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: Date: 25 Apr 91 20:56:43 GMT References: <19418@cs.utexas.edu> <1991Apr24.074446.22524@beaver.cs.washington.edu> Organization: Informix Software, Inc. Lines: 55 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: zola.ics.uci.edu fester@wolf.cs.washington.edu (Lea Fester) writes: >In article <19418@cs.utexas.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes: >>> general. ... >>groups. The women, for the most part, are decidedly feminist in their >>attitude, and one subject that has been batted around on occasion is >>the supposed conflict between feminist ideals and S&M. I would >>encourage readers in this newsgroup who automatically react in >>revulsion to violent porn and with suspicion to those who enjoy it to >>perhaps browse a.s.b for a few weeks. At least then, you would be >>more familiar with the thing you detest .... >No, you wouldn't. You'd be more familiar with how the people >involved with S&M and who enjoy violent porn PERCIEVE and/or >PRESENT themselves. Presentation is not reality, and I personally >don't find self-perception to be the most accurate assessment >possible. >If you want to be more familiar with "the thing" itself, READ and >LOOK AT violent porn and S/M literature. >People can present themselves any way they want on the net. There >are quite a number of people on the net who percieve themselves to >be and/or present themselves as feminists, who are "into" the >aforementioned. It is far more instructive, in general, to >observe people closely than to listen to what they have to say about >themselves. It is more instructive to find about something from the >source than to trust someone else to describe it honestly and/or >correctly. I don't pretend to be an expert on this subject, but it seems to me that the people who are practicing S/M are acting out fantasies. There wouldn't be any way to know what the reality of their feelings were without asking them. Just seeing the raw films/literature wouldn't necessarily give you the whole story. The other night I saw a film on Cinemax where the woman asked "to be raped" by her lover. It was a sexual game. However, they were being filmed; when others saw the film without the context of their feelings, what they saw was rape. I suspect doing both would give you the best information. Doing either by itself might only yield half the story. Incidentally, the general consensus of the net, every time the question of "is she/he or isn't he/she a feminist" seems to be that if they say they are, they are. No matter how they really act, or what they really do, they may have that title. The last example I saw of this was a short debate about Dorothy Parker. Robert C. -- ---------------------------------------------- Disclaimer: My company has not yet seen fit to elect me as spokesperson. Hmmpf.