You know..having faced and faced down the excuses of arguments from antipornography feminists about the innate evil of porn, prostitution, and their basic beliefs about how overtly sexual consensual behavior and media are the root of all rape and misogyny and patriarchy against women, you'd think that I'd be underwhelmed by them....but today I found one of the most absolutely looniest arguments ever put forth against women who consensually and willingly do porn and engage in sex...and not surprisingly, it comes from none other than the fine folks at
Den of the Biting Beaver, which seems to specialize in the art of excessive shaming, bullying, and twisting facts to support their ideological biases against sex that doesn't meet their standards of "morality".
For those who are unfamiliar with this blog; Biting Beaver is co-produced by a duo of a verrry radical antiporn feminist (known as BB) and her male partner (Dim), who use their blog as a jumping point for promoting some of the most extreme antipornography feminist theory under the guise of "left" theory. To them, any and ALL men who masturbate even once to an act of watching a woman enjoy sex (and any woman who engages in such behavior, too) is inherently a tool of the "patriarchy" who perpetuates the total rape and murder of all women...if not actual virtual rapists themselves.
I happened to lurk upon this gem of an essay by accident; when my pal K of
Bitch Lab decided to
go off on another of their posts calling for the authorities to seek out and destroy the evil men who.....do Google searches for "raping young boys" (In their eyes, apparantly, that is the total equivalent of actual boy rape...never mind the lack of action; and totally worthy of shredding the Constitutional rights of privacy and presumption of innocence until proven guilty.) This particular rant is actually an extension of
an earlier thread BB posted where she established her belief that women who opposed her personal views on porn were merely either paid-off hacks of the male patriarchy or liars who weren't aware of their essential oppression..or simply in denial of the ultimate truth of porn's innate depravity against women as a group.
The link on the title goes to the full essay; I will only give the "highlights", as well as a rebuttal to some of the more whack points where needed. If you want to hear more of BB and Dim's madness; they have a listing of all their posts on porn
here; it will either enlighten or enrage you how some people can become so freakin' clueless and blind when it comes to respecting other's sexuality.
Let us begin at...well, we'll skip the beginning and get to the good stuff.
Women and Patriarchy part II
[...]
I think we can all agree that men who rape and men who abuse are the ones who are truly responsible for their behavior.
Well....at least we start on the same page..if only for a sentence.
There is an argument that prostitutes and porn stars 'allow' men to think that what they're doing is fine and dandy. After all, if a porn star shows that she loves anal sex then she must be talking men into believing it's acceptable...right?
Well, that..and the fact that a lot of women (and most of them NOT in porn, either) really do dig anal sex, and willingly, safely, and pleasurably engage in it. Do the names
Violet Blue and
Tristan Taormino come to mind, BB?? Oh, I forgot....they're feminists who don't meet your antiporn criteria, and THEY ACTUALLY LIKE SEX WITH SOME MEN. Never mind..nothing to see here..continue rant.
Here's the problem with that. If that were the case, if a woman could, by sheer virtue of what she says or does, talk a man into believing anything, then the opposite would also hold true. We would be able to just simply tell men that porn hurts women, we'd be able to show them the stories of X-porn stars like Linda Lovelace and they'd bow their heads and agree that women DON'T like being gagged by dicks. The problem of pornography and the sex industry would just disappear.
Obviously, that doesn't happen. Or rather, it happens very rarely and in isolated incidents. Men continue to point to the JJ's of the world to prop up porn while entirely negating or openly scoffing at the stories of Linda Lovelace.
Ah, yes...bring back the old Linda Marchiano/Linda Lovelace/Linda Lee Tracy analogy, and import the modern-day legend Jenna Jameson ("JJ") as the opposite symbol/strawwomman for everything that epitomizes the evil of porn. Nice job..except for the fact that Lovelace before her untimely death last year repudiated much of what antiporners said about her being abused by porn, actually focusing her blame on her abuse on her ex husband Chuck Traynor. She even went as far of accusing antiporn feminists of...
...exploiting her history and, above all, not paying her as they promised to do.
