Hooray for Kathryn Blundell, the much-maligned editor of the UK's Mother and Baby Magazine, who defended her decision NOT to breastfeed. Here's the BBC article summarizing her comments. She calls breastfeeding "creepy," even.
To be clear, I do not agree with her perspective. But isn't she expressing what many women (and I daresay most men) in our culture think about breastfeeding? Because breasts are so sexualized for us, it's hard to uncouple those sexual connotations. That's a cultural disconnect to address.
For me, breastfeeding is a very charged issue. When pregnant, I had every intention of nursing. But then my daughter spent her first several days hooked to monitors in the NICU, and I couldn't nurse her. I had to pump. If you've never been hooked up to a breast pump, the sensation is distinctly bovine. I hated to pump. A sense of foreboding and dread descend on me every time I started to pump (thanks, hormones!). It was tough psyching myself up to do that every few hours. Meanwhile, my daughter became accustomed to the bottles used in NICU. When I finally could attempt to get her to latch on, she screamed in terror at my approaching breasts. My milk came... and then went.
Currently, there's a pervasive bias toward breastfeeding in the medical community and among upper-middle class moms, the type who might also worry about buying organic this and weigh carefully all the diapering options and mull baby signing classes. When I was a baby in the 70s, nursing was seen as an inferior choice made only by women who couldn't afford formula or weird hippie types. Now, the reverse is true. Women who want to do the right thing by their infants are expected to breastfeed because of a plethora of health benefits conferred by breastmilk.
So birth classes and hospitals hype breastfeeding--while also contradictorily providing plenty of formula samples and coupons in welcome packs. But when it came to nursing under my daughter's and my particular circumstances, I didn't get much help or support from nursing staff. I had no women among my family and friends who could help because they either didn't have kids or felt profound discomfort about nursing. The lactation "help" offered in the hospital was perfunctory and distinctly unhelpful. When the consultant squeezed my painfully engorged breast without warning, I can't say it inspired me to seek further "assistance."
When I couldn't nurse successfully, I felt like a failure as a woman and a mom. The prevailing wisdom indicates that I just wasn't trying hard enough, that I was taking the "lazy" route by formula feeding. In the blur of the first post-partum weeks, the last thing I needed was some other pressure telling me I was doing a bad job. Unfortunately, pro-nursing sentiment is pretty strident and uncompromising. I had internalized their party line. Anytime the subject of breastfeeding came up for a few years after, I would become emotional and tear up, still haunted by the feeling that I'd done my daughter a horrible disservice by feeding her formula.
Unfortunately, even for those women who do the "right" thing and nurse, the approbation they receive extends only to the hospital doors. In the wider world outside, women are routinely ogled or reviled for nursing, even discreetly, in public. No one would object to bottle feeding a baby in public, but nursing women are routinely banished to the bathroom. People often express outright revulsion at nursing. I find that inability to accept breasts' multiple purposes offensive. But I also understand how women can internalize those competing pressures. In some women, as Blundell articulates, the sexual function of breasts will prevail.
I hate that we view these functions as dichotomous, that we can't see breasts as sexual and decorative under certain circumstances and baby-nourishing under others. Why must they be mutually exclusive? Why isn't nursing considered sexy, or sex seen as an integral part of being a mom? Why is breastfeeding a litmus test for good mothering?
Breasts are a battleground, an emblem of the many conflicting roles and duties our culture inflicts on us. But they're also a very personal space. I don't agree with Blundell's assessment of breastfeeding, nor do I agree with rabid nursing advocates who can't or won't understand the many reasons women may not breastfeed. Do I wish my experience with nursing had been more successful? Of course. But am I a terrible mother because I didn't? Not at all. Neither is Blundell for saying publicly what so many people already think and feel.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Penis Fly Trap
A South African doctor has invented a condom with teeth to help deter and/or punish rapists. Here's the CNN.com article for more details. Apparently, this device is being tested during the World Cup.
Honestly, I don't know where to begin. First, I feel compelled to rail--just briefly--against the fact that we live in such a shitty world that rape remains essentially commonplace. Some days, it's hard to remain optimistic in the face of such... ick.
