On the list of harmful crap men get away with or believe they can get away with, “looking at child pornography on an airplane” is a newer one. Grant Smith, a Utah professor, was caught looking at the images in-flight by, of course, the passengers who were sitting around him. Former prosecutor Wendy Murphy told a CNN affiliate, “The notion that someone would be so bold as to view it in public is extraordinary, and I’m not sure what the explanation is.” Well, then. Let’s see why “someone” might do such a brazen thing.
Public Porn Users, Thy Name is Male Entitlement
52 Responses to “Public Porn Users, Thy Name is Male Entitlement”
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(Chant with me! MEN. ARE. THE 99 PERCENT! …of child porn users!)
bahahaha! someone *should* take that to OWS. oh teh poor menz, they are so disenfranchised. yeah right.
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So, pharmacists don’t have to fill prescriptions for Plan B or BC because it bugs them, but librarians have to help creeps print out their vile crap? Something tells me there’s plenty of Viagra (in addition to Prozac) in the drinking water. Saltpeter, anyone?
I’m surprised they don’t just show porn on the large screens of the plane for everyone to watch.
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Yesss!! Never ‘someone’ because we know ‘someone’ is always code for male just as ‘people’ is male supremacist speak for males/men. But it is essential males are never identified by their sex because they are never ‘males/men’ but always people or someone.
Correct if this porn loving male supremacist had been caught viewing images depicting adult women being subjected to sadistic male sexual violence – aka porn then would anyone have ‘batted an eye?’ I doubt it because women are not human and only reason there is outrage at so-called child porn is because most individuals immediately assume the victim(s) is/are a male child/children. Child porn is no different to so-called adult porn both are filmed acts of systemic male sexual violence against women and girls.
Then there’s the fact female librarians and other female employees working in public libraries are constantly subjected to male sexual harassment and male sexual domination because of course male visitors must retain their right (sic) to use public computers in order to access filmed male sexual violence against women. Male users of public libraries are in effect making the workplace for female employees a hostile environment but no doubt male visitors’ rights to view said images supercede women’s right not to be forced to work in an environment wherein men routinely dehumanise them.
Who’s rights are being protected and which group are having their pseudo power and domination over subordinated groups maintained? No guesses it is men as usual because men’s pseudo right to access porn supercedes women’s rights not to be subjected to filmed male sexual violence committed against women and men also have the right to print out still images of said male sexual violence against women.
Men waging a war against women? No of course not – just men enacting their rightful (sic) male sexual domination and control over women and girls of course.
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I recall such an event myself in a the Uni library , all the computer stations were occupied by crowds of teen men all looking at porn , at miday.
I asked the staff to stop them, they were reluctant to intervene and this was some 15 years ago. And as far as I can assertain matters have been down hill since then…..I have also experienced incidents on trains where porn mags are openly being gawped at by teen men, once I had to get off a train and go find the porter , a burly fella, who threatened to chuck the guys of the train, they handed over all their abuseive rags to him..he was genuinely livid!
Page 3 here in the Sun is another issue, it is openly dosplayed on all forms of public transport and it is so common place no one (apart from me I think? bats an eyelid. I always ask them to close the page…..to their astonishment!
Also I never refer to the sexually violent and abusive images of children as porn, it is illegal and child abuse, to call it porn somehow legitimises it.
here I always complain when they talk on a programme about the steep rise in ‘kiddy porn’, I tell them in outrage there is no such thing as ‘kiddy porn’, ONLY child sexual abuse and violence against children, which is illegal and a crime. -
to contextualize the librarian-stuff, librarians are often on the front lines in the freedom-of-speech issue. they are against book-burning and censorship and the like, and they protect citizens rights in a real way, including refusing to hand over peoples rental histories to the authoritahs who become interested in individuals reading habits when they include things like…overthrowing the government. things like that. for that, i commend librarians, i really do, they are very brave and are frequently IRL activists in ways that most people never are, even the ones who like to think themselves as such. BUT. unfortunately in male-centric law and culture, porn is protected speech. it raises interesting issues of workplace sexual harassment and safety doesnt it? all this female suffering so that mens right to use porn is protected, literally, at all cost (to girls and women). thats the other side of being a free-speech activist in this country. its a male-centric discourse and framework that benefits men, and only benefits women to the extent that our interests align with male interests. outside of that, we are (literally) screwed.
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The trouble with men and porn is that they demand younger and younger human girls and womon to sexually abuse. They move freely from adult womon to under age teen girls and then onto children. They do this without any concern at all as if it is a normal process to want to do the same things to children that you have done to adult womon. All of it is abuse and violence and denigrates all womon. It is done in an atmosphere that allows men to think what they do is perfectly OK and normal.
Here in UK we had the Huntley case, where for years he went around raping adult womon and gradually moving to younger and younger womon to target. He was never apprehended for rape, despite many complaints being logged against him, he was always able to convince the men police that the girls/womon were whingeing because they did not want their parents to know they had had sex.
