The most basic information about your body is IN your body. If you want to find out...there it is, to play with and experiment with and enjoy. The "liberating" effect of going to Good Vibrations and returning home with a vibrator, book, sex toy, etc. is probably more connected to the implicit social approval: "look, a real store that other people go to who are interested in the same thing I'm interested in" than it is in the vibrator/book/sex toy in question.
(Good Vibrations is a lesbian-run sex info/sex toy store in the bay area.)
>And in fact, there are millions of people -- and some of them just so
>happen to be leftists -- who consume and enjoy the erotic medium (and, I
>would guess if it was decriminalized and reformed, prostitution as well)
>quite well, yet manage to retain their progressive bearings.
Please explain to me how prostitution is liberating?
>You don't have to like what other people do with their bodies, but as long
>as they respect the integrity and the sensibilities of other people, I
>don't think that their personal sex lives should be an issue for condemnation.
Please explain to me how I am respecting the integrity and sensibility of a woman (or man) whom I pay for sex....not to mention my own integrity or sensibility.
I am raising these issues not because I think porn should be outlawed or because I think prostitution should not be legalized. But the fact of legality and the fact of liberation are quite different.
Joanna