Speak It, Sister!

[redheadedfemme]

Debs over at The Burning Times has a great post on how "sex-positive" feminism isn't feminism at all.

Comments

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

What bothers me about that argument is that it focuses solely on heterosexual porn. What about women who make porn with women for women? What about male on male porn? Is that okay? What about woman-produced f/m porn that's made for couples to watch together? Porn is far more complicated than the post you linked to makes it out to be, which is probably why I've yet to see an feminist anti-porn argument tackle lesbian, gay, or woman-produced porn. Really, is Susie Bright not a feminist? Should my woman friends who do burlesque stop calling themselves feminists? Would it make a difference if they were part of a fat woman's burlesque troupe?

Also, the term "pro-sex feminist" came about in reaction to Dworkin and MacKinnon's extremely anti-sex attitudes. It's been a while since I've read the original sources, but I have, and they're packed away in boxes up in my attic. I know a lot of what's been attributed to them is apocryphal, but it was powerful apocrypha that led some feminists to reclaim sex for the cause. So I support "pro-sex feminist" as a useful and meaningful term.

And for the record, I consider myself a third wave feminist in a very literal sense of the term. My grandmother was a lawyer and a member of La Leche League, and my mother raised me on Ms. Magazine and Free to Be You and Me.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

oh, and you're not as feminist as you think you are if you're trotting out the bullshit about Dworkin being anti-sex and so forth. That's not feminist at all. If I just read that statement, I'd have concluded you were just some twentysomething dude with the usual MRA prejudices about feminists and women. What next? Dworkin said all sex is rape?

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

Please. There is room for disagreement in feminism, which you would know if you were more widely-read in the field. I have read the works of Dworkin and MacKinnon and have found them to be fairly sex-negative. Their definition of feminist sex is limited and, well, doesn't sound terribly fun. But again, I ask, is Susie Bright not a feminist? Is Annie Sprinkle not a feminist? What about the women in the Big Bottom Revue? Is it un-feminist of me to enjoy watching gay male porn? How am I hurting women by enjoying that? Or are men in porn fair game? I certainly don't hear the anti-porn feminists decrying the objectification of Ron Jeremy.

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Don't condescend to me, you arrogant little shit. Just because Dworkin isn't gushing about your kinks and illusions doesn't make your opinion valid. I've heard this crap before from other porn justifiers. Same old bullshit, different day.

And seeing as how this is Sproggenfree's LJ, I'm bowing out because I sure as hell don't need to waste my time with some arrogant little sex poz with a stick up her ass.

If porn is so great and so wonderful, where's the porn that glorifies other things?

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

After all, we don't have a billion-dollar industry devoted to the subjugation of black people and Jews. We don't have people justifying such an industry by claiming that there's black-on-black porn that features all those satisfying stereotypes of black people. We don't have Jewish people proclaiming that working in an industry that depicts them as money-grubbers is empowering. We don't privilege those forms of hatred. But when it's women and/or it's sex, suddenly we have to kiss ass and call it foreplay.

Re: If porn is so great and so wonderful, where's the porn that glorifies other things?

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you have a really limited view of porn. It's not all snuff films and tying women up and rubbing shit in their faces, you know. There's even porn without any women in it at all. But you wouldn't know it from your argument. You're not addressing any of the points in my post. I'd happily welcome a debate, but if you're just going to yell your point of view at me like Bill O'Reilly, then I'm not going to respond again.

Re: If porn is so great and so wonderful, where's the porn that glorifies other things?

[ginmar.livejournal.com]

Wow, you really do see shit that isn't htere, but thanks for playing anyway, Miss I-Can-Read-Minds. Don't trip over the priv, there, or anything.
Christ, I don't know I bother with this sex pox bullshit. Go ahead and jerk off to your little intellectual fantasies, but don't expect to fool anybody who's more realistic. And take your references to snuff films and shit and shove 'em.