Okay, so in response someone has invented a toothed female condom. How will we measure the efficacy of such a device? Will the vague threat of a toothy-trap snapping shut on their goodies be enough to deter rapists? Might rapists start preying on others who might be less willing or able to "arm" themselves?
This device further ignores that sexual assaults are not committed only by a penis entering a vagina. There are other acts of rape that do not fit that narrow definition.
And what about the rapist's response to the device when it deploys? Even if the device works as it should, clamping down on the rapist's member upon penetration, might it enrage him enough to further hurt or even kill the woman whose vagina it came from?
Significantly, we must remember that if the device has deployed, then A RAPE HAS STILL OCCURRED. True, it will have been unpleasant for the perpetrator and the duration of the assault may be truncated. But will the woman have incurred any less emotional or physical trauma? A man still penetrated a woman without her consent, regardless of what happens to his penis AFTER.
Finally, must we employ tactics that amount to creating a minefield in our privates? What if a woman is planning to have (gasp!) consensual sex? "Hang on, honey, while I dig out this Bear-Trap Condom. Can you grab a Trojan instead?"
In situations when a woman feels she has no other options to combat would-be (or actual) rapists, then perhaps the toothy condom is the stopgap answer.
But this product's mere existence reminds us that rape remains an epidemic requiring changes in cultural attitudes toward women and rape, and better laws and enforcement regarding sexual assault. Arming our vaginas does not solve the problem.
Honestly, I don't know where to begin. First, I feel compelled to rail--just briefly--against the fact that we live in such a shitty world that rape remains essentially commonplace. Some days, it's hard to remain optimistic in the face of such... ick.
Okay, so in response someone has invented a toothed female condom. How will we measure the efficacy of such a device? Will the vague threat of a toothy-trap snapping shut on their goodies be enough to deter rapists? Might rapists start preying on others who might be less willing or able to "arm" themselves?
This device further ignores that sexual assaults are not committed only by a penis entering a vagina. There are other acts of rape that do not fit that narrow definition.
And what about the rapist's response to the device when it deploys? Even if the device works as it should, clamping down on the rapist's member upon penetration, might it enrage him enough to further hurt or even kill the woman whose vagina it came from?
Significantly, we must remember that if the device has deployed, then A RAPE HAS STILL OCCURRED. True, it will have been unpleasant for the perpetrator and the duration of the assault may be truncated. But will the woman have incurred any less emotional or physical trauma? A man still penetrated a woman without her consent, regardless of what happens to his penis AFTER.
Finally, must we employ tactics that amount to creating a minefield in our privates? What if a woman is planning to have (gasp!) consensual sex? "Hang on, honey, while I dig out this Bear-Trap Condom. Can you grab a Trojan instead?"
In situations when a woman feels she has no other options to combat would-be (or actual) rapists, then perhaps the toothy condom is the stopgap answer.
But this product's mere existence reminds us that rape remains an epidemic requiring changes in cultural attitudes toward women and rape, and better laws and enforcement regarding sexual assault. Arming our vaginas does not solve the problem.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
A Little Pink Pill for the Ladies?
Apparently, the FDA is unimpressed by the test results for flibanserin, "a pill anticipated to become the first 'female Viagra,'" according to a CNN.com report.
The drug's manufacturer remains unsurprisingly optimistic. "We have conducted a robust program showing that flibanserin shows improvement increasing satisfying sexual events, in improving sexual desire and lowering distress," says Peter Piliero. Satisfying events? Lowering distress? Over-medicalization of sexuality, while understandable given our culture's tendency to turn every ailment into a disease, still troubles me.
Should female sexual dysfunction be treated medically? If low sex drive is troubling to the woman, of course! That we even consider low sex drive an issue worthy of resolution is, overall, a positive change from the old "it's all in her head" approach to "frigidity," or even worse, the expectation that women naturally don't (or shouldn't) enjoy sex.
