Xref: utzoo soc.motss:51888 soc.feminism:1792 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero-c!nadel From: dente@ecad-lead-site.electrical-engineering.manchester.ac.uk (Colin Dente) Newsgroups: soc.motss,soc.feminism Subject: Re: feminism; leather Message-ID: <2550@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> Date: 20 May 91 18:49:59 GMT References: <11332@xenna.Xylogics.COM> <1991May10.183832.20579@beaver.cs.washington.edu> Sender: news@cs.man.ac.uk Followup-To: soc.motss Organization: Manchester Computer Centre, University of Manchester UK Lines: 75 Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org Status: R Originator: nadel@aerospace.aero.org [Colin directed followups to soc.motss; I think it might be appropriate for them to go here as well. - MHN] < I've cross-posted this to soc.feminism, mainly because I'd like to know if what I am saying here is even close to a correct interpretation of what I've read (which isn't much). If this is in any way inappropriate, then please accept my apologies.> In article <1991May10.183832.20579@beaver.cs.washington.edu> wendyt@ronquil.cs.washington.edu (Wendy Thrash) writes: [Lots 'n' lots of coherent stuff] But it isn't *quotably* relevant to what I want to ask (who said I have to speak English? - I *am* English therefore I am free to redefine English, and introduce words like `quotably' as I go along ;-)) I have recently started to get interested in the feminist anti-pornography movement, and it seems to me that what Dworkin, MacKinnon et. al. are saying in such things as the Minneapolis Anti-Pornography Ordinance is not that there is anything wrong with sexually explicit material (I hesitate to say pornography, because of the confusion of definitions that might result) per se, but what is wrong is the adverse effect that *some* sexually explicit material *can* have on the lives of women. The Minneapolis Anti-Pornography Ordinance (as I read it) does not seem in any way to ban sexually explicit material, rather it provides a means whereby a person (primarily a woman, but it is worded such that it is inclusive of all people) can obtain compensation for harm done to them because of pornography, where pornography is defined as (something like) sexually explicit material which depicts women as subordinate, as objects, or being raped/brutalised. I.e. material which by it's content re-inforces the supposedly acceptable norms of the male-supremacist society in which we live. This does not apply (in my opinion) to pictures of nudes, or of couples (or indeed, groups) having sex *provided* that these pictures are not showing women (throughout this, you could just as well read `men' or `children' for `women' - though the applicability to women is more common) being raped, or tied up (which really seems to suggest the likelihood of rape in many peoples' minds), or in the classic `spread-labia-come-fuck-me' pose seemingly beloved of penthouse & co. "But this is censorship" you say... Yes, indeed, it is censorship, and yes, I object to it. In a perfect world, it would be totally unnecessary. Men wouldn't need to subordinate women in order to feel like men. We don't live in a perfect world. Until we do live in a perfect world, I think that the right of half the population to live as freely as the other half comes way ahead of the right of some parts of that other half of the population to be able to jack off to whatever pictures they want to. This isn't a religious-moralistic issue - it's a humane libertarian one, and the `libertarians' who try to defend the pornographers' right to `free speech' whilst ignoring the fact that women are getting raped or are missing out on careers because they don't have tits as good as this month's centrefold are way off the mark in my view. Anyway, Wendy was talking about leather/S&M, in case you'd forgotten (I almost had) - so where does this tie in. I'm not really sure - but I think that it's because it reinforces the male-supremacist system by being supremacist/subordinate in it's nature. The question would seem to be why *does* this turn people on? I'm not saying that it's perverse, or anything like that (what's wrong with being perverse I hear half the motss crowd scream ;-)), but what I am saying is that maybe, just maybe, it is a product of our society which makes people think that they can only feel good if they are dominating someone, or being dominated by someone. I guess I'm going to put a lot of peoples' backs up with this - but I really don't mean it to be as inflamatory as it sounds - I just can't really see how to explain what I'm thinking. Infact, I'm not really sure *what* I'm thinking. Can anyone out in soc.feminism land explain more fully to me what the anti-S&M movement's views really are? Confus[ing|ed]ly yours, Colin -- Colin Dente | JANET: dente@uk.ac.man.ee.els Manchester Computing Centre | ARPA: dente@els.ee.man.ac.uk University of Manchester, UK | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!manchester!dente ... I am the one you warned me of ...