All my life I've heard feminists say pornography promotes violence against women. It “commodifies” women by reducing them to body parts. Treats them as sex objects. And, of course, the same complaint is made in spades about prostitution.
Compare that with Greta’s profile (see below). It is only demeaning to women when straight men commodify women? It’s not demeaning to women as long as lesbians commodify women?
Greta Christina has been writing professionally since 1989, on topics including atheism, sexuality and sex-positivity, LGBT issues, politics, culture, and whatever crosses her mind. She is on the speakers's bureaus of the Secular Student Alliance and the Center for Inquiry. She is editor of the "Best Erotic Comics" anthology series, and of "Paying For It: A Guide by Sex Workers for Their Clients." Her writing has appeared in multiple magazines and newspapers, including Ms., Penthouse, Chicago Sun-Times, On Our Backs, and Skeptical Inquirer, and numerous anthologies, including "Everything You Know About God Is Wrong" and three volumes of "Best American Erotica." She lives in San Francisco with her wife, Ingrid.
"All my life of heard feminists say pornography promotes violence against women."
ReplyDeleteTypo, unless there is a category of "herd feminists" you had in mind.
She is a real piece of work. As you noted previously on this blog, I've been doing a series on her arguments against God, which are so very bad.
ReplyDeleteSteve, I will speak from personal experience: "Feminists" are divided on the porn issue.
ReplyDeleteI hit the feminist philosophers blog once, and - in the comments section discussing how jokes about rape are terrible, horrible, never funny, etc (even Daffy Duck raping Elmer Fudd!) - asked if pornography involving rape should be outlawed, or if people who have sexual fantasies involving rape should be regarded as mentally ill, troubled, or at least deserving of counseling.
It's anecdotal, but they stonewalled me. No one at the blog would condemn those things. (The 'rape jokes are horrible' article in question, I believe, was written by a woman active in the BDSM scene.)
Feminists are a strange bunch once you get to the actual intellectuals and academics.