The real problem, I say, isn't that men are so pliable that they will believe what any woman says; the problem for BB is that there are so many women (like JJ) who refuse to reduce themselves to eunuchs and reduce their personal sex lives to fit the antiporn microcode. In short, the problem is reality getting in the way of antiporn rhetoric. Of course, the response of BB is simple and clear: change the reality to reflect the rhetoric...or at least demonize those who don't accept her "reality".
Which leads me to the only conclusion I can come to: Men are only going to be convinced that someone likes have 12 inches stuffed up her rectum if they ALREADY want to believe it.
We find that in every other area, men don't need to have ANY justification for believing that women just love something they would hate. For example- When women remain silent about housework and just do it without saying anything, negative or positive, men believe that women just LOVE housework. "Aww, don't pick that up, your grandmother enjoys cleaning! It makes her feel wanted". We've probably all heard some variation of this.
Now, aside from the obvious stereotyping of men as avoiding domestic work; isn't there something totally stunning about BB's rationalization that men who get off on seeing women do anal sex consensually (whether with a 12" dick or a 8" or a 6" or siimply a dildo or a butt plug vibrator) are simply misogynists who want to see women maimed and hurt??? And what about those few women who CAN take a 12" dick up their ass without any pain or suffering...I guess that they just have to fess up and admit that they are really victims of anal rape, and reveal their innate suffering for the pleasure of dirty old men, even if they aren't hurt or suffering at all!!! Or maybe they're just ACTING like they really like it...in reality, they are just hiding the physical, psychological, and social injuries they endured??
By the way. BB..you may have missed this in your righteous rant, but there is no requirement that any women working in porn actually take a 12" dick anywhere...or even do anal sex to begin with. Many performers get by pretty well without even having to perform one such scene..unless they really want to. But I guess that their voices don't matter, because they are stupid victims of the MAN who owns them, perhaps???
Continue, please...
Or, in the case of sex: "Well, she doesn't complain about X! Therefore she must like it! If she didn't like it she'd tell me!!"
But of course, even when women scream vehemently that they DON'T like it, according to men, they STILL like it. Another example: "Well I know you were fighting and stuff, I just thought that you get turned on by the rough stuff" I know of at least one blogger whom I visit on a daily basis who was told this very thing after her sexual assault. And *I* was told this by my X husband after he raped me. He thought I was fighting because I wanted to ‘play rough’.
So, let's break this down. If a woman says she loves something then she must love it. If a woman says nothing, good or bad, then she must love it. If a woman says she hates something then she must just love violence.
Uhhhh...maybe a stone-cold rapist may not care much about what a woman feels about his violent invasion of her (otherwise, he wouldn't attempt to force himself upon his victim, now wouldn't he??)..but how in the HELL does that account for the overwhelming majority of conventional consumers and viewers of modern porn??? Or maybe BB's definition of "violence" has seeped out of its box to include everything from solo masturbation to girl/girl action ("lesbian sex") to group sex to facials..or anything else considered too disgusting or unseemly for impressionable young girls' eyes..in other words, any and all sex acts not deemed acceptably "feminist"???
[...]
So, insofar as porn stars being culpable for male behavior. It's tempting as hell to say they are, but then, we're assigning WAY more power to women than they actually have. We're saying that a woman's voice is able to convince a man of something just by virtue of saying it. The entire theory would hold water if it went the other way as well, but we can see it doesn't. It has to work both ways, a women ALSO has to be able to convince men of things they don’t want to believe just as frequently as the other for this to be a viable theory.
At the worst, the prostitutes and JJ's are allowing men to convince themselves, but again, we go back to the sticky fact that men will always convince themselves of something they want to believe anyway, the argument becomes void. I hope that made sense? It's still early and I'm working on another post as well as getting ready to test the kids.
And that explains exactly why women like Jenna Jameson, Nina Hartley, Susie Bright, and other "sex-positive" (oh, beg your pardon, BB..."abuse-positive", "male-centered") women absolutely MUST be purged from the feminist movement post haste..they are making it real hard for REAL radicalfeminists like BB to sell their point that porn-centered "patriarchial sex" is only the vehicle to which domination and rape of women passes through. Without these traitorous sluts and whores around, it would be much easier to shame and humiliate and scare men into abstinence...errrr, to convince them to give up their erections and embrace the beauty of radicalfeminist "sexual intimacy".
