"There are times when Jensen feels too eager to only see the evidence that supports his worldview, as opposed to being open to the contrary."

Eh, show me an author that doesn't do that.

I'm glad you posted on this. I've been interested in it but, I'm too scared to read the book, I admit. I'm well aware of the frightening porn out there, but, frankly, I don't want any more of it seared into my brain. Even the titles scare me sometimes.

I love that someone is attempting to understand the effect this kind of thing has on people.

I've never watched a porn movie. Not even 'just to see.' But I found Henry Miller in high school and I guess in some respects I never went back.

The helplessness of Jensen's perspective-- at least as you write it, haven't read the book (though I want to now)-- bothers me. Is the only solution to having nasty, misogynistic porn out there getting rid of masculinity? Really? How many people (men in particular!) even listen to what people are saying during these movies? Is there ever a man who's not ready for sex in one of these movies? I mean, it's a porn movie for heaven's sake!

I've often felt it's the hidden/backwater nature of the porn industry itself that brings in some of the problems in mainstream porn-- think about the difference between the stereotypical sex shop and a Good Vibrations store. Maybe the answer is to bring porn more into the mainstream-- I certainly think there's more 'woman-focused' and 'couple's videos' now than there were twenty years ago.

I did study pornography in college, and I've been avoiding literature on it ever since - it was a major overdose of creepiness. I'm glad you reviewed this book, though, because there are so few men who condemn porn this way; even male feminists often have a tendency to circumnavigate or exonerate porn from their criticisms. Even if you think Jensen goes overboard - isn't it refreshing?

I often find it somehow emboldening to read feminist writers who are even more rabid than I am. Many of us are so often tempering our anger and frustration at existing oppression and violence so that our opinions will be heard, digested, and respected - when sometimes, all you want to do growl and slaver. It's times like that I read Andrea Dworkin. She writes about pornography with refreshing vehemence.

From Courtney's summary, he seems to be addressing porn as a men's issue. I'm curious what the author makes of women who consume porn. I am female and occasionally view and enjoy pornography. I assume there are other women out there who view it. How do we fit into the theory?

Courtney-
But there have also been big changes in the way that women and men interact over the last few decades.

I haven't read Jensen's book yet, just the excerpt that Jessica posted earlier. But from what I understand of his argument, I think your point is a crucial one. Porn has been getting worse by Jensen's definition at the same time that the way women and men interact has been improving. I can't see how one can argue that porn is the root cause of sexism, given that correlation.

Another reviewer makes an even more trenchant point:

Robert Jensen's passion is reserved for visualizing women's sexual pain. Never once does he turn that passion the other direction to look at the possibilities for women's sexual pleasure. There is not, in the end, so much difference between Jensen and the most misogynist, exploitative porn director; neither can imagine the sexual role of men as being anything other than to fuck, nor can they imagine women's roles as being anything other than to be fucked. And that's why, regardless of my doubts about mainstream porn, I can never, never imagine aligning myself with Jensen and his ilk. Because at the heart of his arguments, I see the same misogynist bullshit that I want to excise from pornography.

I'm curious what the author makes of women who consume porn. I am female and occasionally view and enjoy pornography.

And how is he defining "porn"? Because popularly, the term seems to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. For example, I haven't ever seen an actual "porn" film (strictly made for the purpose of getting off) though of course I've seen some pretty explicit sex in mainstream movies. Insofar as those narratives give us certain expectations about gender roles and sex--while also being arousing--they're performing the same function as porn, in my mind.

I'm also curious--is his analysis confined to sexual depictions in film? When I'm in the mood, I tend to read erotic (pornographic?) literature, which I feel gives me more space for the imagination, and for personalizing the fantasy, so to speak. How would Jensen think about this sort of porn, and both women and men's interaction with it?

I guess I should just put the book on my "to read over Christmas break" list :).

Annajcook, the (excellent) review Mithras linked to says he only reviewed 'mainstream' video porn-- Seymour Butts and the like. Which leaves out a whole hell of a lot of material.