He moved with ease to younger girls and one day attempted to rape two girls of 10 years of age, they were friends. He drowned them both in a bath and disposed of them like trash.
He even helped the police with their enquiries. At the same time two officers on the case were both at a later date convicted for down loading sexually violent abusive images of girl children!
He got life eventually but after the case it was revealed that there were so many incidents of sexual violence and abuse by him that had been reported but not investigated or properly recorded……he was out there thanx to men and he was allowed to carry on till he killed two beautiful smart , small girls all thanx to the men police….there is no justice….only war and revolution…. -
The other article you have linked to says:
“A Pensacola man was arrested on child porn charges after police found images of young children HAVING SEX with an adult male on his cell phone.
According to the AG’s office, the images show children between the ages of five and nine-years-old, nude and/or ENGAGED IN SEXUAL CONDUCT with an adult male.”
The subjects in these sentences are children!!!!! The verb is not a passive form either. It is active, right? (English is not my first language, I might be wrong, but it is not passive).
And this is exactly the reason why men think nothing of watching child rape. And they did not use the word rape again. (FCM has written about it already but THIS is just…).
So in order not to “victimize” children the news site gave them agency on “paper”?! Children have agency when being raped. Wow.Now, where do I put all the rage?
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well, the refusal by the mainstream to use the “rape” word and to call everything “sex” instead is pervasive and serves to erase the reality of rape, and sexualized violence. when they do this to children, i am not sure its about giving the children “agency” just like i dont think the mainstream is attempting to give raped women and prostituted women “agency” by refusing to name RAPE. they are protecting men, trying not to offend their male readership many of whom are actual rapists, and supporting male-centric sexual paradigm which eroticises male dominance. the ONLY people i see trying to give raped children AGENCY is the fun-fems actually. they say its wrong to “infantilize” children this way. one wonders if they realize the root word of “infantalize” and that its impossible to infantalize an infant….the same way you cant fertilize fertilizer, and you cant hydrate water. infantalizing infants! hello.
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Yes, you’re right. The news site didn’t want to offend male readers (or wanted to spice it up maybe?).
I hope at least that guy will be sentenced. -
FCM, you got that right. To quote Jeffreys, “[Julie O’Connell Davidson] says she is ‘uncomfortable with what I view as a more general impulse to separate children out as a special case’ and with what she calls ‘[t]his process of ranking’ which evinces ‘outrage at child prostitution’ (O’Connell Davidson, 2005, p. 1). But she criticizes what she calls ‘anti-prostitution feminists’ who, she says, ignore the ‘diverse and complex realities’ of those who are prostituted and deny their ‘autonomy and agency’ (ibid., p. 3). Through stressing that children can have ‘agency’, she joins a growing stream of feminist researchers who are arguing that both children and adult women express agency and choice in prostitution, and that *showing special concern for children infantilizes them*.” (from _The Industrialized Vagina_ p 145-146, emphasis mine)
If I hadn’t read it myself, I wouldn’t believe it were true.
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@ybawife. I recently went to London for the first time and I knew about ‘page 3′. The paper was sitting at a local cafe in Westminster and I picked it up to have a look. It hurt me a lot when my husband turned to that particular page a few times. He found it funny, but I did not. I felt angry. We have two little girls, and me in the family and frankly I found it well, dehumanising. The girl was only 19. Does anyone ever protest about these images? I’m shocked.
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FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKKKKK. This is triggering. I have seen men use porn on the bus with their mobile phones. When does it end?
I watched a female librarian being interviewed on television saying that her library wouldn’t do anything about the public viewing of pornography because its a “free speech issue”. Does anyone know who the “feminist” blogger that was defending mens right to use porn at the library as a “class issue”? I’d really like to read that so I can get even more crazy and mad.
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Makes me think about a passage from Catharine MacKinnon:
“Sooner or later, in one way or another, the consumers want to live out the pornography further in three dimensions. Sooner or later, in one way or another, they do. It makes them want to; when they believe they can, when they feel they can get away with it, they do. Depending upon their chosen sphere of operation, they may use whatever power they have to keep the world a pornographic place so they can continue to get hard from everyday life.” (In Only words, p.19)
Men have sure managed to seep porn into every aspect of our lives. There’s probably nothing – no media, no place, no technology, no sphere – that hasn’t already been affected by porn – even when there’s no porn available, men are so imbued by porn that everything instantly becomes a porn experiment to them anyway.
For having spent years in libraries, I don’t think I ever saw men using porn (a miracle maybe? Or my brain washing it out?) but what I do know, is male students going to libraries with the only purpose of harrassing female students, rate their bodies, playing bets on who will first rape one of the girls first (“having sex”), etc.
