<<(Lenin responding to Dennis) I share your libertarian stance on pornography, but that hat's a surprising retort to what I thought were pretty obvious observations by Noam Chomsky. Surely it is glaringly apparent that the *vast majority* of pornography does indeed revolve around the degradation of women, in the specific sense that he states: women are reduced to vulgar sex objects, conforming to male fantasies of super-lubed, inflatable fuck-machines with embryonic personalities. That is, plainly, a form of symbolic violence against women, and not just the women who participate in the industry. And the logic of pornography is in that sense hardly restricted to the industry itself - it extends into advertising, fashion, literature, any of the manifold fora in which women might be objectified and humiliated. Incidentally, I was particularly impressed that he rebutted this nonsense about 'well, they chose to do it', which would be an odious enough argument coming from right-wing free-marketeers, but is bizarre when it comes from leftists. >>
Oh, really, Lenin??? Speaking as a "libertarian" Leftist who happens to be a observer of porn/erotica and who supports progressive critics and performers within the sexual media, I'd say that you are a bit off your rocker.
I can readily acknowledge that there is an element of porn that doesn't paint women in such a positive light; but to simply with such a broad brush classify ALL explicit sexual media as innately "a form of symbolic violence against women" merely because it allegedly reduces women to "vulgar sex objects" is a direct slander to not only women who perform willingly in porn of their own free will (and who might even enjoy for their own pleasure playing the "sex object"....or, to be more accurate, the sex subject), but to the majority of men who view porn and manage still to treat women with full respect.
If you and Chomsky can back away from the Dworkin-MacKinnon talking points and actually speak to women within the sexual media, you will find a far, far more diverse spectrum of sexual expression that's available to women and men. And what about the many progressive activists within porn who have dedicated their lives to improving the social and physical working conditions for women who happen to work in "the industry"?? I guess that they are just paid stooges of "the pornographers", too??
I used to respect and admire Noam Chomsky for his libertarian Left principles....but after that elitist hatchet job he did, he sounds very much like the reactionaries he supposedly opposes on so many other fronts.
Oh....and would you be just as willing to dismiss gay male porn in the same way?? Or, for that matter, porn featuring only lesbians?? Or does that too join your list of "symbolic violence" and "right-wing libertarianism"???
Then again, I realize I'm talking to a man who still believes that fundamentalist Islam is the next great socialist movement....so much for us secular radicals who might actually believe that social equality shouldn't be tied to sexual fascism.
Anthony