're playing fast and loose with all kinds of concepts and events and what not, sure. whatever.

don't think it's accurate to boil down the campaign for woman's suffrage solely to "the prohibition campaign's need for female voters", but hey, i just posted the writings of an insane fascist scumbag traitor lesbian pseudo-feminist so what do i know.

incredible, when you follow that line of thinking, what you could hold e.g. Marx and Nietzsche responsible for. that sh*t is fun. parlor games for the surplus intellect suffering from ennui.

*

[vanlose kid]

I don't think Dworkin was insane either; what's more, I think she was right about many things, just as she was also terribly wrong about many things, too.

then i might find out as i go along. as of now i haven't seen it yet, but as i said, for me, it's early days. don't think i can be held accountable for what she was wrong about though.

*

No. Of course not. It would be on-topic of you to state in what way you feel her work as an anti-porn activist illuminates the question raised by the thread title. Though.

I think it serves as an excellent example of the counter-productive nature of opposition to pornography as a means of bringing about sexual equality and freedom

What do you feel it teaches us?

what do i feel what teaches us? her activism in its entirety, or what i posted? if it's what i posted, then, i don't feel, but think that it, again, for the peanut gallery, is a pretty accurate account of views and practices in and around the porn industry.

that the porn industry, certain parts of it, its expression and workings, are way way way wrong. that she tried to bring that out and as far as that goes (in those two posts of her's i made) was, in my eyes, emphasis on my, spot on.

is that allowed, your all-knowingness? are you done here?

*

[compared2what?]

and as far as i can tell, there are some things she has said that even those who are certain she is insane approve of. seems to me at least that there might be some common ground there. if that means anything.

There are definitely some things she said about pornography that I do agree with. And have agreed with. On this thread.

Yet Andrea Dworkin and I do not meaningfully share any common ground. ...

ok, thanks for telling me.

You're welcome! And I apologize to you. I'm very sorry to have snapped at you, as I likely would not have done if the thread hadn't gotten lost after your post the first time. It's irrational, I know, but it felt like....I don't know what I felt like. But never mind that. I've always felt bad for Andrea Dworkin rather than hostile toward her. (Catherine McKinnon, whom I both respect and resent much more? A whole other story.) Anyway. I certainly don't feel hostile toward you. I very much regret having gotten on your bad side, and hope you forgive me for my ill-tempered attitude.

... I do not agree that the aims she was pursuing when she said the things I agree with were justified by them. Or by anything else. Her agenda was dangerous. The parts of it that she succeeded in realizing did real harm. ....

i have (had), as you must have understood unless you're incredibly dense or merely pretending to be for the sake of... what i don't really know, no opinion on or knowledge of the aims she was pursuing or the effects her pursuance of those aims or agenda might have had before i posted those two, as in 1 + 1, pieces, one of which was an interview, and the other of which was an introduction to a book written by her, which i haven't read in its entirety, nor do i plan to, as of the moment.

Yes. I did understand that. I was explaining why it was that my isolated points of agreement with her did not constitute common ground to me.

You are free to think whatever you like about her, based on however much consideration you feel like giving the subject. So that was not an accusation or a rebuke. I was just speaking for myself. As you have been, and as I hope you continue to do.

as for what i did post, it seems to me — and here you probably disagree on principle, as it was written by an insane fascist scumbag traitor lesbian pseudo-feminist — that she pretty much accurately describes a certain expression of the capitalist spirit which is fairly accurate, which some people, you included, i think, find problematic. that's as far as that goes.

I don't think she was an insane fascist scumbag traitor lesbian pseudo-feminist. I think her work as an anti-pornography activist was counterproductive at best and harmful at worst. But....I don't know. I feel bad for her when I read it. She was a very gifted woman in many regards. I would have liked to see her doing good work and being appreciated, not feeling compelled to go around comparing herself to Frederick Douglass, and claiming that her critics (who were just, you know, other feminists who honestly had criticisms of her work, not haters or anything of that nature) were organizing against her. And so forth.

Those things aren't insane, by my standards, by any means. But neither are they exactly indicative of happiness or satisfaction with one's lot in life. Plus, the work was bad. (IMO.)