I remember this website created for students in libraries with the specific purpose of harrassing girls (officially a “library dating website to make contact easier”). It had instant success and took no time to spread accross many unies, including mine (I think it started off at Oxford or LSE).The point was to log in and see whether someone commented on you (“the brunette with the red t-shirt on floor 3, you’re hot, do u wanna meet?”) or either write a message about someone in the hope she would get the message. In a few days many girls were already complaining of harrassment via the website, and my uni banned the site shortly after. That was an aha moment: I realised how so many men would only pretend to work at the library in order to perve on women (they didn’t need to work hard since as men they knew they would be favoured anyway); that most women would go to the library to actually do work, not having the expectation that they’d be coopted for a job anyway. -
“Someone” is the 99%! Rape is committed, women are raped. The rapist was charged. People often experience domestic violence… “people = male just as human = male just as the 99% of child porn viewers are male.
However, one of my friends who works for AT & T said a guy in her department was caught watching porn on company time.
The police were called and he was hauled off in handcuffs. -
Sheila, that doesn’t make any sense. Your friend mayve neglected to tell you that dood was watching KIDDIE porn on company time. Otherwise, why the handcuffs?
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nuclearnight – In the comments of the Jezebel post I linked to, there’s this gem of a comment which uses a “class” argument, which doesn’t appear to be a joke: “Whoa, I can’t believe how much privilege is up in this tread. People, not everybody has a computer at home. Not everybody can afford super expensive porn DVDs and magazines. Just because it’s porn and not something SRZ and IMPORTANT doesn’t mean only the privileged should have access. This is why the library exists.”
LOL… the library exists so that men who can’t afford to buy their own porn can wave it in the faces of the staff and anyone else who walks by or is sitting next to them. Right. That is sooooooo messed up. If we weren’t talking about the internet, would there be such a ruckus? I don’t think most public libraries have subscriptions to porn mags or have porn videos you can check out, so why the expectation that you can use public computers for the same purpose? Porn is not a right, dudes!
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Omg lishra. I think an intervention is indicated on account of the five alarm male privilege fail!
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It’s pretty sad. No person who works in a library should have to put up with seeing degrading images and cleaning up after the men who use them. In Australia I am pretty sure porn or degrading images of women is not allowed to circulate in the office in any way. I can’t see why there should be different rules in a library work environment. These sites can’t be blocked? I am sure they can. Also the library is a place that children go to and it is not safe or healthy for them to be around such images and the men who are looking at them.
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Yes, the thought of having aroused porn hounds in the restroom or around children is pretty disturbing. I hadn’t even thought of that.
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Lilith, I heard that too – I think in Australia there are laws that ban the presence of porn in the workplace as it is considered a form of sexual harassment. Wouldn’t it be nice if such a law could be extended to public places in general! And, you know, everywhere else too.
I suspect this watching of porn in public places might have similar motivations to flashing, in that it is a form of intimidation. -
Here’s an article about the Australian situation.
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I don’t know what kind of porn it was, I was happy to hear the guy was arrested!
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We live in a male dominated society where men have the right and believe it is their right to treat women as their personal fuck toys. In a male dominated society women are only there to please and satisfy the perverted sexual lusts of the mighty male.
Contrary to what many feminists believe, male domination is not weakening but rather growing stronger hence the reason why so many males now have no problem seen young girls, many who are in their pre teens as fuck toys. What Grant Smith did should have disgusted us but it should not have surprised us. He was just been a male in a male dominated society.
His actions just prove that things are getting worse. As you correctly pointed out that had he been viewing porn that involved adult women nothing would have been done to him. It was only because he was viewing children in this degrading way.
If we are not careful it will soon become perfectly acceptable for a male to view child porn in public and no one will be able to do a damn thing about it.
This needs to be a wakeup call that now more then ever we need to totally destroy male supremacy and completely strip these fuckers of all their privilege and power.
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The erasure of the word “rape” and the male perpetrators/predators in these stories of course is no accident. As mentioned many times here it’s *purposeful*. Being a member of the privilege strata means you can avail yourself and your comrades of any responsibility regarding a crime you or they commit against a member of the oppressed strata. It’s like “the thin blue line” but for barbaric, misogynistic pricks.
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One key question raised by this excellent article about men publicly perusing pornography (and the reply comments) is: How do we end male supremacy?
If memory serves, Audre Lourde said (and I may be paraphrasing), “the tools of the master won’t dismantle the master’s house.” Provably unworkable “tools” are women’s alliances with male “progressives” or women’s hang-wringing anguished protestations to men (or the malegod) about how awful patriarchy is (and, indeed, it is horrific once our blinders are removed and our denial ends).
The porn, queer (and related mtf/ftm transgender) post-modernist movements are all strongly woman-hating by results opposed to women’s liberation.
Porn’s gender reification, like alphabet-soup queer identity politics and post-modernism (misogyny in academic guise) simply disparages the true interests of women. I no longer enter the debate any more than I would try to argue with an apologist for nuclear weapons. (“Fat man” and “little boy” were the nicknames for the phallus-shaped nukes male U.S. bombardiers dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki after men invented those bombs — the true story sums up the patriarchy or as Mary Daly also called it, the phallocracy. Not being a total dick, Einstein later said, “If I’d have known, I’d have been a locksmith.”)