But here's the best part of the essay that really hit home for me:
Anyway, onto my next point, we also have the issue of workers in the sex-industry making WOMEN feel like they should be doing X, Y or Z. And this is a little more credible. Do women like JJ make other women feel like they should be doing what THEY'RE doing and liking it?
I suppose that they do. I know that when I used to see the women in porn I always felt pretty dysfunctional that I didn't enjoy what they seemed to be enjoying.
But why did I feel that way? Why did I feel so dysfunctional about the size of my boobs? Or my dislike of anal sex?
Because the men around me made me feel like I should be doing these things.
When I was constantly reminded that the man I was with wanted X or Y it made me feel deficient.
Here's another parallel. Let's assume I'm in the store with my S.O. We're walking and I look over and see a girl with blue hair and a zebra striped fur coat. "Wow" I think to myself, "Blue hair? Hmm, must be she likes it" I shrug and move on.
Later on my S.O. says, "Did you see that girl with the blue hair?” I nod and he continues, "God, I LOVE blue hair!" he exclaims, "Blue hair turns me on so much!" And, as he's speaking he unzips his pants and begins to masturbate.
You see? It's not the blue hair that I'm bothered over. It's the fact that my S.O. is now drooling over blue hair. Then, the self-doubt begins to creep in. Now, if you only hear the blue hair thing once you're probably ok, but if that man begins talking about blue hair often then a woman, any woman, will start to feel self-conscious and well, fucked up for NOT having blue hair.
If every man she's with goes on and on about blue hair and then, she sees blue haired porn stars it's very easy to equate the porn star with the anger.
It's not the fact that she has blue hair that bothers us. It's the fact that all the men around her are telling her that blue hair is the most erotic and amazing thing ever. Coupled with the designation of women as sex class and the overwhelming idea that women are force fed from birth that they must be a sexual whirlwind for their mates and well, obviously we're up against a pretty tough nut.
Of course, the question of whether or not it's the fault of the woman for being so insecure about herself that she feels so threatened by the sight of her man even thinking about another woman in such a way never enters BB's equation...I mean, if he was that obsessed with blue-haired porn stars (or simply other sexy blue-haired women who don't do porn), then what is he doing with you, for Goddess' sake??
And a special tip of the hat to the notion of "women..force fed from birth that they must be a sexual whirlwind for their mates.."..gee, like the dominant Religious Right's dictates about women being fruitful and making lots of babies for God/Allah/Yahweh..or the present Bush's administration's attempts to promote porn's obvious effects in promoting male supremacy..by abolishing it off the face of the earth???
The simple fact is that porn is made for men. Porn is about violence, abuse and degradation. Everything in porn is designed to be violent and abusive and men are being trained to link violence with sex. It happens on TV on a daily basis. We don’t blame the actress who portrays the dead woman in the abandoned lot for the dude who decides to kill someone after viewing the program. She’s just the actress; we know that the REAL power lay in the network or the producers of the show.
In porn it’s much the same. And, you can bet your asses that if we were raising hell about the True Crime shows that the actresses who were in the show would be standing up and saying that they thought the show was harmless.
Except that the "True Crime" shows don't show real women enjoying "degrading" or "violent" sex like porn does, and the actresses in such movies aren't as pliable to "the crimes of men" like porn actresses like "JJ" are.
If we’re leveling blame, real blame and not just frustration (which is inevitable I suspect) then we need to focus our sites on the makers of the porn the production agencies etc.
Even if they are woman-owned, or don't even involve sex with men (such as On Our Backs or softcore-oriented like Danni Ashe's Danni's Hard Drive)..it doesn't matter to activists like BB; if they feed male erections or improper wet panties, they promote degradation and violence, and they are part of the patriarchy. QED.
Next, BB reveals a bit of her own history....
