Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!think.com!mintaka!bloom-beacon!ora!daemon
From: rberlin@birdland.Eng.Sun.COM (Rich Berlin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Pornography AGAIN
Message-ID: <RBERLIN.90Nov27193805@birdland.sun.com>
Date: 29 Nov 90 21:02:03 GMT
References: <272090CA.26470@ics.uci.edu> <1741@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> <45691@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <658778710@grad17.cs.duke.edu> <46878@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> <3121@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Sender: ambar@ora.com (Jean Marie Diaz)
Organization: Sun Microsystems
Lines: 49
Approved: ambar@ora.com

In article <3121@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> marla@Eng.Sun.COM (Marla Parker) writes:
> In article <46878@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU> feit@acsu.buffalo.EDU (Elissa Feit) writes:
>> 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

> This theory seems to address the question of why degrading acts turn
> some people on.  You don't quote any sources for your premise, so I
> assume it is just your own theory.

Looks to me like it bears some kinship to Freud, who called it "the
compulsion to repeat".  Unresolved trauma finds its way into fantasies
as well as physically observable behavior.  This is commonly offered
as an explanation of why abuse victims perpetuate the cycle of their
own victimization, or become perpetrators of similar violence upon
others.

Aside: I never cared much for Freud until I read some of Alice
  Miller's work.  For those of you who might be interested, I think
  the appropriate book is "Thou Shalt Not Be Aware;" it includes a
  very interesting discussion of how the prevailing social climate in
  the late 19th century forced Freud to IGNORE HIS OWN FINDINGS, with
  the result that his later theories are misdirected, and when
  translated into psychoanalytic practice are frequently
  counterproductive.  

  I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks s/he may have been
  abused as a child.  (And especially if your response to that
  statement is a highly intense negative reaction.)  I also recommend
  it to anyone interested in feminist goals of social change because
  of Miller's cogent argument that many ills of our society are rooted
  in our attitudes toward and treatment of our children.  (Finding
  examples is left as an exercise for the reader :-)

> I am equally unqualified to answer
> this question, but I have thought about it and I do have my own theory.

> I think that people like attention no matter what weird, twisted form
> that attention may take.

This one seems more in line with the behaviorists.  Not that I'm fond
of their conclusions (bleah!) but there's a body of research that I
think supports your assertion: if you crave attention, even the most
negative kind of attention is a powerful form of reinforcement.  This
explains why punishing undesirable behavior often leads to an increase
rather than a decrease of that behavior.  (Don't you wish more parents
and schoolteachers acted as though they understood that?)

-- Rich