"I certainly think there's more 'woman-focused' and 'couple's videos' now than there were twenty years ago."

"Porn has been getting worse by Jensen's definition at the same time that the way women and men interact has been improving."

Bear with me here, 'cause this is going to sound weird: I think both points are correct.

(The following is in regards to live-action movie pornography only, and excludes gay male videos.)

I currently work in an adult store. Not only do I have to peruse the porn DVD shelves regularly, but I also get free rentals as an employee. So I've noticed some trends. One trend is towards making porn that appeals to both sexes, or to women specifically. I'd say that this now comprises 25-30% of the market. The other trend is towards making blatantly misogynist porn. And there are some movies which don't belong in either category.

It seems to me that there are two major attitudes among pornographers right now: one is, "Hey, there's a huge untapped market out there, why don't we make movies for them? Stuff that stands head and shoulders above all the rest?" And the other is, "Well, we and our fans have been labeled as woman-haters, so we might as well just come out with it."

The latter attitude is still disgustingly common, but the former one has gained significant ground, and that's heartening.

One more note: Couples' and women's porn tends to be better-produced and therefore a touch more costly. The owners of the store I'm at are, not to put too fine a point on it, undistinguishing skinflints. I suspect that they would happily stock only the cheap crap if it weren't for the fact that certain studios and directors are guaranteed sales.

ShifterCat-
Bear with me here, 'cause this is going to sound weird: I think both points are correct.

I don't think there's any contradiction there - the internet has just speeded up common business practices, market segmentation and product differentiation.

I've been studying porn from a feminist perspective since my freshman year in college, and did my honor's thesis on a feminist justification for the legal protection of pornography. Today, I work for a female-owned sex toy chain. Let's just say that this is an issue near and dear to my heart.

Taking in mind the book review and previous posts, the comment I feel most compelled to write is this: porn, for the majority of viewers, lives in a vacuum. More so than destructive behavior, it lends itself more often to spreading misinformation. (i.e., less enlightened men are usually surprised to learn that all women cannot ejaculate if they want to and that anal sex in porn is most often preceded by a thoroughly cleansing enema.)

Most of the men I have researched and encountered in my work who consume porn would never treat women as they see in porn; nor can they explain why watching a woman being sexually dominated in porn turns them on. Many researchers have tried and failed to make rational sense of sexual urges; it may be something we never fully understand.

I honestly don't think that the themes Jensen discovered are misogynistic. Porn is about sex and sex alone- both male and female libidos are heightened, just as the stars of these films often have unobtainable, exaggerated body shapes. There’s no such thing as gender equality in porn, nor should there be.

As a rape survivor who has had to reconcile her naturally high libido with a devastating act that occurred years ago, I can say with pretty strong conviction that there shouldn't be any fear in exploring pornography and the sexual impulses of men and women, however strange and "wrong" they may seem to be. Human sexuality is far too complicated and rarely politically correct.

I just finished Pornified by Pamela Pern, and I really liked it. Not quite as self-hating (since the author's a woman), but makes some similar conclusions. I thought I'd throw that out there, in case someone else wanted to read more about porn.

porn, for the majority of viewers, lives in a vacuum. More so than destructive behavior, it lends itself more often to spreading misinformation. (i.e., less enlightened men are usually surprised to learn that all women cannot ejaculate if they want to and that anal sex in porn is most often preceded by a thoroughly cleansing enema.)

How do these two statements work together, katiz? One the one hand you say porn lives in a vacuum and doesn't affect how men think about women. On the other hand, you point out two concrete examples of how porn does affect how men think about women sexually.

Thanks for that book review. I've seen the book mentioned and excerpted elsewhere and I didn't like the excerpt. But it is an interesting topic.\

I would urge those wanting to discuss it to be clear on what you mean by porn. I found on other online discussions that people talked past each other because they were operating with different definitions. I realized that when someone posted Dworkin and MacKinnon's definitions which limited the term to misogynistic depictions of sex. It seemed circular to me, but that's a different matter. Anyway, some posters were saying porn was not necessarily anti-women and others were saying yes it is, but they were talking about different things.