Being woman-identified is a preference of politics about women’s liberation from patriarchal male-female roles. It’s also the only possibility for freedom from man-made destruction of the naturally existing world (including plants, animals, tidal seas, air and ground as well as women who deserve freedom to be whole physical, mental, spiritual and creative beings unfettered by male-dominant culture).
We need women’s liberation now more than ever in the global online porn culture and other media-crafted brainwashing for feminization and masculinization of roles. Today’s culturally approved roles of submission and dominance — in the gender caste socialization system keyed to being girls or boys at birth, as porn reifies by sexual violence and woman-hating — keep patriarchy and its globally destructive politics intact despite celebrity female tokens.
These days, sadly, being a female porn “star,” or “out” as “queer,” or lending energy to the gay male agenda seems to find a political community of female supporters, but the old-school women’s liberation lesbian like Audre Lourde, Janice Raymond or Mary Daly seems to have become culturally taboo.
Understandably if wrongly taboo by the influence of global media, women’s liberation — if real instead of faux “fun” feminism — would bring an end to patriarchal destruction. As understandably since the 1970′s, backlash by the prevailing patriarchs who run porn planet, major media, big business and global government has scared too many women (heterosexual or not) into denial and unliberating alliances with men running the con (to women) of identity/empowerment politics (heterosexual pole-dancing or glbt pride rallies) instead of women’s liberation.
The real solution is not capitulation to male-led politics but, instead, finding the “background” natural reality and the company of other women-identified women. Mary Daly wrote eloquently (and, I’ve found by experience, truly) about how to meet the challenge of the real solution in all her books.
Spinning new worlds from the archaic powers women once realized and can now re-member …
Politically I have more in common with any woman-born woman, lesbian or not, than I do with the males and social-gender-identity surgically constructed mtf persons born as men who dominate politics in every room of the “master’s house.”
The hypocrisy (as to women) of men’s progressive movements has been well documented starting with Robin Morgan’s generation of second-wave feminists. She, after being a young, pretty-privileged and patriarchally socialized heterosexual (who never liked PIV), became a political lesbian — when finally she “got” how much men as a patriarchal social caste disdain (if not hate) women who won’t subordinate themselves to male agendas.
The pornified topic of men’s global collective gender-class oppression of women as a sex caste doesn’t fairly show my sense of humor. Some things just aren’t funny.
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“Being woman-identified is a preference of politics about women’s liberation from patriarchal male-female roles. It’s also the only possibility for freedom from man-made destruction of the naturally existing world (including plants, animals, tidal seas, air and ground as well as women who deserve freedom to be whole physical, mental, spiritual and creative beings unfettered by male-dominant culture).”
Yes!
For those who’ve been radical for a long time, women-identification may seem obvious, but the day I understood this fully it truly made the difference. Self-centering and women-identification is the only logical option if you go to the end of feminism’s thoughts. Unveiling patriarchy and its strategies + re-turning to our selves seem to me the 2 most important steps to free ourselves from male parasitism, necrophilia and rapism. The more time passes as a radfem, the more accusations I get of “being too radical”, of “inverse sexism” or “phobia”, etc – people really find it horrifying.I also believe that women’s liberation is the condition for freedom of the natural world from patriarchal destruction. Women will have to come first, there’s no other option.
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Thanks, Witchwind! Like my cat (Tawonda), I always appreciate an “attagrrl.” As well I appreciate your words (and the writers here in general).
You have told well from experience the “foreground” patriarchal reality that as we put words to our “background” [archaic/present/future] womanist/elemental truth, we can expect patriarchal reversals of truth in the attacks/ “accusations I get of ‘being too radical,’ of ‘inverse sexism’ or ‘phobia.’ ”
Yes!
So what do we do when attacked verbally or on blogs? We stay the [other/background/spinning/spiraling/women-identified] course.
When the patriarchy’s apologists are the most strident, derisive and hysterical in their attempts to rebut rad-fem truth, we can know we’re onto big winds of powerful philosophical change for our greater good as womankind.
We do not have to debate patriarchy’s insanity of normality with the patriarchs or explain ourselves to them. (Although if we want to, we can. Sometimes it’s fun.)
This is a reality of patriarchy we can count on: Collectively, man[un]kind does not want our greater good. Duh in dudeland.
Instead of patriarchy’s boring predictabilty (and horrific evils), we weave new worlds, dance new moves, please ourselves with the compassionate greater good we deserve. Our cats will thank us. Snowy egrets, too.