However, the danger comes when we believe a pill (will this one be pink? please?) is the best or only solution. I worry that doctors and patients will be less likely to consider a range of treatment options--such as hormone monitoring and balancing, therapy, stress reduction, dietary changes, communicating effectively with one's sexual partner(s), to name a few. Availability of even a marginally effective "female Viagra" could pathologize normal variations in sex drive and permit doctors to resort to pill pushing rather than searching for root causes and offering varied, and possibly non-pharmaceutical, solutions.
But for frustrated women who feel they've already tried everything, I sincerely hope flibanserin, if it's safe, becomes available.
The drug's manufacturer remains unsurprisingly optimistic. "We have conducted a robust program showing that flibanserin shows improvement increasing satisfying sexual events, in improving sexual desire and lowering distress," says Peter Piliero. Satisfying events? Lowering distress? Over-medicalization of sexuality, while understandable given our culture's tendency to turn every ailment into a disease, still troubles me.
Should female sexual dysfunction be treated medically? If low sex drive is troubling to the woman, of course! That we even consider low sex drive an issue worthy of resolution is, overall, a positive change from the old "it's all in her head" approach to "frigidity," or even worse, the expectation that women naturally don't (or shouldn't) enjoy sex.
However, the danger comes when we believe a pill (will this one be pink? please?) is the best or only solution. I worry that doctors and patients will be less likely to consider a range of treatment options--such as hormone monitoring and balancing, therapy, stress reduction, dietary changes, communicating effectively with one's sexual partner(s), to name a few. Availability of even a marginally effective "female Viagra" could pathologize normal variations in sex drive and permit doctors to resort to pill pushing rather than searching for root causes and offering varied, and possibly non-pharmaceutical, solutions.
But for frustrated women who feel they've already tried everything, I sincerely hope flibanserin, if it's safe, becomes available.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Violet Blue Versus Stop Porn Culture: Part 3, Critici$m and the Victim Mentality
Why are pro-porn people so opposed to any questioning of their perspective? Furthermore, why do they adopt a victim mentality about it, as though they're oppressed sex radicals whose scandalous enjoyment of porn marks them for scorn and derision? Their attitude toward porn might have been a serious point of contention in the late 70s and early 80s, when the feminist sex wars raged over issues like dildo use, bondage, and porn. Then, pro-sex activists were ostracized by their fellow feminists.
However, here in 2010, with pornography as plentiful and readily available as it is, with so many people watching porn with such frequency, how are those viewers in any way victims of anti-porn scorn? How are pro-porn supporters members of a marginalized minority?
They're not. But Violet Blue doesn't let that stop her from portraying herself and her fellow porn lovers as downtrodden sexual freedom fighters. She tweeted about their negative treatment in this column in the Boston Herald, for example.
Of course, anyone who follows online snits knows that Violet Blue doesn't take criticism well. Beyond a touchy ego, though, what's with the victim mentality and inability to accept even valid, constructive criticism?
Well, pro-porn activists start with an acceptable premise, rightly asserting that sexuality is still repressed in our culture. Sure, we can access idealized, airbrushed, fetishized image of sex presented in porn. But women's sexuality, particularly a liberated and honest sexuality, is curiously absent from scene. Honestly, I don't know exactly what that would look like. I don't think anyone does.
The sexuality we do see expressed throughout our culture and particularly in porn is still predominantly phallocentric. It's the "Samantha syndrome," where being a sexually liberated woman means acting like a man. Because only men are free to express themselves sexually--and a narrow, masculine sexuality, at that--that's the only model we have for what a sexually liberated woman might look like. I guess pro-porn folks believe that protecting this fictional "sexual freedom" is more important than trying to imagine new sexual options.
For example, they could support sexual freedom by pressuring the porn industry to feature more diverse performers. They could try to get porn producers to treat performers more humanely by offering better pay, benefits, and working conditions. They could try to discourage the production of Max Hardcore-type gross-out porn. But instead, they aim their vitriol at academic organizations like Stop Porn Culture. Because pro-porn folks so value "sexual freedom," they interpret anti-porn activists, not the huge porn industry that now largely defines what is sexually attractive in our culture, as oppressive.
