On Oct 12, 2007, at 12:35 PM, Lenin's Tomb wrote:
> On 10/12/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>>
>> Yeah, that's the standard MacDworkinite line,
>
>
> Well, I don't know, the commonplace hostility to Dworkin makes me
> think she
> was on to something important.
She was a very good writer - and some of her prose has an almost pornographic intensity. When she's describing what she hates, it seems like she's excited by part of it. By far the best parts of Jensen's book are the (many) quotes from Dworkin.
I don't know what you mean by commonplace hostility, though. The right wing loves her stuff. The classic Meese commission report on porn had a lot in common with her.
> I know it is, and I don't wish to take away anyone's porn, but we
> do after
> all live in societies where violence against women is commonplace,
> and where
> that violence is frequently sexualised,
Yeah, for sure. Jensen writes about how porn is inseparable from our "rape culture," which made me check some stats. Over the last three decades, while porn has allegedly spread throughout the culture, the incidence of rape in the U.S. has fallen by around 75% (according to victimization surveys, not police reports). It's also the second most severely punished crime after murder. You could say the reason for that is also patriarchal - rape is intercourse unauthorized by the relevant male. But the simple equivalence of rape and patriarchy is too simple.
> and pornography is an industry that
> overwhelmingly sells young men dreams of encounters with females in
> which
> they get to take control.
To some extent, yes, but porn is a lot more varied than that.
> We can't afford to underestimate the effects of
> this.
We don't know what the effects are. Jensen tries to prove some cause- effect relation, and his argument is very weak. He basically quotes some guys accused of dastardly crimes who say porn made them do it. Yeah.
> And why should it be, incidentally, that the US military uses porno
> to keep its killers butch? Why should it be that during the first
> Gulf War,
> air force pilots watched porno to get themselves in the mood for
> killing?
Another interesting point about Jensen - he doesn't mention war at all. Talk about a form of largely male ritualized violence that does a lot of harm. You can't beat war for that. I doubt the bombing runs would have been any less effective without the porn. They use Guns n Roses, AC/DC, and Wagner too, by the way.
> Why, at the 2003 Air Force Academy Prom, were men treated to a play
> showing
> them how to stimulate women by teasing the nipples and clitoris?
Because they were trying to get the guys to be more sensitive?
While you're asking questions about the curriculum at military academies: why do they read Chomsky at West Point? Why do they read bell hooks at the NYPD academy?
Doug