I have so much to say on this that it's hard to know where to stop.

1) I have read Jensen's essays, and the excerpt linked in the last thread where I commented extensively. While I agree with much of Jensen's position -- basically, I agree with him on the institution of industrially produced het porn -- I disagree with much at the margins. I will read his book, though.

2) About porn: the whole universe of erotic material, IMO, can be analyzed on a spectrum from the interactive to the commodity. At the far end of the spectrum is mass-market porn where there is little in the way of shared language or experience between customer, performer and producer; at the far other end (as I often note), there are erotic images exchanged between friends and lovers that are more like sexual intimacy by proxy than like porn. This is, of course, not the only analysis; but looking at it this way does do a lot of work in terms of talking about what the audience will take away from the material. That's why by-us, for-us material for gay men or lesbians or the BDSM community are different from mass-market het porn; that's a way in which fanfic is different form het porn; etc.

3) The porn industry has a bad streak of abusing women in the production of porn, and of using women who are exploited and wouldn't do it if they had better options. That's not something that ought to be, IMO, ignored, glossed over or conflated with every other kind of capitalist exploitation complaint.

4) As Shiftercat said, huge areas of porn, and growing areas, have gone over to the practice of playing openly to misogyny.

5) Because of 3 and 4, I have stopped buying porn. I still look at a lot of stuff that is available for free, but I gave up buying from the industry a while ago; for a long time I was only willing to pay for niche, non-industry stuff, and I'm not even doing that right now.

6) There's a lot to what Jensen says about masculinity, but porn is not the only way to get to that conclusion. I have a daughter, and I have sons. I can't think of a way to tell my sons what it means to "be a man" that I want to exclude my daughter from. Tough? Determined? Responsible? I want her to be all that. A citizen, the cornerstone of a family? All that. Those are things I want all people to be. An athlete? Her, too. So what is it to be a man that I don't want a woman to be? I'm at a bit of a loss on that one, honestly.

This is a fundamental problem with identity: when a system of stratification exists and a group is defined largely by its place outside the top of the hierarchy, then whatever that group claims for itself as an identity has value is giving its members something positive to identify with; but for the group that defines privilege, can the label mean anything but bragging about the privilege? Being white, to me, means nothing but being the recipient of unearned privilege. I have lots of positive cultural attachments; but they're not from some nebulous "white" culture. They're from my Scottish heritage, or to a lesser extent from New England, or my hometown, or my peer group; something specific, not a class definition that exists only to make sure that the cops leave me alone while they hassle other people.

Manhood is a lot like that. "Man," to the extent it is a social construct, exists in contradistinction to "Woman," the sex class. What do I get from being a man that isn't unearned privilege? What is positive about my manhood that I don't also want to pass on to my daughter?

7) I strongly agree with Ivoryalleycat that feminist speech, especially radfem speech, that I disagree with in substance is important, at least because it widens and shifts the Overton window and creates talking and working space for less radical reform. To the extent they're right, they should keep talking; to the extent I think they're wrong, they should still keep talking, because they give more traction to positions I agree with. (That's not to say that I endorse all the speech I disagree with: I am not excusing either the history of bigotry by some radfems towards transpeople, or the way some radfems execrate, often ignorantly, BDSM.)

Trigger warning.

"I honestly don't think that the themes Jensen discovered are misogynistic."

I'm sorry, but in what universe is the horrible shit done to women in porn - plastic bags over their heads, choking, spitting in their mouths, slapping, biting, making them puke, holding their arms painfully behind their backs, etc ad fucking nasuem - not constitute a misogynistic theme?

Just want to say thanks everyone for this really interesting discussion! Porn/erotica is something I've just started to really think about purposefully, and this is giving me a lot of food for thought.

One the one hand you say porn lives in a vacuum and doesn't affect how men think about women. On the other hand, you point out two concrete examples of how porn does affect how men think about women sexually.