Why don't they consider the many other ways sexual freedom is being threatened, like
Or maybe it is all about money. Perhaps "oppressed" pro-porn advocates protest so loudly because rising anti-porn sentiment would eat into their profits. In a clear example of pro-porn's symbiosis with the porn industry, one of the winners of Blue's "Our Porn, Ourselves" video contest is herself a porn star. Blue, too, has an economic incentive to generate interest in porn and inspire people to defend it. Writing a book on porn and having porn sites advertising on one's homepage likely encourage a more zealous defense. I'm not sure anti-porn academics have any such financial incentive, as anti-porn forces (especially feminist ones) do not have a wealthy and powerful political lobby or millions of willing consumers, unlike the porn industry.
If you're riding the coat tales of a $10 billion business, I suppose you might want to cultivate the appearance of oppression. It certainly makes for better press. After all, who would listen to the pro-porn argument if they prefaced it by acknowledging the prevalence of porn and the strength of the industry? And Violet Blue craves coverage. I guess shouting oppression garners attention while obscuring that unconditional, uncritical support for porn, rather than being sexually liberated, is merely anti-intellectual and money-grubbing.
Perhaps pro-porn folks have even more in common with Tea Partiers and Sarah Palin than I'd thought.
(Thanks, Kristie, for the dialogue that evolved into this post!)
However, here in 2010, with pornography as plentiful and readily available as it is, with so many people watching porn with such frequency, how are those viewers in any way victims of anti-porn scorn? How are pro-porn supporters members of a marginalized minority?
They're not. But Violet Blue doesn't let that stop her from portraying herself and her fellow porn lovers as downtrodden sexual freedom fighters. She tweeted about their negative treatment in this column in the Boston Herald, for example.
Of course, anyone who follows online snits knows that Violet Blue doesn't take criticism well. Beyond a touchy ego, though, what's with the victim mentality and inability to accept even valid, constructive criticism?
Well, pro-porn activists start with an acceptable premise, rightly asserting that sexuality is still repressed in our culture. Sure, we can access idealized, airbrushed, fetishized image of sex presented in porn. But women's sexuality, particularly a liberated and honest sexuality, is curiously absent from scene. Honestly, I don't know exactly what that would look like. I don't think anyone does.
The sexuality we do see expressed throughout our culture and particularly in porn is still predominantly phallocentric. It's the "Samantha syndrome," where being a sexually liberated woman means acting like a man. Because only men are free to express themselves sexually--and a narrow, masculine sexuality, at that--that's the only model we have for what a sexually liberated woman might look like. I guess pro-porn folks believe that protecting this fictional "sexual freedom" is more important than trying to imagine new sexual options.
For example, they could support sexual freedom by pressuring the porn industry to feature more diverse performers. They could try to get porn producers to treat performers more humanely by offering better pay, benefits, and working conditions. They could try to discourage the production of Max Hardcore-type gross-out porn. But instead, they aim their vitriol at academic organizations like Stop Porn Culture. Because pro-porn folks so value "sexual freedom," they interpret anti-porn activists, not the huge porn industry that now largely defines what is sexually attractive in our culture, as oppressive.
Why don't they consider the many other ways sexual freedom is being threatened, like
- abstinence-only sex ed. policies
- rampant photoshopping that creates unrealistic images of the (usually) female body wherever we look
- how sexual difference, like sexual orientation or polyamory or consensual BDSM, is still constructed as deviance?
Or maybe it is all about money. Perhaps "oppressed" pro-porn advocates protest so loudly because rising anti-porn sentiment would eat into their profits. In a clear example of pro-porn's symbiosis with the porn industry, one of the winners of Blue's "Our Porn, Ourselves" video contest is herself a porn star. Blue, too, has an economic incentive to generate interest in porn and inspire people to defend it. Writing a book on porn and having porn sites advertising on one's homepage likely encourage a more zealous defense. I'm not sure anti-porn academics have any such financial incentive, as anti-porn forces (especially feminist ones) do not have a wealthy and powerful political lobby or millions of willing consumers, unlike the porn industry.