Now, for me personally, do I believe that women in porn are perpetuating a cycle that is bad for women? Yes I do. Do I think that their level of perpetuation rises to the level of blame? No, not in a million years. Just as I never would have believed that my son was in any way responsible for the abuse of his classmates, I cannot, in good conscience, believe that a porn star is responsible for my abuse. Even if she appears to condone that abuse, even if she appears to even support that abuse. My son laughed as he was being thrown into garbage cans and having the lid thrown shut on them. He laughed when they hit him with books and pushed him to the floor. He laughed when they took his money or his pens, or his book bag. He laughed and said, “No, it’s not abuse” the entire time.
Ok, I’m on a role with the bully analogy, try to follow me here for a little bit:
Now, what if those bullies looked at my son and said, “Well, it must be that everyone loves to be thrown into garbage cans!” would my son bear responsibility for those bullies then going and throwing other kids into the trash can? No, I don’t think he would. In the end, the BULLIES decided to toss him into a garbage can and his laughing acceptance was simply a good reason for them to do it, hell, even if he protested it with gusto it they wouldn’t have given a shit and done it anyway.
My son wouldn’t be responsible for the subsequent abuse of every other person in the school. And what if we found out that the school not only allowed the behavior but even paid those bullies to perform those acts, and that, perhaps, they even paid my son to be abused, then the school is where our anger would turn.
Most of us would say that my son was a pawn, and while there would most likely be frustration and anger that my son didn’t seem to mind the abuse and would even present his broken and pained body to the camera and say, “See, it didn’t hurt THAT bad!” people would most likely stare in shocked horror and tut-tut and be frustrated but they’d see who the REAL culprits were. Now, what if we dug a bit deeper and found that my son had lived in an abusive household where he was hit and beaten and thrown around?
I suspect that the anger would be directed right where it belonged. To the school and to the bullies. In no way would my child be blamed for the abuse of the other people in the school even though there would be many who would be frustrated at his seeming laughing enjoyment of the abuse.
I believe that there would be no disagreement that the treatment of BB's son was not just deployable, but outright brutal, and would earn the perpetrators of such abuse a well deserved ass-kicking by any decent person. But, again, how that compares to the sight of men masturbating to the sight of a woman seeming to enthusiastically enjoy anal sex or group sex is a bit of a stretch...unless you were of the belief that ALL porn leads directly to rape and brutality of women, that is. But your own mileage may vary.
So, do I believe that those in the sex-industry play a role in the cycle of women being abused in this society? Yes, I believe that they are a part of it, just as I believed that my son was a part of it. Does that overshadow, in any way, the blame I foist onto the companies like Vivid or the men who are just looking for a way to get paid for hurting women? Hell no. These men in porn have a FAR larger role to play in the subsequent abuse of the women who are harmed in every tier of the porn monster.
How can I level the same amount of blame onto a woman who bleeds from the rectum for 3 days after making a gonzo film? I can’t.
There is frustration. There is a lot of frustration. There is frustration at their apparent blindness, at their support of something that is abusive and degrading not just to them, but to lots of women. But that frustration pales in comparison to those who pay her to be abused. That group of people who offer her money to be abused and then tell her she’s empowered for doing it.
But, of course, it's really not THEIR fault that the stupid sluts who betray and sell out their own gender don't want to understand how they perpetuate the sex crimes of men against women by willingly taking in so many dicks (and most of them, contrary to BB's assertion, without having to face the suffering of bleeding and perforated rectums afterward). No, ma'am..not their fault indeed...they are just the puppets of the male rapist puppetteer who really puts words into their mouths that abuse is pleasure; degradation is consent; and rape is consensual. (/sarcasm :-)
Am I perfect? No, not by a long shot. I had a self-proclaimed prostitute on this site whom I ultimately banned (she was banned because she was foul and nasty and appeared to have little concern for the rules of this site) before she was banned however, I told her that she was sacrificing women just so she could get paid. I reminded her of the countless women who have been harmed by her ‘choice’, I told her that she was selfish for her part in allowing this cycle to continue.