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Men are really pulling out all stops. A blitzkrieg of porn, prostitution, rape, trans, religion, laws eroding women’s rights and sovereignty over their own bodies, and a never ending wave of aggression, violence and misogyny. It means only one thing. Men are absolutely terrified! The more stops men pull out, the more I know women have them by the short hairs and on the run. LOL, these boys pulling out every weapon in their arsenal trying desperately to stuff women back into the box. But we’re not going back, boys. This is patriarchy’s last huzzah. We know men can’t keep it up. Masculinist nations do not survive. They implode. We’re witnessing that now as we speak. Their entire system is collapsing. But of course, as the dragon dies, he will frantically lash out, using everything he’s got to survive, making him more dangerous than ever. These are dark and dangerous times for women. It will get a lot worse before it gets better. But keep at it, women. Stay the course and finish them off. If they don’t do themselves in, first.
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Why else would the guys get so attacking of a very small group of women known as radical feminists?
They’re getting arrested on airplanes for watching porn, their presidential campaigns are being destroyed because their sexual harrassment and shame marriages are being exposed, women are reporting these men right and left, and football “greats” are going down. The code of silence women had over male attrocities is ending, as women are reporting on the daily monsters like Sandusky.. Persistence and continuous push gets them to back off and shutting down frat houses, fining the hell out of footbball programs, 24/7 news cycle with thousands of women reporting is working.Radfem blogs… don’t forget technology opening up our uncensored voices for all women to read and find.
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its extremely telling that even nonfeminst women have “had enough” with men and what they do. its extremely telling that there even is such a thing as mainstream feminism: even with all their capituations and penis-lovin, even mainstream girls and women know there is something very wrong with men and that they wont stop on their own, they must be forced. all women know this is true. all of them. the other day i went to the movies with nigel and we sat on the end of a row that was filled with 13-year old girls and a couple of adult female chaperones. the adult women looked at us as we went to sit down and nigel looked like he was going to go into the row and sit down first, next to the last girl, with me next to him on the end. i pushed past him and sat down next to the girl, forcing him to sit on the end. it was very fluid and nothing that wouldve been noticed by anyone observing, or even by nigel. the women relaxed. they did not want an adult man sitting next to one of the girls, and i could sense this easily. they relaxed when they saw what i did. if he had sat down next to the girl on the end instead of me, i believe one of the women wouldve traded seats with the girl so no girl wouldve been sitting next to an adult man. all women know this, they have these concerns and they maneuver and negotiate at all times so that they and the girls they are caring for can be safe from men because they know what men do. this is womens reality. all womens reality.
so i guess the MRAs should take note: there are three middle-aged women in “anytown” who know that men are rapists and pedophiles and dont let their daughters or their daughters friends near strange men for that reason. better get right on that.
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Just found this link about this “dented” condom to punish men from raping
h**p *:* //gizmodo.com/5569537/condoms-with-teeth-fight-rape-in-south-africa
Although it doesn’t prevent rape at all, nor male retaliation, at least it instantly serves some sort of justice.Anyone heard of it?
Not sure what to think about it but from what I’ve read it seems like a great thing, and the fact that it exists since 2007 but not commercialised anywhere is telling.From the article:
[Dr. Sonnet Ehlers, the condom's designer] said she sold her house and car to launch the project, and she planned to supervise the distribution of 30,000 free devices in cities hosting the World Cup soccer matches.”
“Once attached, the condom can only be removed by a doctor.”
“It hurts, he cannot pee and walk when it’s on,” she said. “If he tries to remove it, it will clasp even tighter… however, it doesn’t break the skin, and there’s no danger of fluid exposure.” -
yes that one makes the rounds every once in awhile.
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And thanks, Gail Green!
As much as possible, I just laugh at the accusations, because they’re so stupid and make no sense. Stay the course and laugh at the patriarchs : DBy the way what does atta girl mean? (Sorry don’t live in an angloland)
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it literally means “thats a girl.” i means “good girl” or well done.
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I need to vent! I wrote a critical analysis on this sh*tty funfem book (Flaming Iguanas) that I had to read for class. I basically said that the whole book was influenced by pornography. On account of..it is. The TA graded it harshly with a porny bias. I am so pissed. These are just a few of her critques: “I’m not sure whether I entirely agree that you attribute Tomato’s feeling obligated to have sex with men to the influence of pornography from an early age. In addition, Tomato also watches gay porn. Then, how do gay porns and straight porns differ?”; “Need to further flesh out what specific kind of porn you’re referring to. I think your stance is more in line with the feminists in second wave, such as Catherine MacKinnon. However, their essentialist view on pornography is critiqued by other feminists, such as Judith Butler. We need to remember that there can always exist a gap between what pornography tries to show and how female spectators respond.”; ” Erotica itself is not a problem. If there are portrayals of different kinds of erotica, can’t it function as a way to deconstruct heterosexual sex and degrading women as the only mode to enjoy sexual and bodily pleasure?” Gah!!!!
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Anyone heard of it?
Yes, I heard about it maybe 10 years ago? I heard about it on the Ms. boards – which closed down in 2004, so the Rape Axe was out much earlier than 2007. Maybe it’s just that particular design which has been out since 2007? Cuz I don’t recall that earlier versions stayed attached to the penis. I just recall that it sliced and diced penises to ribbons.
