> Hmm, then you support repeal of rape and incest and murder laws? Some
> percentage of each of these crimes stem from sexual fantasy. If you are
> "against any kind of social or political policy that claims to interpret
and
> legislate against people's sexual fantasies and ... actualization" of
them,
> then you must be against laws prohibiting rape, incest, and murder.
>
> Of course you *aren't* opposed to those laws, and so you aren't opposed to
> *any kind of policy* prohibiting people from "actualizing" their sexual
> fantasies. So the question is about where and when to draw the line.
> But, fine, just for the sake of argument, let's say that 33% of the video
> porn every year contains at least one scene that we could agree together
is
> violent and "out of bounds". What follows from that for you? You seem to
> rely heavily on your claim that "all porn isn't violent" -- why is this
> relevant? Suppose that all the antiporn feminists decided to focus on
policy
> regulating *just* the violent porn. Would you support that?
>
> You concede there is violent, even harmful porn; there is evidence that
this
> material may well have some deleterious affect on men who consume it; and
> yet you're totally unwilling to support any policy against it.
>
> Hmm, I wonder what it is you think you know about me that leads you to
this
> wildly speculative conclusion? I suppose it's because I support antiporn
> policy proposals (strictly for feminist, not right-wing reasons, by the
way)
> and you can't imagine anyone watching much of it being against it? That's
> odd.
>
> *Please*! The "natural" argument has no traction whatever! We prohibit and
> legislate against all sorts of natural urges and inclinations *all the
> freaking time*. This is a total non-starter.
>
> For a real life sadist, inflicting wanton pain on others as a source of
> sexual pleasure is *natural*. So I guess that means we should let them do
> whatever they please?
>
> Wow, so Annie once took a picture of Jordan's ass, so media
representations
> of women and men are equally problematic, hence equally unproblematic.
>
> Context matters! As I now tire of repeating, even if your claim were true,
> and it is not true, objectifying representations of a systematically
> oppressed class is not, cannot be politically equivalent to objectifying
> representations of the systematically dominant class.
>
> The second class status of women makes all the difference, on the (false,
in
> my view) presumption that media representations equally objectify
"everyone,
> all the time, everyday".
>
> Let's transpose the point into a different key; maybe that will make my
> point clearer. I take it that people of color in the US, let's say African
> Americans, are a systematically oppressed racially-identified group. Let's
> assume that both Whites and African Americans on average have equal
> attitudinal bias and prejudice against individuals of the other group.
That
> is, White folks on average have the same amount of personal bias, belief
in
> stereotype, and ignorance about African Americans as African Americans
have
> about White folks.
>
> *Certainly*, in this situation, you wouldn't claim that "everyone is a
> bigot, against everyone else, all the time, everyday" and that, therefore,
> bigotry, bias, and prejudice of the socially dominant group is *no more
> problematic* than the bigotry, bias, and prejudice of the socially
oppressed
> group?
>
> That's not only rather insane, it's a straight-up racist, KKK argument.
You
> can hear it all the time from White people who have no systematic,
political
> understanding of oppression. Average White guy, "I don't know why it
matters
> that I believe and act on lots of stereotypes about black people; I know
> lots of black people who think no White people can dance and that we all
> like Barry Manilow!" Bah!
>
> Whether men are systematically objectified (they aren't) cannot possibly
> mean the same thing politically in a misogynistic, patriarchal culture.
>
> Hah! *Many* have the final word? You mean some *don't*? Not having the
final
> word about who sticks what inside of you strikes me as a fairly good
> definition of rape.
>
> Does it matter that there seems to be a rather high percentage of women in
> porn who are either drug-addicted, former, current, or future prostitutes,
> or were molested or abused as children? Surely, if true, that's some
> indication of the kind of woman who finds porn to be way to earn money. I
> suspect that if there were *any* male-dominated profession about which
that
> was true, it would be a hugely pressing social problem. Hell, every time
an
> NBA player sparks a blunt, it's national news and the legions of drug
> counselers and treatment clinics are deployed.
>
> No, rather I will grant the state that power because *complexly* porn is
bad
> for women. There's a difference. I'm not Ed Meese. The least you can do is
> accurately represent *that* difference, please.
Well, I haven't the time nor desire to take apart these and other ridiculous arguments. But I think that Kendall has more than shown what he considers obscene and how he interprets human sexual behavior, and he's welcome to his hellish view of things.
Here's a nice piece about the trade by Martin Amis:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4153718,00.html
DP