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From: feit@acsu.buffalo.EDU (Elissa Feit)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Pornography AGAIN (was Re: Posting re. Andrea Dworkin)
Message-ID: <46878@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 17 Nov 90 21:58:41 GMT
References: <272090CA.26470@ics.uci.edu> <1741@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <45691@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <658778710@grad17.cs.duke.edu>
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Well, I hate to rekindle this old tired chestnut (how's THAT for mixed
metaphor! 8-) but the sense I got from reading _Pornography_ [Dworkin,
1979] is that the proposed legislation is NOT about freedom of speech,
but about someone being able to collect damages when someone else's
actions (eg, their portrayal of women) hurts them.

If you want to restrict your OWN speech, now, because you don't want a
lawsuit, well then, that's fine (according to that argument).

Actually, this would put pornography into the same arena as, say,
Metzger telling skinheads to kill Jews and People of Color.

In article <658778710@grad17.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.EDU (Hillel Gazit) writes:
...
>Under the Minneapolis law a woman who feel degraded because of
>all-men gay porno will be able to sue and collect damages.

This is Dworkin's argument: MEN are the victimizers, WOMEN, the
victims.  "Pornography reveals that male pleasure is inextricably tied
to victimizing, hurting, exploiting; that sexual fun and sexual
passion in the privacy of the male imagination are inseparable from
the brutality of male history" [p. 69] In the gay men's porno she
looks at, the men who are explicitly equated with WOMEN (Garry places
Dave on his back "like a girl" [p.36]) are treated degradingly BECAUSE
THAT'S HOW ONE TREATS WOMEN. Thus, according to Dworkin, all-men gay
porno may in fact degrade women.

MY big disgreement with Dworkin is her insistance that MALE=VICTIMIZER
(akin to her earlier PENIS=AGGRESSION formula), that male pleasure is
"inextricably tied" to victimizing. I don';t believe that the cycle
can't be broken. I don't believe that men REALLY want to be as
disassociated from women as that.  I know MANY men who are trying to
be free from that shit.

In a lot of ways I agree with Dworkin about pornography. Please bear
with me as this is some new stuff I haven't quite formulated. (You can
question these premises and I'll elaborate, but for RIGHT NOW I don't
want to take up that much time filling out the details.)

Premise 1: People's fantasies tend to be tied to distresses they
suffered. If someone is abused as a child, that abuse (even if not
conciously retrievable) finds its way into "what turns them on" - it's
just a way of acting out the hurt so that it can be healed, though
it's as ineffective as marrying a drunk because your dad was a drunk.

Premise 2: Experiencing a hurt second-hand may be as distressing as
experiencing it first-hand. (There was some study of kids being less
afraid of some bully when they had been beaten up than a second group
who merely watched.)

Theorem: (?) If what turns us on is what had once distressed us, then
pornography CREATES its own market. If as we feel degraded we also
feel aroused, degradation in itself becomes arousing.

MY proposal is to fill the demand for arousing material with
"erotica", defined as different than pornography in that it DOES NOT
degrade women.  How to tell if something's degrading? It gives me a
stomache ache 8-(

Any comments welcome.

Elissa  Feit    (feit@cs.buffalo.edu // {rutgers,uunet}!cs.buffalo.edu!feit)
  Animals are your friends -- but they won't pick you up at the airport.
we're on the road and we're gunning for the buddha.
we know his name and he mustn't get away -- Shriekback