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From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Posting re. Andrea Dworkin
Summary: To take the hurt out of books we must decimate the library.
Message-ID: <13784@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 20 Oct 90 21:43:05 GMT
References: <272090CA.26470@ics.uci.edu>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
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Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Status: R


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In article <272090CA.26470@ics.uci.edu>, tittle@ics.uci.edu (Diana Bental) writes:
> Andrea Dworkin is not in favour of porn. Her latest novel, 
> "Mercy", includes powerful indictments of pornography, prostitution
> and SM sex. ...

Ironically, a mystery author here in Texas recently released a
novel by this same title that placed murder in the Houston S&M
scene.  It is nothing more than slick pulp, and I do not
recommend it.  I'll have to put Dworkin's book on my reading
list. 

> Andrea Dworkin's book "Pornography" makes it very clear that for
> Dworkin, the issue is that women are hurt and humilated by pornography
> and that in such a context "aesthetic merit" is irrelevant - i.e.
> when a woman is hurt it is *not important* whether her being hurt
> makes a pretty pattern of light and shade. Dworkin argues that it is
> immoral to think otherwise - i.e. it is immoral to prioritise a pretty
> pattern over human suffering. She argues further that people who claim
> that the aesthetics (prettiness) justify the suffering are making
> excuses, either because they are getting off on that suffering or else
> because they don't think that female suffering matters, both of which
> she also considers immoral. These arguments are re-iterated in
> "Mercy".

I find little merit to this kind of argument.  Fiction whose sole
purpose is erotic does not hurt people nearly as much as more
weighty material.  Can the literary, social, and political merits
of a book justify whatever psychological hurt it does some
people?  If not, we should start burning Dickens and Twain
novels.  What about lighter fiction that offends?  In my neck of
the woods, there are fundamentalist parents who don't want their
children reading Jean Auel.  Is she immoral because of the hurt
she causes them?  

Or is it only the erotic that can never justify whatever sting
its words might have to some?  Why is the erotic to be
disadvantaged vis-a-vis the literary, or even the merely
entertaining? 

Dworkin's argument seems to reduce to either a bias against
books, or a bias against the erotic.  Both of these biases rub me
the wrong way.  If people are hurt by what they read, they can
put it down, though sometimes they would do better to read it and
figure out why it hurts.  They could learn something about
themselves, or about their society. 

To some extent, I agree with Dworkin.  There is a lot of bad
erotica; bad in both the aesthetic and moral sense.  By all
means, let's condemn it, just as we would condemn any other bad
writing.  The problem with Dworkin is twofold.  First, she judges
indiscriminately.  The issue is NOT just whether someone is hurt
by what they read.  Some lesbian porno I recommended in a
previous post is guaranteed to hurt the average nineteen year-old
straight man who reads it.  This hurt might do him some good.
Second, Dworkin wants to use the state to enforce her literary
judgment.  This is always wrong. 

Russell