What do I think of it? I think it’s only a matter of time before men claim it was consensual sex and she did it for spite cuz he wouldn’t marry her or was cheating on her or whatever lame excuse men conjure up to reverse things.
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When I worked in a male dominated field, I noticed that the young men (5-15 years older than I) were far more disrespectful toward me than the older men. Some of this was due to the fact that the young ones were more threatened by me, but I think some was because the younger men had seen a lot more porn, of the increasingly degrading to women type. They were constantly making sexual comments and twisting everything I said into a dirty joke.
The main reason the internet has advanced quickly is that men have been motivated by increased access to porn to develop this technology. (I used to wonder how my co-workers got any work done when they couldn’t get their minds out of the gutter.) I just saw an ad for software that is the ultimate in privacy, complete with “Emergency mute/switch” to escape being caught. The ad shows a woman looking like she doesn’t want you spying, but we all know who’s going to be buying that software!
FCM, I wish you were right that “all women know this is true.” Sadly, my mother and lots of other women seem to be utterly clueless that men are not trustworthy. They actually put the blame on GIRLS.
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Why else would the guys get so attacking of a very small group of women known as radical feminists?
Why indeed. Radfems get the harshest criticism – and that can only mean that we speak the unadulterated truth – otherwise, there is actually no need to attack such a very tiny group of women, we could easily be written off as crazies (although they try this too as a tactic). But if we were so wrong, there would be no need to continually try to threaten us, silence us, stop us, they would just ignore us as being so far off the mark.
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All women know what men are and what they do. They can deny it at their peril, but its not the same as not knowing it. I think its a matter of relying on men too much, and not having enough meaningful options. When you rely on a man for anything, or when you have sons that you are literally mortgaging your own future to raise, its very tempting to lie or feign ignorance. But again, its not the same as not knowing what men are. And women aren’t stupid.
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For example, heterosexual grooming is performed on girls by their mothers as a response to rape culture, and is done with full knowledge that men rape. Better to have your daughter owned and raped by one man in marriage, than owned and raped by all men as a public woman. Better to have a man around for financial security bc its impossible to survive on your own with no help from anyone, and poverty and homelessness means rape. And girl roommates can’t be counted on over the long haul anyway bc they’re all going to end up partnering with men too, which is more or less true. See? It’s not that mothers don’t know what’s happening. It’s that they do.
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Well, given what you say, then the funfems and the libfems are downright MRAs aren’t they?
I agree though, that on some level, most/all women know it sooner or later. It is whether they choose to acknowledge it or not I guess. -
It is simply not true that women can’texist and prosper without men. Lesbian communties have flourished for eons, women have live with female partners and in lesbian groups forever. We are very very self-sufficient, and I think it might e very hard for het women to know this kind of radical independence from men. The het mindset goes for the short term popularity and male pleasing early in life, which backfires later in life. Lesbians have always lived in a hostile world, and have had meagr resoures, but we also have resilence. My life in the middle of a recession/depression is the same, if not better. We didn’ fall for the myth of the two income family.
So lesbian existence is outside the male dependency loop, and we are roundly attacked for this night and day. Lesbians in community have known each other for decades, and there is always help out there. Het women get so caught up in male pleasing, and the dating game that they find it hard to stick together… do any het women keep in contact with women they lived with as room mates? Do het women get support from ex-boyfriends 20 years late? I doubt it. They have to go to court to get the money, but I know hundreds of lesbians who still can count on ex’s when the chips are down.
The het world of women could learn quite bit from lesbian feminism over the decade if it wanted to. I don’t really see many het women wanting to do this, mainly because they are still looking for males…
Fixing a car painting a house, getting material help with rent, groceries, a place to stay… we’ve alll helped sisters out… we know we can only count on our community when the chips are down. But do het women absolutely have tat commitment to each other?
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sheila, het women *know* we cannot rely on each other, just like lesbians KNOW you cant rely on straight or bi-women because they will always or too frequently choose nigels over YOU. i know you know this. het women arent stupid, we know it too. and we also cant rely on lesbian women because lesbian women dont trust us for the reasons i have outlined above. so no, in the absence of other alternatives, of which there are none at the moment, het women in general CANNOT survive without men, neither can bi-women or asexual women. we cant rely on each other and lesbians wont have us. its a right tidy package. the best case scenario for het women is that they will make the conscious decision to stick with their female friends or relatives (spinster sisters) and have a go at it, or perhaps golden-girls style living arrangements after the nigels are dead. but even then, the temptation to choose nigels is strong (not saying its a biological “urge” or anything of the sort, just that there are forces involved and people change their minds). are we really supposed to trust each other? how stupid would be have to be?
of course, we cant trust our nigels either.
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@Cathy: a friend of mine working in a male dominated field told me exactly the same thing. She said that the older guys, although they could be more paternalistic (opening doors for women, etc) they weren’t so overtly and degradingly misogynist as the young ones could be. It’s obviously related to porn.
