Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!jarthur!ucivax!gateway From: uunet!infmx!robert@ncar.ucar.EDU (robert coleman) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: does healthy, mutual erotica exist? Message-ID: <1991Mar20.050507.24027@informix.com> Date: 20 Mar 91 18:28:57 GMT References: <2995@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu> Organization: Informix Software, Inc. Lines: 80 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu In article <2995@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu> ford@titan.tsd.arlut.utexas.edu () writes: > >My partner and I are having an ongoing debate on the harmfulness or >harmlesness of "light" pornography, specifically "Playboy." My >normally open-minded and understanding partner insists that it is >completely innocuous, and he sees nothing wrong with looking at >these women because they're beautiful, and there is nothing wrong >with the human body. My argument is that these magazines portray >women as the playthings of men, and the idea that women in general >are primarily around for the pleasure of men. Do you see evidence in your partner that he considers women to be "playthings of men", and "primarily around for the pleasure of men"? (I would be surprised, given the content of this posting, if you did, as you would clearly have some very fundamental problems with your relationship with him. I would be hard-pressed imagining someone with your viewpoints hanging around someone who felt that she was his plaything. I'm going to assume, therefore, that your answer is "no".) If not, then: a) Either the material does not contain the message that you think it does, or: b) The message does not have the impact that Dworkin et. al. claims that it has. Personally, I suspect case b). It's not surprising that a fantasy magazine for men would portray it's women as being sexually available, and, indeed, primarily interested in sex. After all, it is a *fantasy* magazine, intended to supply men with something that they otherwise cannot have. Sex, in real life, ordinarily involves establishing a relationship first, which involves time, energy, commitment (usually monogomous) along with compromises that amount to losses of personal freedom ( and, says the cynic in me, copious amounts of moolah ). All this is worth it, but wouldn't it be nice, the man fantasizes, if just for a little while it didn't involve so damn much *work*? So the man involves himself temporarily in a world where sex is easily available. Where Dworkin, et. al. go wrong is in the assumption that this attitude is carried into the real world. The fact is, the real world very quickly slaps men back into reality; it doesn't take geniuses to discover that the dating system generally bears no relation to any fantasy world represented in any magazine, or that real life women do not generally maintain the sexually free attitude projected by the models in the magazines. In fact, this is the single most insulting thing about the anti-pornography movements; they assume, (without any real evidence, mind you) that men are completely incapable of separating fantasy from reality, even when bluntly faced with the reality most of the time. If this were true, there would be no hope; men fantasize with or without the aid of pornography, and I suspect that they always have. Two dimensional pictures of models paid to pose do not make that fantasy world any realer than the one constructed in one's own mind. Or do you imagine that men, left to their own devices, would fantasize about weeks-to-years of courting, spending uncountable dollars on someone else, pleasing them in every way possible, possibly marrying them, and finally finding them in just the right mood in order to get sex? ;-) ----------------- In either case a) or b), what's the problem? Why do you wish to provide him with alternate material to avoid a problem that, for him, doesn't exist? And if the problem does exist for him, why not face that directly? --------- Robert C. --------- (BTW, I was very amused at your characterization of your partner as "normally open-minded". In this context, it can only be interpreted "normally agrees with me" or "normally accepts the PC point of view". ;-) I suspect he thinks *you're* pretty close-minded on the topic, and this can be said: it doesn't take an open mind to agree with what's currently popular, and anti-pornography is currently PC; it does take an open mind to entertain the currently unpopular ideas.) -- ---------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: My company has not yet seen fit to elect me as spokesperson. Hmmpf.