doug> Kendall Clark wrote:
>> Instead, the pro-sex Suzie Bright, Pat Califa element of feminism
>> became dominant, and now porn is more mainstream and more
>> widespread than ever before.
doug> Unlike you, I count this as firmly on the side of
doug> progress. Who needs a bunch of censorious prudes speaking in
doug> the name of feminism?
Would you still think it progress if you were to be convinced by empirical studies that porn socializes men to be sexually violent toward women?
(That's not a trap-question, I'm really curious *why* you think porn becoming mainstream is a measure of progress.)
I'm curious: have you read MacKinnon and Dworkin's *In Harm's Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings*? It struck me as neither censorious nor prudish; it proposes a rather sophisticated, complex, and impressive bit of social policy.
As for prudish, Dworkin's new political memoir, *Heartbreak*, was at turns really funny and ballsy as hell. She certainly didn't sound like a prude standing up to Allen Ginsberg.
But, the "censorious prudes" aside, bell hooks newest from South End Press, *Feminism Is For Everybody*, makes an interesting case for feminism's regression since the 1970s, independently of the pornography issue. (Largely because, in hooks' view, because it went from being a grassroots, consciousness-raising movement to being a largely professionalized university 'movement'.)
Best, Kendall Clark -- There's no such thing as magic, only science and jazz.