Some friends who are teachers or TAs tell me how it is in schools and it seems to be getting worse and worse. I hear of boys as young as 9 sexually assaulting their female classmates, trying to imitate what they saw in the videos, and play it as a game. In secondary school (10-14 yr olds) I heard of this game boys play, they steal the girls mobile phone and give it back only if the girl accepts to kiss the boy, or ‘do stuff’ to him.
Actually studies show that porn was the drive for all media technology (film, tv, dvd, cassette, camcorder, internet, minitel, internet/films/photos on mobile phones, etc.) so if the capitalist market chose one brand over an other or one type of technology over another, it was because porn drove it – which would make sense because in Europe for instance, 70% of all purchases on internet are related to porn & prostitution. I guess the same ratio would be found if we look at streaming, purchase of DVDs, use of internet on mobile phones, etc. Anyway it completely fits the notion that hatred of women is what drives the entire patriarchal system. We *live* in pornland.
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so no, in the absence of other alternatives, of which there are none at the moment, het women in general CANNOT survive without men, neither can bi-women or asexual women.
It must be harder for asexual women though because their chances to find an accepting male partner are severely limited. What I see as even more far-reaching and ultimately tragic for female friendship is the fact that so much of it is conditional on having similar living arrangements. Women with husband & children seem only very rarely to still maintain bonds with their single female friends. Not neccessarily because Nigel is number one but because they are so caught up in family and relationship maintenance that meaningful conversation can only take place with women of the same circumstances. It would be the best option to just not get suckered into burdening yourself with the role of primary caregiver (not only of your children, mind you, but also your partner). Men can afford to trust each other because they have an identity outside of their families and relationships.
SheilaG, the strong and supportive community you have is truy a thing to be admired. It is not terribly surprising that lesbians have done so much for women and received so little in return.
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@ Sheila
Concerning the het/lesbian divide, the way it’s described seems a bit too black/white to me, at least it doesn’t fit my experience.
It’s this putting women in two boxes, either het or lesbian which I find a bit compartmentalising – as if all hets were born het, as if it wasn’t drilled into to them through violence, rape, daily indoctrination – and as if lesbians lived outside patriarchy and weren’t affected by it, or weren’t struggling in any way with getting rid of patriarchy-related trauma or emotional problems (caused by men) in their daily lives, as if some (many?) of them weren’t het before. As if the only two options for women are either het = patriarchy or lesbianism = freedom from patriarchyThis is probably quite controversial but it reminds me Monique Wittig’s poisonous idea that lesbians aren’t women. This really separated away a large portion of lesbian radical feminists from many women (because they were/are convinced they’re separate from women) and was destructive to the feminist movement as a whole where I live. Many Lesbian feminists I know abide to this idea that lesbians aren’t women to the extent that if you call them a women it’s an insult, or if you talk about women they say “oh, if this is about women, then we’re not concerned by it”, and some even refuse to call themselves feminist because it’s a het/women concept and the only true feminism is lesbianism (!!!wtf! how are we to relate to other women if we don’t consider each other as the same class?). And all the while they think they’re not women, they reproduce patriarchal mechanisms of domination/submission, aggression, sexual objectification, unhealthy partnerships, sectarianism, elitism, internal backstabbing and power fights.. (just to name a few) – just like any other women who’s suffered emotionally/physically from patriarchy basically, no more no less. And in the same way some of my radfem het friends may be more reliable in terms of availability / help & support than other lesbian feminist friends, or vice versa. And others are in the process of becoming lesbian.
Anyway I don’t mean lesbianism in itself isn’t great, because it is, only in practice it depends on which person / or which group I meet. I just don’t see it as a homogeneous community at all… But maybe that’s not what you were saying.
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Anyway I don’t mean lesbianism in itself isn’t great, because it is, only in practice it depends on which person / or which group I meet. I just don’t see it as a homogeneous community at all… But maybe that’s not what you were saying.
I’m with you witchwind, I also don’t see the lesbian communities as homogeneous and living in feminist utopias. (Its a huge step in the right direction, but is not necessarily feminist) My first youthful shy foray (over 30 years ago) into a lesbian community at a small-town college was disastrous. The backstabbing, the gossiping, the betrayals, the enforcement of butch-femme role-playing, and various unwritten social rules etc – almost made me run back to men! *sheesh* In later years, I figured that I had been unlucky, and that I had just stumbled into the ‘wrong’ community in my first ‘coming out’. Same as you can end up hanging out with the “wrong crowd”. All these decades later, you only need to go to any lesbian dating-site on the internet and unfortunately the “negative stereotypes” of lesbian non-feminist pseudo-community are still around — not to mention the huge co-optation by the ‘queer/trans’ political bandwagon, colonising lesbians in more recent times.