If you're riding the coat tales of a $10 billion business, I suppose you might want to cultivate the appearance of oppression. It certainly makes for better press. After all, who would listen to the pro-porn argument if they prefaced it by acknowledging the prevalence of porn and the strength of the industry? And Violet Blue craves coverage. I guess shouting oppression garners attention while obscuring that unconditional, uncritical support for porn, rather than being sexually liberated, is merely anti-intellectual and money-grubbing.
Perhaps pro-porn folks have even more in common with Tea Partiers and Sarah Palin than I'd thought.
(Thanks, Kristie, for the dialogue that evolved into this post!)
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Violet Blue Versus Stop Porn Culture: Part 2, Anti-Social Networking
Blue's campaign against Stop Porn Culture has made effective use of social media to gather support for her pro-porn cause. Sure, everyone knows one can do marvelous things with Twitter these days. But who, exactly, is she reaching?
One of Blue's recent tweets was, "lesson: how NOT to be a rank f*cking amateur #1: make sure your anti-porn con has its Twitter account before event." Great advice IF your anti-porn con wants to reach people via Twitter. However, none of the professional, academic conferences I attend have Twitter accounts, nor are they "rank f*cking amateur" events, either. Such conferences do appeal to people who don't live and die by Twitter, though. Disinterest in communicating in 140-character blurbs doesn't make the anti-porn side less credible.
Consider the conference context. Stop Porn Culture conference presenters are academics from disciplines including philosophy, medicine, and sociology who have been brought together by their concern over pornography. Sure, one might surmise that there's a touch of ivory-tower-ness, that these folks who breath the rarefied air of academia daily are "out of touch" with the real world. That might be the case. However, it's important to note that their work on pornography has different parameters than what Blue is doing. It makes sense that they use more traditional channels of communication.
So, they're not as concerned with how pretty their Web site is, how many followers or fans they have, whether they're on Twitter, or how much user-produced content they can inspire. Instead, these anti-porn feminists study the actual subject of pornography, not how many people love porn. That's basically what Blue's video contest proves: people love porn. Well, file that under "water also wet" news. The numbers regarding how much porn is out there and how frequently it is viewed have already told that story. People like porn? No shit. Porn producers are exquisitely attuned to supply and demand, and the demand is high. Further, as Sarah Palin's book sales and Tea Party gatherings and Fox News ratings have shown, a bunch of people liking something doesn't mean that thing is unassailably good and right, or that smart people shouldn't question it. Porn is no exception.
I question whether the tools Blue uses: her blog, Twitter, and anti-conference Web pages are any less out of touch than the other side. She's preaching to her wired chorus, essentially, and in the process ignores academics who ply their trade primarily in the great big world offline: in classrooms, laboratories, universities, academic journals, and academic conferences. Their preferred media are NOT the same in terms of publication standards, either: journals and conferences involve peer review, whereas blogs require no such moderation (lucky for me!). That's fine, though, because they're speaking to different audiences with differing agendas.
But Blue implies that savvy use of social media somehow lends her argument credence, and that is not true. As I tell my students, "Any idiot can have a Web site, and many do." A quick glance through YouTube comments demonstrates that saying something online doesn't imbue the message with merit. It's up to the audience to evaluate the credibility of any argument, regardless of the medium used to deliver it. I'm finding Blue's argument to be prettily and widely disseminated but ultimately unconvincing as it perpetuates stupid stereotypes and "reasons" via logical fallacy.
Next time... the victim mentality
One of Blue's recent tweets was, "lesson: how NOT to be a rank f*cking amateur #1: make sure your anti-porn con has its Twitter account before event." Great advice IF your anti-porn con wants to reach people via Twitter. However, none of the professional, academic conferences I attend have Twitter accounts, nor are they "rank f*cking amateur" events, either. Such conferences do appeal to people who don't live and die by Twitter, though. Disinterest in communicating in 140-character blurbs doesn't make the anti-porn side less credible.
