he
> was a connoisseur as well as a taxonomist - and
concluded that the
> genre that LT thinks is the norm is in fact the
minority.
>
> There are so many different kinds that it's
preposterous to claim
that
> it's mostly about male dominance of women. There's
queer porn and
> female-dominant porn too. Read Fleshbot for a few
days and see.
[...]
John Thornton added:
>I recall a study from about 8 years ago of the top
porn websites most
>popular downloads.
>IRC #1 was women on women and #2 was female solo.
>I have no idea how accurate the study was but men
dominating >women
>wasn't on the list of top 10.
The video of Noam is incomplete. I have other bits of video where Noam adds that Freedom of the Press means just that, including the freedom to offend. He opposes any form of government censorship of pornography. As do civil libertarian feminists, such as Wendy Kaminer, who argued contra MacKinnon in a high profile case and won. But last I heard all pornography is banned in Sweden. They bought MacKinnon's line.
I'm so glad to see comments like those from Doug and John in a leftist forum, in contrast to many others where antiporns control the dial.
I've been making those arguments and many others for awhile, without much data.
I don't think most consumers of pornography, or producers, want to see or be involved with anything that involves or requires abuse. I don't.
"Domination" is a weasel word. In many relationships I've observed, including my own family, women dominate. According to Steven Pinker, women naturally have the upper hand when it comes to sex. That's why pornography is so essential to men (not that women can't enjoy it also).
Perhaps we need a different term (smut?) for pornography that is not merely erotic, but involves violence, abuse, etc. This would fit the common idea of what is objectionable. But neither civil libertarians nor antiporns want to go there.
Antiporns want to condemn any kind of sexual fantasy. A former friend of mine put it most clearly. Any erotic thought of her, without her permission, automatically constituted "abuse" and, as Dworkin said, "rape". It's like Puritanism...the terrible thought that anyone anywhere might be having a good time.
I see pornography as essential to civilization, and it's been here about as long. That's my interpretation of cave art, for example. The alternative would be to tolerate rape.
If you want obscenity, a good example of that is Mel Gibson's Passion, which good Christians watched over and over. Or, as has been well documented, the "basic training" given to US soldiers. Those might be good places to look if you wanted to explain inhumanity committed in war. But somehow antiporns like Richard Jensen don't look there.
I find antiporn of the MacDworkinSen variety to be outrageous, and I also take it personally because I think it's ruined my sex life. Nearly every single leftist women I've ever met is an antiporn. Libertarian women generally don't have a problem with erotica, some like to browse or borrow from my collection. I follow the idea of Ellen WIllis that antiporn was seeded in the left by Gloria Steinem, backed by the CIA, probably to balkanize the left. Then Dworkin, MacKinnon and others gave it intellectual cover. If you want to read the rest of my conspiracy theory, greatly in need of better research and editing, you can find it here:
http://www.priceofliberty.com/freesex.htm
I get about one comment a year from an antiporn. Or used to.
Charles Peterson