It's a shame. May she rest in peace.

yet

...there isn't really anything she said that many other, less seriously flawed thinkers haven't also said. As one might expect, since a lot of what she said was pretty boilerplate feminist rhetoric. When you get right down to it.

....

ok.

OK!

...

Anyway. I don't see why this whole partial-agreement-without-real-common-ground thing should be such an outlandish or difficult-to-process concept, really.

...

who said it was?

Nobody. However, there was a run of posts there for a little while during which, when other posters were stating what their very serious problems with her work were, you were responding by seeking agreement on other, unrelated and less fraught aspects of it rather than addressing the issues that had been raised.
_________
^^THAT IS NOT A CRITICISM. IT'S JUST AN OBSERVATION THAT'S NECESSARY TO THE EXPLANATION PRESENTLY UNDERWAY, WHICH I WILL NOW RESUME. RIGHT AFTER THE LINE BREAK.
_________

So I was responding to that, I guess.

...

I mean, there are definitely some things the Women's Christian Temperance Movement lobbied for that I agree were worth lobbying for. Women's suffrage, for example. But since their lobbying for women's suffrage wasn't due to their commitment to political independence for women, but rather to the prohibition campaign's need for female voters, I and the women's temperance movement don't really have any meaningful common ground.

And they too sincerely sought to protect women from socially sanctioned iniquity and injury.

So it's really a pretty good fit, as analogies go.

well, time and context and background and all other kinds of complexities taken into account, no, not really, as an analogy. but since we're playing fast and loose with all kinds of concepts and events and what not, sure. whatever.

don't think it's accurate to boil down the campaign for woman's suffrage solely to "the prohibition campaign's need for female voters", but hey, i just posted the writings of an insane fascist scumbag traitor lesbian pseudo-feminist so what do i know.

Nobody has called her an insane fascist scumbag traitor lesbian pseudo-feminist. Several posters, including me, have criticized her work, providing citations and explaining what their objections to it were. It's not like the thread suddenly turned into an ad-feminam rampage.

And, no, it sure wouldn't be accurate to boil down the campaign for women's suffrage solely to "the prohibition campaign's need for female voters." I agree. However, it would be accurate to say that the Women's Christian Temperance Movement lobbied for women's suffrage because they felt that it got them closer to getting the Volstead Act passed. Simplistic. But accurate. And also: What I actually said.

I'm aware that the time, context and background were not identical. Nevertheless. I stand by the value of the analogy, because I think it's a good one. I also think that the interwar period and the present are analogous in a lot of ways that I personally find it fruitful and informative to contemplate, even though we are not presently between wars and stuff like time, context and background aren't identical. If you don't care for that sort of thing, feel free to ignore it.

incredible, when you follow that line of thinking, what you could hold e.g. Marx and Nietzsche responsible for. that sh*t is fun. parlor games for the surplus intellect suffering from ennui.

*

I'm afraid that I don't understand you. My point was only that both the Women's Christian Temperance movement and Andrea Dworkin concerned themselves with the welfare of women who were subject to social iniquities and injuries in connection with something the respective cultures of their times regarded as a vice; that both were sincerely seeking to protect women who were in real need of protection; that both took a prohibitive approach; and that -- IMO, IMO -- it didn't work either time.

I thought that was at least clear enough for it also to be clear that I wasn't just selecting a Past Moment in Female Activism from the dust heap of history, more or less at random, simply in order to be able to besmirch Andrea Dworkin with its failures. I mean, I had already critiqued her on her own terms.

But I guess that it wasn't quite as clear as I thought. Oh, well. Be that as it may: If you don't find such analogies useful, don't use that one. It wasn't meant to be a weapon or slur against you at all. It was just that, however wrongheaded it may have been of me, I saw something in it.

I apologize again for my rudeness.

[compared2what?]

I don't think Dworkin was insane either; what's more, I think she was right about many things, just as she was also terribly wrong about many things, too.

then i might find out as i go along. as of now i haven't seen it yet, but as i said, for me, it's early days. don't think i can be held accountable for what she was wrong about though.

*

No. Of course not. It would be on-topic of you to state in what way you feel her work as an anti-porn activist illuminates the question raised by the thread title. Though.

