miles> On Fri, 15 Mar 2002, Kendall Clark wrote:
miles> So does any porn provoke violence against women? It's not as
miles> simple as the Dworkinites assume.
>>
>> I don't know what a Dworkinite is, but M&D certainly present a
>> nuanced, careful view in *In Harm's Way* and Dworkin does so
>> alone in many places. They claim porn causes or contributes to a
>> fairly wide range of social ills, from the objectification of
>> women, to the undue focus on sex as penile-vaginal intercourse,
>> to diminishment of some men's willingess to credit testimony of
>> rape survivors, to apathy about sexual violence in general, to
>> the actual commission of rape and sexual violence.
>>
miles> I've never heard someone use "Dworkin" and "nuanced" in the
miles> same sentence before.
You have now. But then I've read rather a lot of her stuff, so I have that advantage over *most* of her detractors, though I don't assume you haven't, Miles. Reasonable people can disagree after having read the relevant material.
Is someone who calls any sexually
miles> explicit materials harmful to women really providing a
miles> "nuanced" analysis?
That depends on what else they say, of course.
Is erotica is just "porn for the
miles> intellectuals", as D claims, with all the same harmful
miles> effects as hardcore porn with images of bound, gagged, and
miles> beaten women?
Hmm, I sure would like a book and page cite to back this claim up. I will certainly reconsider my claim about 'nuance' if you can show where she says this.
miles> I notice you share Dworkin's enthusiasm for misinterpreting
miles> the scientific research on this topic. Yes, there is clear
miles> scientific evidence that sexually explicit films with
miles> aggressive content provoke violence against women.
Right, which is what Dworkin and other feminists of her ilk say. Where's the misinterpretation in that?
But does
miles> that mean that any sexually explicit films "objectify women"
miles> and legitimate rape?
No, of course it does not, and I didn't say that. They make *those* claims based on *other* kinds of analysis. I was suggesting that they have a *layered* critique of porn, going from the studies you cite, and including *other* kinds of analysis. I did not attribute all parts of that multiform critique to social-scientific or empirical studies. I do not remember a place where Dworkin, MacKinnon, or others do that either.
Again, the data are fairly clear: they
miles> do not!
Dworkin cites another study, one which you may be unfamiliar with, and which was included in amicus curiae briefs, that shows the link between porn consumption and a man's diminished ability to credit the testimony of a rape survivor as plausible. If you can cite papers that show that study to be faulty, or other studies that refute these results, I'd happily review them.
Your conflation of all types of sexually explicit
miles> materials overlooks the fact that the most substantial effect
miles> of nonaggressive sexually explicit films is sexual arousal,
miles> in both men and women.
I dispute that I conflated "types of sexually explicit materials", see above.
miles> What's not to like about that?
*I* don't want to take my sexual arousal -- perhaps irrespective of context, but *especially* not when I'm immersed in, and was socialized by, a culture in which women are second-class citizens -- from material that demeans, degrades, or objectifies women, all of which are separate from violent or aggressive materials. That's what many anti-porn feminists object to. But then acknowledging that claim of theirs points back to the nuanced view, which you don't seem to buy.
Kendall Clark