Several misperceptions regarding what I have said and what I believe have been made in the comments sections of these blogs and this will hopefully serve to clarify those points. First, I do not believe that “porn is essentially and innately the foundation of women’s domination and “degradation” as one comment suggested. The comment in question also provided a link to an article of mine as evidence, which is curious since the article does not support the comment’s assertion. The article in question is The Misogynist Undercurrents of Abu Ghraib. The paragraph in the article that discusses porn reads as follows:
“The sexual nature of the torture also raises some significant issues that feminists need to address. Politicians and the media have found it disturbingly easy to label many of the images as pornography, as if it were just a matter of politically incorrect entertainment. When Arab-run websites posted photos that purported to show sexual abuse of Iraqi women by Coalition soldiers, they were summarily dismissed as fakes when it was discovered that they had also appeared on known pornography sites. One lawmaker commented that what occurred in the pictures he saw appeared to be consensual. Yet a member of the Military Police is quoted as saying that one of the female soldiers supposedly had sex “in a gang bang”. Other female soldiers have reported that they were photographed while showering without their permission by male soldiers and over 100 women soldiers have filed sexual assault complaints related to their duty in Iraq. While much pornography is non-consensual, clearly the acts that were photographically documented at Abu Ghraib go well beyond merely being pornographic.”
Porn is a manifestation of the objectification of women, not the root cause (although to the extent that people buy into the vision of women that porn portrays, it certainly contributes to the problem). When you objectify someone, that enables you to place that person in a position of ‘less than’ and to control and dominate them. When this dynamic occurs on a personal level, it allows for both verbal and physical abuse, economic abuse, etc. Interestingly, in the first chapter of Verbal Abuse, Patricia Evans points out that the concept of verbal abuse on a personal level is also true on a global level:
“Power Over is one model of how the world is believed to work. Someone who believes in Power Over expects to get what he or she wants through the use of Power Over another. Our Western civilization was founded on Power Over. Now as a civilization, we have tremendous Power Over the earth and its peoples and resources. We have the power to wipe out our world.”
One thing I have noticed is that most of this discussion has focused on porn as a form of pleasure. But as Abu Ghraib taught us, it can also be used as a weapon (see the article above) as well as Abu Ghraib: A Global Family Portrait by Jana Prykryl . It is also important to note that porn has long been used by military forces to rev up the troops and to keep them happy while they are far away from home.
The following comments from Pythag also requires some clarification:
“…Marshall makes not even the slightest attempt to address these other possibilities. Her political analysis confuses (or equates) the problem of patriarchy with the more general problems of systems of domination. She makes blanket statements about “men” and “women” and what “women” experience as the result of the system imposed by “men.”
It is disingenuous to imply that patriarchy is actually something else. I have not said that what I am saying applies to every man or every woman. But it is absolutely essential that we recognize that most violence is committed by men, most porn is consumed by men, etc. It is essential that we name the problem and it is essential that men, regardless of whether they are consumers of porn, whether or not they commit violence themselves, take ownership of men’s violence against women. Until that happens, true partnership between men and women is not viable.
Similarly, Frederic’s comment that, “I bet there have been cases in the past where women have shot men for refusing to kiss them or for refusing any number of sexual acts.” misses the point. Most sexual violence is committed by men against women. Of course sometimes women commit sexual violence against women, but it is far less frequent and just because it occurs does not mitigate the need to solve the more predominant problem of male violence against women.
A few miscellaneous points–as Joe’s comment correctly surmised, I am not in favor of censoring porn or making it illegal simply because I don’t think it would be productive. I also appreciated JPodur’s comments about Born Into Brothels. I had not had the opportunity to further research the movie at the point that I mentioned it and Jpdhur’s information was very helpful. And I’d like to thank Lani for the corrected article link, my cut and paste skills sometimes leave something to be desired.
Finally, Shih Tzu and Wild Rider did not leave in a huff. They quit responding because when knowlegable feminists who are commenting on this blog started being referred to as, “filled to the brim with estrogen on a men-hating rampage”, further discourse was inappropriate. Both of these women have brought the wisdom of their experience and knowledge to this blog, and I am most grateful for their efforts.
Addenda: Y’all might be interested to note that this blog has been noticed elsewhere:
http://www.misbehaving.net/2005/03/where_did_the_a.html
Lucinda Marshall, who has published a host of articles about violence against women, has a new blog at ZNet: http://blog.zmag.org/bloggers/?blogger=marshall
When she blogged a brief comment on the ubiquity of porn and cited an article called “Addicted to Porn” (at http://www.citizensforethics.org/activities/campaign.php?view=31 ), literally hundreds of vicious comments were posted, so many that another ZNet blogger felt compelled to protest; and ZNet finally barred several posters.
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