I'm not sure that katliz meant this quite the way you read it EG (correct me if I'm wrong katliz!) . . . something can exist in a vacuum and still affect us, in that we bring those experiences into the rest of our lives--just subconsciously. What we aren't doing in that case is integrating those ideas/experiences into the rest of our lives; not consciously understanding the reality or unreality of what we're experiencing in the fantasy world (it's FANTASY afterall . . .)

Because there's not much conversation about sexuality and sexual relationships in real-life, we don't learn to distinguish fact from fiction the way we do, say, when we're reading science fiction or fantasy literature. We "read" unrealistic porn as literally true because we don't have anything to compare it to.

"Human sexuality is far too complicated and rarely politically correct."

Wow, do I hate that term. What does PC mean, exactly? It always seems to mean, "I'm going to shame you into not talking about this because I disagree." I really, really hate that term.

I agree that human sexuality is very complicated. I also believe that porn is highly diverse and complicated. The problem that I see that needs to be addressed is the normalization of gonzo porn and the normalization of depictions of violence and humiliation of women in mainstream porn. I think that the availability of the material does affect how men feel about women and how women feel about themselves. I think that this kind of porn is harmful and insidious. As a person who considers herself to be sex positive, I consider purveyors and consumers of this kind of porn to be very sex negative. I consider them to be operating from a harmful, shame-based framework and I think that they are rehearsing misogyny.

Is that PC? Fuck it, my voice on this subject can't be silenced that easily.

P.S. And Thomas, thanks for this thought (along with your whole post):

About porn: the whole universe of erotic material, IMO, can be analyzed on a spectrum from the interactive to the commodity.

That is a really helpful way of thinking about the different sorts of sexual images our culture produces! And, as someone who is seeking to support the interactive and oppose the commodified or non-participatory in a number of fields, it's a really useful tool in helping me sort out how to support certain kinds of sexual imagery over others.

Trigger warning

"spitting in their mouths, slapping, biting, "

Betty, the answer is "when presented explicitly in the context of a consensual BDSM scene." As a bottom, each of these things is done to me regularly by the person I love most in the world.

However, the current trend in gonzo porn is to present this stuff in a context where it is understood, as far as possible, not to be consensual or desired ... and that's really, really disturbing. For those familiar with the material, contrast the Kink.com trailers, with their pre- and post-scene interviews, with some of the misogynist shit (and I'm not giving max whatsisname any more traffic): the one has the performers (men bottoms and women bottoms) talking about why they did and their reactions to it. The other explicitly portrays the women -- always women -- as unsuspecting and in over their heads. While I'm not taking up the cudgel for the former (jury's still out on Acworth & co. IMO), the contrast with how the material is presented is huge.

Anna, there's an example I use in these discussions a lot, and I shorthand because for the regulars it's tiresome to read the same stuff over and over, but I don't want to leave it out for folks that have not seen it before: my favorite example of sexual image that is more interaction than commodity is when a friend sends erotic photos to my wife and I. They're from our friends; we know our friends' sexual practices and fantasies (at least the ones that send us erotic photos), so we have a base of common understanding: the performer is the sender, we know pretty well the conditions of production and the intent of the work, and the creator knows enough about the audience of two to have a pretty good understanding of how the work will be interpreted.

Farther down the line, there are folks that produce photos and video for a slightly larger circle of friends or put on live performances. If two guys put on a live performance for a few dozen friends in somebody's apartment, I think that's more like an interaction and less like mass-market.

At the far end, ShifterCat's boss has no idea who the producer is or what he intends, little idea who the performers are or what they want, and none of them share much in the way of common understanding with the consumers, who are that subset of the general population that looks at porn.

I'm importing a certain amount of half-assed Roland Barthes here, BTW, assuming a process of semiotic coding and decoding where the amount of common understanding and common reference between creators and consumers will determine how like the creator's understanding the consumer's understanding is. To the extent that niche populations are critical of patriarchy, they can produce work that, to like minded people, participates less in patriarcy; while when something is cast to the swine of patriarchy, the swine will see it through their patriarchal lenses, pearl though it may be when it leaves the creator's hands.

