> academies: why do they read Chomsky at West Point? Why do they read
> bell hooks at the NYPD academy?
I don't disagree with most of what you wrote, but this is surely a little glib. I take the point that the institutional setting is more important than what is consumed, but they clearly fulfil a different function: you read bell hooks and Noam Chomsky to learn something; you peruse pornography to have an orgasm. NC is read at WP because they need to understand American foreign policy, while the guys at NYPD read bell hooks because they need to understand what their main victims are likely to be thinking about them.
There is one other thing. People keep referring to some putative 'connection' between pornography and violence. My contention isn't that pornography *causes* violence against women. My contention is that pornography, at least the bulk of it anyway, is a form of violence against women in the same way that racist imagery is a form of violence against the designated 'race'.
Anyway, let's get back to the dirt-fest. LBOers are giving me damp crevices.
andie nachgeborenen wrote:
The porn discussion has gotten sort of tired, but I actually think that Vogue and the like are far more dangerous to women and girls than pictures of people having sex or generally arousing the prurient interest.
This is very true, but then isn't this at least in part because Vogue and the female Fox News presenters draw on the same traditions as pornography does?