Consider the conference context. Stop Porn Culture conference presenters are academics from disciplines including philosophy, medicine, and sociology who have been brought together by their concern over pornography. Sure, one might surmise that there's a touch of ivory-tower-ness, that these folks who breath the rarefied air of academia daily are "out of touch" with the real world. That might be the case. However, it's important to note that their work on pornography has different parameters than what Blue is doing. It makes sense that they use more traditional channels of communication.
So, they're not as concerned with how pretty their Web site is, how many followers or fans they have, whether they're on Twitter, or how much user-produced content they can inspire. Instead, these anti-porn feminists study the actual subject of pornography, not how many people love porn. That's basically what Blue's video contest proves: people love porn. Well, file that under "water also wet" news. The numbers regarding how much porn is out there and how frequently it is viewed have already told that story. People like porn? No shit. Porn producers are exquisitely attuned to supply and demand, and the demand is high. Further, as Sarah Palin's book sales and Tea Party gatherings and Fox News ratings have shown, a bunch of people liking something doesn't mean that thing is unassailably good and right, or that smart people shouldn't question it. Porn is no exception.
I question whether the tools Blue uses: her blog, Twitter, and anti-conference Web pages are any less out of touch than the other side. She's preaching to her wired chorus, essentially, and in the process ignores academics who ply their trade primarily in the great big world offline: in classrooms, laboratories, universities, academic journals, and academic conferences. Their preferred media are NOT the same in terms of publication standards, either: journals and conferences involve peer review, whereas blogs require no such moderation (lucky for me!). That's fine, though, because they're speaking to different audiences with differing agendas.
But Blue implies that savvy use of social media somehow lends her argument credence, and that is not true. As I tell my students, "Any idiot can have a Web site, and many do." A quick glance through YouTube comments demonstrates that saying something online doesn't imbue the message with merit. It's up to the audience to evaluate the credibility of any argument, regardless of the medium used to deliver it. I'm finding Blue's argument to be prettily and widely disseminated but ultimately unconvincing as it perpetuates stupid stereotypes and "reasons" via logical fallacy.
Next time... the victim mentality
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Violet Blue Versus Stop Porn Culture: Part 1
We need more dialogue between pro-porn and anti-porn feminists. As someone who has enjoyed porn, respects sex workers, and embraces gender and sexual difference, I identify more with "pro-sex" or "sex-positive" feminists than I do anti-porn activists. Although I respect the contributions of both, I prefer Pat Califia to Andrea Dworkin.
However, I cannot accept that porn is unquestionably a good thing. Porn is a business, and as with any business, I think we need to be critical consumers. Any business that uses women's bodies as its raw material should be particularly suspect for feminists. It's hard to see the sort of women who would never stoop to shopping at Wal-Mart uncritically defending the porn industry in the name of sexual freedom. Would the same argument work if I tried to defend shopping at Wal-Mart in the name of price-rollback freedom?
Anti-porn feminists aren't as prolific as they used to be, either. Among third-wavers, it's way cooler to identify as a "pro-sex" or "sex-positive" feminist. However, among anti-porn forces, Stop Porn Culture is one of the better known organizations, and their conference is coming up this month.
Well, sex-blogger Violet Blue is pissed. Sure, I understand her pro-sex orientation, and the title of her book The Smart Girl's Guide to Porn indicates her attitude toward pornography. In a perfect world, I share that attitude. But we don't live in such a sexually liberated utopia. And as feminists, we are not wrong to question pornography's impact, good and bad, on our culture.
Upon learning of the upcoming conference, Blue decided to wage a pro-porn campaign in response, encouraging pro-porn folks to make short vids about their love of porn to win prizes. Because of her Web presence, she's managed to garner quite a response in the short time she's known about the conference.
Initially, I was taken aback by her sudden outrage. Anyone even cursorily familiar with anti-porn feminism would know about Stop Porn Culture. I wondered how a feminist who makes her living writing about sex, who has written a book on porn, wouldn't have her finger on the pulse of the opposition. Violet's "discovery" of the conference was old news to anyone familiar with the debate.