Do I blame her for the rapes of other women? No. Do I blame her for the actions of men? No. Do I blame her for keeping blinders on? Yes, I suppose I do, particularly when faced with numbers and statistics and studies on the issue. When I placed the information before her she looked the other way and said it was wrong. With that said, it is still a blame that is the same sort of ‘blame’ I put on my son, my son who had been trained from a very early age to accept abuse as a matter of course, my son who tried to deal with his abuse by the bullies by saying he liked it. And, to be perfectly honest, that’s not really ‘blame’ at all. When a woman grows in a society which tells her, from the day she is pushed from her mothers womb, that she is only powerful when being the epitome of the male fantasy, can we expect much more?
Well..she who has the gold and the control of the blog makes the rules, and BB's entitled to hers..though I'd expect that the "self-identified prostitute's" real sin was that she just got sick and tired of "feminists" like BB totally denying her humanity and self-will and reducing her profession (and the men and women who embody it) to their worst stereotypes and self-invented pinatas..and she let it be know in such "unsisterly" terms.
And BB finally concludes her essay with this nice unsolicited psychological profile of Jenna that would be so intriguing..especially to JJ herself:
Perhaps we ‘should’ expect more, because, from the outside, it appears that the JJ’s of the world have far more clout and power than the $5.00 a hand job prostitute on the street. Certainly it appears that she has more autonomy, but I suspect that on the inside, behind the walls of her big fancy home, behind the blonde sexbot façade, she is a terrified little girl who is still clutching that Sword of Power. She just hasn’t seen that she’s the jester yet.
The men calling her a ‘slut’ and a ‘whore’ however, are fully aware that they are in power, they’re fully aware of their status and fully aware of the degrading nature of her ‘empowerment’. These men are where we should be foisting the majority of the blame. These men and Vivid and the other companies and men who write the storylines and spend time thinking up the most degrading things they can do to that woman. These men who pay a woman to submit to abuse are the men we should be holding far more accountable than the pitiful shell that is JJ and others of her ilk.
Remember, now...BB doesn't blame Jenna herself for being such a "slut" and a "whore" and for making lots and lots of money for herself "degrading" herself and her "sex class" by making porn movies (none of which, BTW, include any bit of violent anal sex or violent sex (the mild BDSM of "Jenna Loves Pain" aside), or even, for most of her career, sex with any man other than her husband...again, that's all the fault of the patriarchy and the men who jerk off over her. Yes..such a pitiful shell she is, for being her own woman and actually liking the feel of a penis in her vagina, and not being afraid to show her love for being "degraded". If I wasn't a sex radical feminist and a Leftist; I'd detect a bit of jealousy on BB's part that she doesn't have anywhere near the money that Jenna makes, or the independence that Jenna has...but that would be extremely unseemly of me, since that's really BB's own business.
Do I get mad at women? Yes, I do. Do I feel frustration and anger when I drive to the big town and see prostitutes on the streets? You bet your ass I do. But when I stop to think about it I realize that the anger is coming from a place of sadness, not from a place of hatred. Hatred is evoked in me at the men buying bodies, the men running the show, the men looking up the foulest things I have ever had the displeasure of seeing in my life. THAT anger, that raw, fierce undying rage, is placed onto the men. The anger for the women is an emotion born of intense sadness. When I write articles about rape and sexual assault I hear the screams of the women we’ve lost and make no mistake about it, we’ve lost JJ to the crimes of men. I hear her screams just as I hear the screams of the women who write me on an almost daily basis. And the part that makes me the saddest is that she doesn’t realize and doesn’t hear that she’s still screaming.
I hope that clarifies my position a little more.
THAT, Dark Daughta and K, is pure unadulterated Sexual Conservatism (more like Sexual Fascism to me) run wild, masquerading as pseudo-feminist Left theory. And, in my not so humble view..it is also the biggest steaming pile of bullshit thrown at overtly sexual women this side of Kathleen Barry's "Female Sexual Slavery" rendition of opponents of antiporn theory as part of the "male leftist" plot to rape and abuse women.
Now pardon me while I take a long, slow bath with Clorox to wipe the sewage off me....and pop in a Jenna tape as an antidote to this nonsense.
The usual feedback is welcome, of course....peaceout..
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