(and that's a problem with BDSM niche porn, BTW -- we can all agree on who we are, and what we mean, but when Joe Shmoe who doesn't share our norms sees it, he doesn't bring that understanding to it, and that's why the audience matters. But that's not a complete answer -- if the set of one pair of het male eyeballs was an intolerable intrusion into lesbian speech, then there could be no On Our Backs. So it's a mode of analysis, not a set of conclusions, IMO.)

I would like to think that most men would be able to realize that porn does not, and in a lot of cases, should not reflect how sex with someone is in real life.

However, I think teenagers have a hard time with realizing what is real and what isn't. There is porn out there that isn't too degrading or misogynistic, but most of what I've see is. I think the fear used to be that boys would see porn stars and have unrealistic ideas about women's bodies. Now, with the rise of amateur porn, it becomes a bit more real to see an average looking person having sex right in front you.

Porn is about people having sex, it's supposed to be a fantasy, and it's supposed to turn people on. I just wonder if men would be turned on by something else or something more if it's presented to them. Porn is pretty much the same these days.

I really think that parents need to talk about sex with their kids earlier, especially with boys who are going to start looking at porn as teenagers. If no one is there telling them it's a fantasy and that sex doesn't really mimic porn, or that women don't like to be treated the way they sometimes are in porn... then the porn is the only thing teaching him. Oh, and abstinence-only education in school, of course. ;)

This book sounds very interesting...

Let me offer the perspective of a man who considers himself not only to be a feminist, but to be a radical feminist, and who happens to like porn.

To begin with let me offer the best definition of porn I've ever encountered: "Porn is media which is used primarially as a masturbation aid, and in which a person loses almost all interest following orgasm".

There's no doubt that there has been a marked rise in blatently misogynist porn, but I would disagree that porn, by definition, is misogynist.

There is also the critical issue of separation of fantasy from reality. I liked watching the movie Terminator 2, that doesn't mean I want to blow up computer factories in real life. Likewise wanting to see behavior X in porn is not the same as wanting to see behavior X in real life, or even to act out behavior X with a willing partner.

There's also a sub-genre of porn, not huge but hardly tiny either, usually produced for a male audience involving men being beaten, analy penetrated, etc by dominant women. Which does not quite fit the "porn == violence against women" model that Jensen seems to develop. Not having read the book myself yet I have only Courtney's review to go by, did he include porn of that nature in his analysis, and if so may I ask for a summary of how? I'm also interested in how, or if, he included male homosexual porn and bisexual porn?

I'm also interested in the terminology Courtney presented in the beginning:

“features� (soft core) and “gonzo� (hard core)

Generally "hard core" is used to describe porn which explicitly shows the genetals, penetration, etc, "soft core" is used to describe porn which focuses on nudity rather than explicit sex, and "gonzo" is used to describe porn of the intentionally misogynist variety. If Jensen deliberately juxtaposes "hard core" and "gonzo" it would, to me anyway, indicate that he's being disingenuous at best, and outright decieteful at worst.

Porn, from my POV anyway, holds much the same place as violent movies: nifty to watch but having little or nothing to do with real life. Fantasy, after all, is just that: fantasy. While some mentally defective individuals cannot separate the two, most humans have no difficulty doing so.

Sex is a visceral thing, and for some people it often gets tied with visceral fears: fear, pain, etc. Thus we have men with cuckold fantasies, women with rape fantasis, men and women into sadomasochism, etc. Thus some porn will have, as its primary objective, to trigger those visceral fears that have become intertwined with sex in the minds of its intended audience.

I do think that much of the rise in deliberately misogynist porn is due to men who have fully internalized the patriarchy and who feel harmed by the continuing rise in women's status indulging in revenge fantasies.

