This week I will be posting about one of the most controversial topics within feminism, pornography, from the Greek pornographia, literally “the depiction of whores.”
The phrase, “the depiction of whores” is a little more charged than “nudity” or “erotica” for sure. This difference speaks to the feminist critique of pornography, which is not puritanical or anti-sex as sometimes claimed, but rather generally anti-degradation, anti-objectification, and anti-dehumanization in goal.
To start us off, I was recently reading a news item about Alison Bechdel, the genius writer/cartoonist of “Dykes to Watch Out For” (check out her official site here), hands down one of my all-time favorite comics. The item was related to her recent autobiographical comic, “Fun House“, which was pulled from some classrooms due to a few panels portraying lesbian sex.
Here’s Bechdel’s response from an interview, which is just spot-on.
“This sort of bullshit will pretty much permanently fuck up any attempt of feminists to start a reasonable discussion about why so many men are attracted to a flavor of pornography that is as much, if not more, about humiliating and hating women as it is about getting men off. Which is not even all porn, but certainly doesn’t encapsulate novels like this.
Hell, we’re stuck in definitional hell, with the right wingers defining porn as “any material that portrays sexuality in a way that I don’t approve of”, and most everyone else in liberal land defining it as, “sexually explicit materials designed to sexually arouse the reader/viewer”, and radical feminists defining it as “photos and videos where the humiliation and pain of the woman is considered an essential part of the erotic experience for the viewer”. Which is, to be fair to radical feminists, the majority of the material available through your internet channels or “Girls Gone Wild” videos.
I’m not getting into the discussion of censorship from feminists, since it’s a red herring, since the number of feminists willing to talk censorship is a minority of a minority.”
Right on! Stay tuned readers, more on this topic soon!
