season of the bitch

One of my favorite ladies in all of bloglandia has been getting far more than her fair share of shit these days. So here’s something to cheer her up: pretty boys and talk of porn! (below jump, because there are a lot of pictures) » Read the rest of this entry «

It got a little out of hand. So I’m reposting it here, as its own post. I really, really appreciate someone actually taking the time to engage and ask questions here. And though I’ve been snarky, seriously, if there’s something you’d like to know, I’m absolutely willing to discuss it.

here’s a link to my recent “My Feminism” post.

I actually have quite a few criticisms of raunch culture. Mostly they come from a sort of Marxist angle–that our sexuality is commodified and sold back to us in a very specific light, and that’s problematic, yes. I’ve written a bit about this, and actually was just saying yesterday that it might be time to dig out Das Kapital and write the big ol’ critique of porn and sex work as WORK rather than as social signification.

Like I said, I’ve been all over the map in terms of physical attractiveness, and I do absolutely think that there’s a beauty premium and that people get treated differently because of how they look. And that is a problem.

But I see the mind-body dichotomy as a problem, too.

The female was always associated with the body in that little binary there. And the body was BAD. So a lot of the feminism that I relate to is about reclaiming the body as good. As a source of joy and pleasure for the woman herself. (If you REALLY want to get geeky, I’d be happy to send you a copy of a paper I wrote for a film theory class that explains some of that.)

My biggest problem with Twisty is that she makes bold declarations that something is unfeminist or that it’s rape culture. If you read my post on feminism and heterosexuality, well, that’s something that bothers me greatly. In all my thoughts on female desire, I’ve never been quite able to break with the fact that I am a straight girl. I like men. I fantasize about men. I do actually enjoy heterosexual sex, even giving blowjobs and being shoved around some. It’s my desire, and as the quote I posted above says, my desires don’t revolve around what I’m repudiating.

So to me, to call things that genuinely turn me on ‘rape’ is insulting. It’s denying my agency, and while Twisty likes to tell us all that we don’t have any agency because of patriarchy, well, I’ve got to live this life and so until the Revolution comes and we overthrow the patriarchy/capitalism, I’ve got to find ways to make myself happy. So do we all.

Twisty said “The idea that women’s public sexuality can so precisely mirror traditional male fantasy while simultaneously existing in a kind of pro-woman, I-do-it-for-myself alternate universe is the cornerstone of funfeminist “thought.””

Unfortunately, my sexuality DOES mirror traditional male fantasy quite often. And it’s not because I haven’t examined enough or tried other options, or opted out altogether for a couple of years. So I DO have to find a way to reconcile those two facts.

And as I mentioned in several of the posts above and over the past few months, I had an ex who rather than wanting me to participate in wild sex or wear ‘porny’ clothes, wanted me to wear conservative clothes, was freaked out by my actual sexual desire, and basically wanted me to conform to the same ideals that I see vaunted over at Twisty’s–don’t dress sexy, don’t express your sexual desires, don’t be active sexually (not to be confused with sexually active) etc. So if I’d done that, I’d be pleasing a man. And he liked to use my feminism as a way to get me to behave the way he thought–if you’re a feminist, he’d say, why do you need men to look at you?

And so yes, at this point I would say that my freedom now to wear what I damn well want is a feminist act. My freedom to fuck how I damn well want is a feminist act. And those things don’t oppress anyone, because I’m not trying to force anyone else’s desires into the same box as I live in.

It strikes me sometimes as a reversal of the Kantian categorical imperative (I’m sorry if I’m sounding like one of those overeducated middle-class wonks that were getting ragged on over there, but once again, that’s who I am and I can’t fight it). People get angry because of the way I or Ren or Caroline looks or acts or talks, because they confuse our advocacy for our right to do that with advocacy that the rest of the world behave that way. I am not trying to impose my lifestyle on anyone else, and all I ask is that they don’t do it to me.

As far as burlesque goes, well, I just transcribed an interview with Margaret Cho the other day, and she was talking about how bellydance and burlesque actually helped her get over her body issues because she would go to bellydance events and see older women, bigger women, young women, skinny women, all of them dancing and shaking it and having a great time and being beautiful. The same thing with a lot of the neo-burlesque movements–there are plenty of them that revolve around non-porny ideals of beauty, and women find a lot of acceptance there.

Yes, to some degree it’s still performing for the gaze. But I’ve argued before and will again (because I looooove feminist film theory) that the gaze is not necessarily masculine.

Again, thanks for actually engaging. If you have any other questions I’m totally up for answering them.

So since this topic Will Never Die: What does hetero feminist sex look like? Is there any sexual act that is inherently ‘unfeminist’?
Possibly NSFW below fold. » Read the rest of this entry «

With talk about offense, porn, virtual child porn, and the First Amendment! Yay!

I get to take a First Amendment law course this fall, so I’ll probably definitely have lots more on the subject.

I’m a free speech hardliner, you see. I believe that the best way to foster dialogue and to just know what those crazies are up to is to keep that shit legal and out in the open, as much as possible. Even when it’s things I absolutely hate, like racism, sexism, and anything Hillary Clinton’s said on the campaign trail in the last two months.

I defend not only free speech rights, but your right to burn the flag, unlike Hillary Clinton. Though I find them utterly repugnant, I agree with this guy that a proposed law to ban display of nooses, burning crosses, and swastikas in Philadelphia is unconstitutional, and just plain wrong.

And porn? Yes, porn, as long as it has the consent of those involved, is free speech. It falls under the same categories as art (though many people would be offended by that comparison–that’s another book’s worth of ideas in its own right). Child porn is not free speech or art because it cannot have the consent of those depicted–we define children, depending on the laws in different states, as being unable to have informed consent to sexual acts.