And, finally, I'd argue that most porn is of the rather straightforward "two (or more) people engaging in consensual sex" variety. While it is true that the women in porn are always open to sex, that hardly seems significant as its the entire point of the genre: people having sex. Try to imagine a porno with any other mechanic:

Male actor: So, how about it?
Female actor: Naah, I just don't feel like screwing today.
Roll credits

Sotonohito, I commented in the last Jensen thread about porn and fiction: I don't think it is. The part of porn that people focus on is the part that purports to be and us unsimulated; that's one of the principal features; and when the term "porn" has drifted to other genres (climbing porn, car porn) it means exactly that: the explicit depiction of the thing itself for those with a quasi-masturbatory interest in the thing itself. So, whereas in narrative fiction the focus is on what is simulated (characters and plot), in porn the simulated parts are not what people are there to see.

I don't think porn is fiction in any meaningful sense. It is performative; the sex isn't like people who have sex without an audience, and it is stylized; it follows genre conventions and isn't the only way people would have sex for an audience. But it's not fiction.

"Porn, from my POV anyway, holds much the same place as violent movies: nifty to watch but having little or nothing to do with real life. Fantasy, after all, is just that: fantasy. While some mentally defective individuals cannot separate the two, most humans have no difficulty doing so."
Apologies, but I am so sick of hearing this excuse in defending porn. Fantasy is just fantasy, yes. But we're not talking about fantasy –we're talking about actual porn that actually shows women being actually abused. To you the woman in the video may be just a fantasy, but I'm pretty sure she's quite aware that it actually happened.
Now you may not want to act these things out in real life, but if you do want to watch them in porn – these things actually being done to actual women – please stay far far FAR away from me.
Thanks.

P.s. NO woman has a rape fantasy. None. An event occurring in their imagination is one that they have total control over. Nothing happens they they don't want to happen. That negates the possibility of it being "rape".

Thomas – please don't take the above as an indictment against willing bdsm people. That's a world of difference, as you rightly pointed out, then the "bitch didn't see it coming" rape porn all over the place now.

three points -

1. It is problematic to call male feminists "self-hating," just as it is problematic to call female feminists "man haters." Doesn't anyone else see this? As though critiques of patriarchy and misogyny have to automatically come from a position of *hate.* Interestingly, this seems to surface the most when discussions of porn come up. Dworkin and Mackinnon are always framed as hating & wishing to destroy male sexuality, and now Jensen is being accused of the same thing, This is twisted - if anyone hates anyone else, it is pornographers who hate women. I feel like this is pretty obvious.

2. While there IS tremendous variation in what turns people on, I am hesitant to call it "natural." Sexuality, like gender, is socially constructed for the most part.

My story: I like to be dominated & hurt during sex. But I would never argue, as folks like Rachel Kramer Bussel and Tristan Taramino do, that pursuing what I want in bed is empowering, healthy, liberating, etc. Because I didn't just one day magically feel aroused by pain or humiliation - it happened after a series of sexual assaults during my adolescence. I believe that "what turns me on" is drectly linked to these experiences, in a complicated way that is hard for me to articulate. I seek out encounters that trigger flashbacks. When I worked in the sex industry, I met many other women with similar feelings. (Although I concede that a number female bottoms/submissives were never victims of childhood abuse - but certainly victims of our misogynistic society.)

3. Porn is not "a fantasy" for actual sex workers, as I have repeated in every porn thread on this site, to no avail. Please stop insisting that it is, this is infuriating to those of us who have been comprimised and sacrificed for your "fantasy" orgasms.

Betty, I didn't think you were taking a shot at us.

It behooves us BDSMers to yell loud and clear that these creeps are not with us, to deny them as far as possible political cover. The BDSM community has norms of consent and mutuality; folks operating outside that framework ought not to be permitted to leverage the hard-won limited acceptance we've achieved, and I just wanted to say that, less to you, than to as big an audience as this will find.

Porn is not "a fantasy" for actual sex workers, as I have repeated in every porn thread on this site, to no avail.