Unfortunately, the aim of Blue's pro-porn campaign has not been to create dialogue or even to present an opposing perspective. Instead, it has been yet another attempt to construct anti-porn feminists as hopelessly naive, culturally and technologically backward, and generally oppressive to the clearly smarter and more liberated sex-positive feminists. Here's her film introducing the pro-porn video contest:
Her tone of derision is evident throughout, but one highlight is her calling anti-porn activists "douchebags." That certainly elevates the conversation, doesn't it?
I wonder, though...
Does Blue seriously believe anti-porn activists can even make a dent in the veritable tidal wave of pornography currently available? Seriously, anti-porn forces can't force your porn-loving ass "back in the closet" (a questionable appropriation of LGBT terminology). They can't make pornography disappear from the Web. Porn is a fact of modern American life.
But then condescension toward feminists concerned about the impact of porn on our culture is easier than actually listening to them and responding thoughtfully and respectfully. Saying "hooray for porn" uncritically is more popular than questioning it.
I am a feminist who is sex-positive and pro-porn, under certain circumstances. But I resent Violet Blue and others with condescending, hypocritical attitudes toward the opposition being my compatriots.
More on this campaign next time...
However, I cannot accept that porn is unquestionably a good thing. Porn is a business, and as with any business, I think we need to be critical consumers. Any business that uses women's bodies as its raw material should be particularly suspect for feminists. It's hard to see the sort of women who would never stoop to shopping at Wal-Mart uncritically defending the porn industry in the name of sexual freedom. Would the same argument work if I tried to defend shopping at Wal-Mart in the name of price-rollback freedom?
Anti-porn feminists aren't as prolific as they used to be, either. Among third-wavers, it's way cooler to identify as a "pro-sex" or "sex-positive" feminist. However, among anti-porn forces, Stop Porn Culture is one of the better known organizations, and their conference is coming up this month.
Well, sex-blogger Violet Blue is pissed. Sure, I understand her pro-sex orientation, and the title of her book The Smart Girl's Guide to Porn indicates her attitude toward pornography. In a perfect world, I share that attitude. But we don't live in such a sexually liberated utopia. And as feminists, we are not wrong to question pornography's impact, good and bad, on our culture.
Upon learning of the upcoming conference, Blue decided to wage a pro-porn campaign in response, encouraging pro-porn folks to make short vids about their love of porn to win prizes. Because of her Web presence, she's managed to garner quite a response in the short time she's known about the conference.
Initially, I was taken aback by her sudden outrage. Anyone even cursorily familiar with anti-porn feminism would know about Stop Porn Culture. I wondered how a feminist who makes her living writing about sex, who has written a book on porn, wouldn't have her finger on the pulse of the opposition. Violet's "discovery" of the conference was old news to anyone familiar with the debate.
Unfortunately, the aim of Blue's pro-porn campaign has not been to create dialogue or even to present an opposing perspective. Instead, it has been yet another attempt to construct anti-porn feminists as hopelessly naive, culturally and technologically backward, and generally oppressive to the clearly smarter and more liberated sex-positive feminists. Here's her film introducing the pro-porn video contest:
Her tone of derision is evident throughout, but one highlight is her calling anti-porn activists "douchebags." That certainly elevates the conversation, doesn't it?
I wonder, though...
- How does misrepresenting the anti-porn side's argument and mocking their perspectives contribute to the discussion?
- How is condescension a "sex-positive" attitude?
- Isn't it hypocritical of pro-porn activists to parrot the dominant culture's attitudes about porn while portraying themselves as oppressed sex radicals?
Does Blue seriously believe anti-porn activists can even make a dent in the veritable tidal wave of pornography currently available? Seriously, anti-porn forces can't force your porn-loving ass "back in the closet" (a questionable appropriation of LGBT terminology). They can't make pornography disappear from the Web. Porn is a fact of modern American life.
But then condescension toward feminists concerned about the impact of porn on our culture is easier than actually listening to them and responding thoughtfully and respectfully. Saying "hooray for porn" uncritically is more popular than questioning it.
I am a feminist who is sex-positive and pro-porn, under certain circumstances. But I resent Violet Blue and others with condescending, hypocritical attitudes toward the opposition being my compatriots.
More on this campaign next time...
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