Jill over at Feministe has an excellent post up about the recent Supreme Court decision on child porn. The comments are pretty damn good, too. Read ‘em. Jill brought up the comparison to art as well, and asked where the line is between a sexual image and art. The discussion was on virtual child porn, or porn rendered by artists or digitally manipulated so that the actors appear to be children, and whether it should be illegal. My own comment there was that we tend to overlook the real issues at stake with child porn (as well as with rape and murder) and just lock people up and want to throw away the key. (Wendy Kaminer has more on the case.)

We want to control the speech–the symptoms–without dealing with the problem.

Take racism and sexism, for example.

(I had this discussion in a bar at 1 AM last night with perfect strangers who happened to be having a conversation about the campaign at the same time as I was.)

We cannot put a label on which one is “worse” (and we certainly should not ignore the ways in which they intersect, overlap, and feed each other). But we can probably agree that sexism can still be more overtly stated. Hecklers at a Clinton rally can yell “Iron my shirt” and nobody beats the crap out of them. If someone yelled “N****” at an Obama rally, well, his ass would be toast. (Or her ass, because certainly not all racists are men.)

Does that mean that racism is gone? Or that we’ve just forced it into the closet, only to see it erupt in Don Imus or Hillary Clinton or Geraldine Ferraro or all those people in West Virginia?

So if we force virtual child porn into the closet, are we going to get rid of the feelings that make people want it or are we just going to force them underground in trying to find it?

As was pointed out on the Feministe thread, it’s almost impossible to get statistics on child porn’s possibly causal relationship to child molestation because it’s illegal, the only people who get busted with it go to jail and nobody’s going to believe them when they say they never molested kids, right?

When it comes down to it, the speech is and should be protected. If we want to say that virtual child porn–a  cartoon video, say–is illegal, the next thing you know Lolita is illegal, or any sexual drawing that could be extrapolated to be of people below the age of consent.

The actions in the videos are what should concern people. The anti-all-porn crowd dislikes porn because it’s harmful to women, and they often argue that what’s in the video can incite people to do similar things at home–or worse, since they often cite porn as cause for murder. (See Ren.) Me, I don’t care what’s in the damn videos as long as there’s proof somewhere that the people in them–not just women, thanks, let’s make our concern for all people instead of assuming that the men are horrible patriarchal abusers and the women hapless victims–are old enough to consent and have given their full informed consent.

Children cannot give full informed consent. So making porn with them in it is illegal. (other than the fact that age-of-consent in itself is an arbitrary line, but one I would argue that in this case we do need to make, and more on that some other time when I feel like it.)

Adults can give full informed consent, we assume. They can drive a car, shoot a gun, go to war. They can damn well have sex on video for money–or for free, if they like. They can have sex that would make me cringe and possibly even want to throw up. Because it’s not up to me.

Caroline has plenty of goodness on the recent UK ban on “Extreme pornography.” Read it, because she knows way more than I do about it.

I used to joke that I should go through a boy’s porn collection before deciding to get into a relationship. This after a guy whose porn consisted of titles that should’ve warned me he was going to want to do things I didn’t want to do.

But there are plenty of women out there who do enjoy those things. Mazel tov, right? Not my problem, not with that guy anymore (for reasons unrelated to his particular kink and more related to the fact that he was a lying, cheating SOB, but that’s a story no one needs to hear).

I can’t legislate away his kink because I don’t share it. I can’t legislate away someone’s racism by banning a noose. Republicans (and Bill Clinton) can’t legislate away homosexual life partners by the Defense of Marriage act or a Marriage Amendment. And though I’m sure we all wish we could, we can’t legislate away pedophilia by banning child porn–if we could, that shit would be gone because it’s damn sure been illegal

So while sex with children remains and should remain illegal, drawing it, writing about it, or whatever should not. For one thing, the slippery slope argument holds up. For another, it could be our best chance to examine pedophilia without harming children or monsterizing the people involved.

The anti-porn argument from the feminist side often seems to go like this: porn causes rape, men watch porn, men are in porn, men are all rapists, men are BAD! I go both ways on this issue. When I’m walking alone at night, you better believe I feel like all men are potential rapists. And because I don’t believe in “monsters” or “evil” human beings, I do believe that on some level we are all potential rapists, murderers, etc. Not all men, but all people.

Racism, sexism, and violence are not black and white issues, they’re on a continuum and we have to examine that to understand why, yes, some people do rape and some do not. Some people kill and some do not. Why I feel very deeply to my core that I could never hurt another person unless we’re in a ring and both wearing gloves, and I had a problem with a boyfriend who wanted me to slap him in the face during sex. (Didn’t think he was a bad person, but couldn’t bring myself to do that.)

All people who watch adult porn don’t commit the things they see in porn, just like all people who watch violent movies and play violent video games and listen to violent music don’t commit violent crimes. Media just does not have that effect on people. So logically, perhaps, all people who watch virtual child porn will not molest children, just as all people who read Lolita do not molest children. Maybe they do. I don’t know.

I do know that the argument for free speech means nothing if we do not defend speech that we deem offensive. Particularly for someone like me, whose opinions run so deeply counter to the ingrained political power structure so much of the time, it is terribly important that unpopular opinions remain safe and protected. I’m no Emma Goldman and I don’t want to go to jail for my opinions. And I certainly don’t want to go to jail for my sex life. What I consent to is nobody’s business (even if I do make it your business sometimes by blogging about it). Don’t forget which way morality laws tend to go: the way of the white male power structure.

Feds want to make female orgasm illegal.

(Ok, that was hyperbole. But not by much.)