Point taken, and I'm sorry if I was throwing around the idea of "fantasy" and "fiction" too liberally.

I understand that certain kinds of porn (to use sotonohito's definition: "Porn is media which is used primarially as a masturbation aid, and in which a person loses almost all interest following orgasm") are performative: with actual actors doing actual deeds. But are we not including non-performative types of media? What about text and images that are created without the use of actors? Does that not count as porn?

SweetZoeJane, I think boys *do* realize women don't usually enjoy beated, tortured, suffocated during sex. That is the point. They get off on seeing women suffer.

@ sotonohito:

Beautifully written, and explains what I was trying to say better than I could.

This is one of the more lively conversations I've read on the subject in quite some time. Since sex is such so viceral a topic, however, there's never going to be a consensus when it comes to reconciling feminism and porn. Our personal experiences color our views, often to an extreme degree.

This is what excites and depresses me most about human sexuality. So open to interpretation, which is great except where government is concerned and the few decide for the many. Great though, for blog comment threads!

The problem that I see that needs to be addressed is the normalization of gonzo porn and the normalization of depictions of violence and humiliation of women in mainstream porn."

This pretty much sums up my position re: violent porn as well. I think we definitely need to explore the possible ramifications of the increasingly-popular depiction of sex paired with violence. I'm not sure when it started, but it seems more and more we're presented with increasingly aggressive and violent depictions of sex in our media. Not just in porn, but TV and movies as well. I sometimes think we're beginning to conflate "passionate" with "violent." How often does a "hot" love scene involve things breaking, the couple shoving each other around aggressively, "fuck fighting" (start out having a fight/argument and end up passionately kissing/having sex)? Does this happen more often than it doesn't? Was this always how "hot" sex scenes were depicted? What effect, if any, has exposure to these sort of depictions had on how we perceive sex and violence? Has repeated exposure to this sort of thing gradually skewed our perceptions of "normal" sexual behavior more and more toward the violent end of the spectrum? Do we now find violence sexy, and sex violent? If we do, is it harmful, or harmless? When you look at the apparent increasing popularity and acceptance of misogynistic porn, "torture porn" films, rape and attacks on women's rights, it's easy to imagine that maybe all these depictions of violent sex have had an insidious subliminal psychological effect on all who've viewed them. Orgasm is a spectacular example of positive reinforcement, after all. But then again, maybe the popularity of those depictions is just another symptom of a greater problem, not the cause of it. I honestly don't know, but I'd love to see someone explore the idea, and would be very curious to see their results.

I want to react to what Alice Paul said:

There is no consensus on why we're kinky. I know men who top, bottom and switch, women who top, bottom and switch; het and queer. Some were the product of violent environments and some were not. Some were sexualized early and some were not. I have not seen a pattern, anecdotally or quantitatively.

Some of us, like Alice Paul, can point to something and know why we are the way we are; others can't. For some of us, we found it late in life; for others in interest in power exchange or something related has been with us so long that we can't recall a sexuality without it.

Since our experiences are diverse, any account of the meaning of what we do has to take that diversity into account, and we certainly ought not to tell each other what our experiences mean.

Alice knows why she is the way she is, and she interprets it in a way that's consonant with that. She mentioned Tristan; Tristan's experiences were different. AFAIK, Tristan was neither the product of a violent environment nor sexualized early, but she's a dyke-identified bisexual and the daughter of a queer dad, so her experience may be one where her kinks were part of her and her family's position outside the heteronorm: part of the political experience of being a sexual minority, which would explain why she experiences her BDSM play as empowering. (Also, she's a switch.) (I won't try to explain RKB, because I often feel she does make the assumption that something about her desire to submit can be generalized to women broadly, and that's an idea I reject.)

About Dworkin: for those that don't know, she was partnered with a man named John Stoltenberg for the last decades of her life. She didn't even advocate political lesbianism the way for example Shiela Jeffries does: the accusations that Dworkin hated men are just political demonizing from people that refuse to engage with what she actually said.