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From: carole@rosevax.UUCP (Carole Ashmore)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: An attempt at education on the pornography issue.
Message-ID: <209@rosevax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 16:48:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: rosevax.209
Posted: Mon Sep 23 16:48:30 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Sep-85 01:08:25 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Rosemount Inc., Eden Prairie, MN
Lines: 64

Well, I've been watching the porn debate for several weeks now, hoping
someone else would bring up the points I'm about to make.  No such
luck.  I generally like to keep my sexual preferences between myself
and and my partners, but I really do feel that someone must drop a few
facts on all you would be censors and wishy-washy defenders.  I am
female and I speak from personal experience and the experiences of
friends and acquaintances.  For purposes of clarity I divide what
you have been calling pornography into

	A. Friendly sexually explicit material, e.g. pictures of naked
people, pictures and descriptions of intercourse, oral sex, multiple
partners, etc.

	B. Dominance/submission pictures and descriptions, sometimes
including bondage, humiliation, degredation, and/or violence.


Facts:

	1. Many people, both men and women, enjoy A and find such
sexually arousing.  Very few people consider A degrading to anyone.
More men then women like A.  I do not know whether this difference 
is caused by nature or society; I suspect society.

	2. A few people, both men and women, enjoy B and find such
sexually arousing.  It is a myth that all or most men enjoy B; many
of them find it disgusting and cannot be gotten to try such or read
about it even at the urging of a willing female partner.  It is also
a myth that all women feel disgusted, upset, or degraded by B.  Many
of them enjoy both reading and participation in mutual fantasy. As
with A, more men than women enjoy B; again I suspect social pressures.

	3. All of you have missed the point (or at least failed to
comment on it) that B divides into two categories, male dominant
(you've talked this one to death) and female dominant (suprise!).
There is a considerable literature of female dominant pornography,
bought and enjoyed by both men and women; many porn films contain
'turn about' scenes in which the previously dominated woman ties the
man up and proceeds to dominate him.  He is generally depicted as
loving it.  Many men and women who like this sort of thing enjoy only
one aspect of it, that is he or she likes only to dominate or only to
submit.  Many other like both at one time or another.  With partners
who like mutual fantasy he may tie her up on Monday and she him on
Tuesday.

	4. Many of you have commented on the fact that women in type
A material are depicted as 'loving it'; this is also true of men who
are being dominated in type A material.  I really feel here that the
commenters have entirely missed the point.  This has been seen as
an attempt to convince all men that all women really want to be raped,
tied, beaten, whatever.  This last is not fact, but my own strong
opinion: I feel that the fact that the people being dominated in type
A material are nearly always shown 'wanting it' reflects simply a
safety mechanism that seems to operate in nearly all people who like
such games, namely that they can get turned on only with a willing and
enthusiastic partner.  Generally serves to save this sort of thing
from degenerating into nasty stuff like rape and real violence.


Thanks for listening to this rather long posting.  The point of it all
is, of course, that pornography degrades either no one, or both men
and women, and really must be seen as an 'equal opportunity'
literature, possibly of interest to the Moral Majority, but not to
feminists and their male friends.


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