Pretty soon we’ll be called “slutphobic”: A radfem’s thoughts on slutwalk

Trigger warning. This post discusses how much women, especially the prostituted, are hated.

Radical Feminist Seminar: Professor Dines Brings It On

After Sheila Jeffreys gave her talk, Dr. Dines once again took the floor and provided us with some visual imagery of the horrors of the sex industry in slide-show format. Although everything she showed is what comes in when one does a typical google search for “p*orn,” it was all pretty heavy stuff.

Professor Gail Dines

One important point Dr. Dines made, which I have thought about some myself, is how mainstream movies provide the same message as does porn, albeit in a lighter context. The message being, of course, that women are sex objects for men’s pleasure, and thus we really don’t care what is done to us. Dines also discussed how easy it is for  porn companies to use “product placement” in PG-13 and R movies, since most of the companies that produce mainstream films are owned by–you guess it–the pornography industry. Indeed, just walk into a Blockbuster (a company that gets, or at least used to get direct profits from the porn industry, for the record) and it would be hard not to take notice of the ways in which porn is mentioned as part of the movie plot even in the few-sentence-long descriptions! It seems logical then, to think watching mainstream PG-13 and R movies also changes the way both men and women come to view the role of themselves and each other in society. Indeed, I know my thinking has changed during periods of heavy movie watching, but fortunately, after breaks, my mind has felt a lot clearer.

 

Of course, men have more lines than  “slut!,” and “cumdumpster,”directed towards   women in mainstream movie and the viewer is not expected to ejaculate to the few minutes of sex one finds in a mainstream movie. This is why these films are much softer propaganda than pornography. It is also why men do not rent a mainstream movie when they want pornography: they know what they are looking to find, and they won’t find it there.

Are radfems like the Christian Right?

Radfems attempt to focus on the choices of the people with more power: that would be men.

There has been something bugging me in a major way. We radfems claim to value every woman and not place judgement on the choices women make, yet many women in the sex industry, at least in the First World, do feel judged. Time and time again, I have heard them say we are no different than the Christian right. Some of these women outright say they are in the life at least partially because of trauma issues; in Lori Adorable’s case, she has tried avoiding BDSM, only to end up in relationships that more or less contained such dynamics. In the interview linked to above, she describes ways she has acted out her trauma. This interview, and the site it is on, may be highly triggering for folks to read.

Larry Flynt has no right to be left alone

how true this is

TRIGGER ALERT: Many of the links contained in this article link to pages that, while critical of Flynt, also display his material.

I recently viewed The Right to Be Left Alone.  It is the story of how Larry Flynt came to be, well, Larry Flynt, and, not surprisingly, it is told in Flynt’s favor. I say not surprisingly because even in the Oliver Stone’s The People vs. Larry Flynt, Flynt had sway over how the movie was made, and was reportedly even seen on the set. Flynt is nothing if not a shrewd businessman and is very careful about how he represents himself to the public: that is as “freedom of speech” hero.

Flynt’s movie title is odd in and of itself, considering he has never for a second left women, or any other oppressed group alone. In fact, he is sure to have an Asshole of the Month featured in his magazines, “the centerpeice of which is a photograph of a male bending over, testicles in full view, and a picture of a politician of celebrity superimposed onto the anal opening (Dines 2010: 16).” Feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Diana Russell have been key targets of Flynt.

He hasn’t even left his own two daughters alone, both of whom he made strip at his clubs when they were pre-pubescent. You can read more about Tonya’s accounts of the rapes by her father here.

Free speech: The hypocrisy of the Amerikan public

Back in high school, I can recall writing an essay in which I said those making racist statements should not be allowed to say such things on radio. I did not realize what a big blunder I had made by saying such a thing until the teacher asked me–in front of the rest of the class–if I really believed what I wrote. He kept asking me this, with an incredulous look in his eyes. I realized then what a mistake I had made, and kept silent on issues of the first amendment for the next several years.

divisions among womyn break my heart

This semester at [insert name of college here], I experienced snobbery and exclusion because of a single speaker I invited to the school, one whose views many in the feminist/queer world did not agree with, although she was not to be talking about the subject with which they disagreed.

It is my view that several (at least) members of the student body would have happily seen my friend disinvited altogether. Yet, what if I had said the same thing about Tristan Taormino, a so-called “feminist” pornographer who the feminist group on campus actually sponsored? (and still sends out e-mails over two years later BRAGGING about having brought to campus!!). I think I would have been laughed out of the room.

I know a number of adult women survivors of childhood pornography and the sex work industry.  They are so thoroughly  wounded it is a trauma just to get through day-to-day life, never mind to have the simplest interactions with men. There is no way these women are going to get on stage and share their experiences of having been nearly killed every time their body was bought. Another friend of mine lives in fear of having people she sees on the street, in her place of work, etc, recognize her from the pornography that has been made of her, that is available all over the Internet. There is nothing she can do to take it down.

I have also met survivors of incest that included the use of pornography. Ironically, those of us who went and saw Taormino and were critical of her were so afraid to speak out that, in one case, anyway, it took finding each other via a feminist blog. Many anti-porn womyn simply didn’t attend the talk.  Another fellow student said the only reason she attend Taormino’s talk was to hear someone challenge Taormino; no one did, and she ended up going back to her dorm room and crying.

I recently had the opportunity to see anti-pornography feminist Gail Dines speak. Dines responded to many of the arguments that pro-porn “feminists” like to use. For example, she says, we only have real choices if we have lots and lots of choices. Yet, for women in our society, the choices are to be fuckable or invisible.

Dines focuses on the top 100, or the top 500 most popular porn sites. Thus, what she is discussing is what most men are watching. The stuff “feminist” pornographers are putting out are not even in the top 1,000 most bought and rented porn videos. Finally, Dines brings up the fact that pro-pornography “feminists” focus on feature films. These are the ones that have a storyline and that men will use to lure their girlfriend into getting off to pornography with them.  Yet, what makes the vast majority of money in the industry is what are called “gonzo” films. Max Hardcore would be an example of a creator of gonzo; his booth was the most popular at a 2008 convention held by the pornography industry. Many of his movies feature pedophilia themes and/or they show women choking on cock and having numerous men ejaculate on their face. But THIS is what mainstream porn is.

I thought feminism was supposed to be a movement for womyn, especially the most hurt women. But somehow, some women with privilege made it about their need for sexual pleasure instead.