It was one of my first genuine lovers who said to me “…. in your het days, if you went out with a man, and you had lousy sex, or a really negative experience, or he turned you right off with some misogynist behaviour etc – did you turn off all men after that first one?” or did you just think, one bad apple ??? …. then conversely, why did I think of turning off all lesbian women forever, simply because my first experiences with lesbians were negative? It made me think quite a bit about internalised misogyny in general, and internalised lesbophobia in particular. We are all trained/conditioned etc to judge other women far more harshly, in that we often hold women up to much higher standards of behaviour, and then when they inevitably fail to live up to such impossible standards, we blame them.
On the other hand, at the very same time, I also have sympathy with the rage some lesbians like Sheila feel towards other women. I have known het women or ex-het lesbians argue with me about us dykes being so “mean” when we aren’t all sympathetic, compassionate, and motherly, and ‘inclusive’ and playing ‘nurse’ (or counsellor, therapist etc) to heal the wounds of all women, and providing “sanctuary” for all the far more seriously damaged women of the world. Or that women joining our few lesbian spaces should be automatically welcomed as long, lost sisters – such women often do walk into lesbian spaces with a sense of “entitlement” to lesbian time, effort, attention, and resources. Or at feminist activist groups, where someone always says “I appreciate or sympathise etc etc — that its a problem for lesbians,,, BUT…should we waste time talking about this? – aren’t there more important feminist issues? ” ( In other words, lesbian issues aren’t women’s issues…/snark)
Also, I was young in the old days, and was part of the movement which saw many lesbian-feminists working very hard in solidarity with het women, in abortion law reform, in women’s health services, in setting up refuges and shelters etc – and then basically told to fuck off, no quid-pro-quo, no solidarity or support in return, on lesbian political issues etc – remember the “lavender menace”? Yeah well anyway, I can well understand many dykes taking the attitude of ‘Well, Fuck You Too Sister”.
Anywhow – although I can feel for both sides of the divide, I do not think Sheila’s constant blaming of women for their lives is a viable strategy for resolving the problem, and I find Sheila’s rants very tiresome after several years now. I rarely even read her whole posts, just immediately move onto the next one. That blaming strategy just repeats well-learned, and deeply internalised male-supremacist divide-and-conquer, makes the divisiveness worse and keeps re-opening the wounds to bleed over-and-over-and-over, and doesn’t do anything for solidarity, personally, or politically.
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Thanks for your long comment Rainsinger, it was really interesting to read! `
Being fairly new to radfeminism / lesbianism means that I have little hindsight to the movement, it’s always great to hear about women with more experience / time behind them. Yes I remember some older lesbians feminists telling me about the stories over lesbians helping out the hets for abortion (etc) and then being rejected, it’s terrible (I’m too young to remember the lavender menace but read about it recently). Though I didn’t know about lesbians being criticised for not being compassionate enough, or being expected to play nurses – but the women I’ve met are too different for me to have noticed it. Still, discovering lesbian feminism / women-identifying & centering has been great, overall it’s felt like coming home. Also a positive thing today is that my generation of radfems don’t seem to have the same problems of division between hets/lesbians as they appeared to have had in the 70′. As far as I can see, we don’t see it as much of a problem and understand it’s also part of a feminist evolution / consciousness / political choice. Perhaps decades of LGBT activism, despite the queer propaganda, has at least reduced some homophobia (or maybe it’s just that I haven’t sensed it yet).
I don’t know much of the LGBT/lesbian queer community though, having come to lesbianism through radfeminism, and having already learned to flee the queers like the plague lol. I’ve met a few very briefly and that was as much as I could handle.Nothing will ever ever make me turn off from women, no matter how much violence or backstabbing they may do to me. I’m aware this is part of the patriarchal strategy, and though I might hold them responsible for what they do I’ll never blame them like I blame men.
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I cannot state strongly enough that we must stop useing the term ‘child porn’, for in reality it does not exist. What exists is the rape, violence and sexual abuse of children which is illegal and a crime that must be prosecuted.
If we use the patriarchy’s words then we legitimise the term ‘child porn’, which allows this vile abuse to become normalised and legitimate.
We must stop useing the term please…name it for what it is…….Rape, sexual and violent abuse of children….a breech of their human rights…a crime that should be punished by death….. -
ybawife – Yes, I agree regarding terminology. It masks what it really is, which is documentation of rape and sexual violence. As an interim step, maybe putting ‘so-called’ in front of it as Hecuba did could work too. I did refer to it as “images of children (in this case, girls) being sexually abused” because I don’t think the term alone is appropriate in communicating the gravity of what it actually is.
Related… a few years ago, there was an episode of Oprah about “child porn” wherein she described, in detail, exactly what that meant, using real-life examples. It was horrifying, but effective at communicating that this isn’t just “naughty images” as the word ‘porn’ conjures up for a lot of people.
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Gina Crossley-Corcoran aka the Feminist Breeder had a similar experience: “Yesterday, HH [hyphenated husband] dropped off our income statements to the county office, and the security guard at the FRONT DESK was reading a Hustler magazine. In plain view. Of our kids. And people have a problem with nursing in public?!?!? (HH reported him, btw.)”