I think it serves as an excellent example of the counter-productive nature of opposition to pornography as a means of bringing about sexual equality and freedom

What do you feel it teaches us?

what do i feel what teaches us? her activism in its entirety, or what i posted? if it's what i posted, then, i don't feel, but think that it, again, for the peanut gallery, is a pretty accurate account of views and practices in and around the porn industry.

I was soliciting your opinion. It was an honest and friendly question.

that the porn industry, certain parts of it, its expression and workings, are way way way wrong. that she tried to bring that out and as far as that goes (in those two posts of her's i made) was, in my eyes, emphasis on my, spot on.

is that allowed,

Of course it's allowed. Thanks for responding.

your all-knowingness? are you done here?

*

Wow.

Listen. I'm sorry that you're as put out as you are that I've been familiar with Andrea Dworkin's work on pornography for as long as I have. But I have been. I didn't get that way to spite you. And anyway, it really can't be helped at this point.

I sincerely apologize for being rude to you. And I guess that if you feel that it justified responding to my last two well-intentioned, non-hostile and even friendly posts the way you just did, that's your call to make. I am a little startled by it, though. All I said was that you were wrong to think that I didn't know what she meant by the term "pornography" and why I was confident about that, plus some snark. The snark was uncalled for. And I'm sorry for it. But it's not like that never happens around here....

I don't know. Please PM me if you've got a beef that hasn't been addressed, I guess. I mean, if you want to. Because I think I must be missing something, and I have no idea what. I'd like to apologize for it if I can, though.

[compared2what?]

Sorry, last thought:

as for what i did post, it seems to me — and here you probably disagree on principle, as it was written by an insane fascist scumbag traitor lesbian pseudo-feminist — that she pretty much accurately describes a certain expression of the capitalist spirit which is fairly accurate, which some people, you included, i think, find problematic. that's as far as that goes.

No. I have the problems with her work that I said I had in the posts that were and are freely available for you to read and respond to if you wish to do so. I also have problems with her work on civil libertarian grounds. That doesn't make me an insane fascist scumbag capitalist traitor deviant pseudo-feminist who hates Marx and Nietzche.

WTF was that based on?

[norton ash]

Truthfully, I think VK and Wintler were reacting to the little screed that I placed after C2W's comments on Dworkin were lost.

It's admittedly more visceral and reductive and subjective than scholarly, so I think I'm the one being accused of writing Dworkin off as an 'insane fascist scumbag traitor lesbian pseudo-feminist' because it might sound like I'm simply name-calling, which was Wintler's impression.

It's a shame that C2W's comments on Andrea Dworkin apparently got scrubbed in the tech-glitch yesterday.

Dworkin was an extremist whose ideas were taken up by moralist authoritarians who proceeded to censor and destroy material and silence voices from the gay and lesbian community, with Dworkin's approval and cooperation.

As far as her adding to a reasoned, adult debate on 'pornography' she should be remembered as an intellectual failure and reactionary whose ego and narrow-mindedness did much more harm than good. She became a friend to the fascists.

I remember well the toxic effect she had on campuses in the 80's. It really did get as low as 'All men are rapists (or all sex involving a penis is rape) vs. All feminists just hate men.'

So even if she moved the wheel forward and intensified the debate, she became an agent of hatred and mistrust, a book-burner, and ultimately a pawn of the Reaganites.

My whole ham-handed talk-radio point being that theorists like Dworkin did real harm and could only serve as an energy sink if re-introduced to a debate 20-30 years after her malignant influence was at its peak.

Because I still resent what she did. I was on the porn-harms-women side in the early 80's because I thought the industry was an affront to human goodness, dignity, respect and gentleness. They were destroyers of youth and innocence, pimps, slavers, and providers of addictive drugs.

And then the haters and book-burners showed up, and the boys and girls got polarized and started talking total shit, and 'feminists' joined forces with the Christian Right, and the world got more complex.

It's 2011, Andrea Dworkin's dead, and it looks to me like the exhibitionists are beginning to seize the means of porn production. And if the 'industry' goes broke, that's fine with me.

Peace.