Women posing nude are now a PRO-Feminist thing?????

Great Debates
81

See, I still don’t agree with that logic chain.

To modify your example, Nazis marching down main street are pretty much implicitly against Jewish people, just by the act of being Nazis, even if their particular neo-Nazi organization has never said word one about Jews. A person who identifies as Nazi has a hard row to hoe before you’d believe they weren’t anti-Semetic, and there’s not a lot of sensical ways to claim both pro-Nazi and not-anti-Semetic.

A similar argument could be made that participating in particularly exploitative pornography (of a type that encourages misogynistic attitudes, let’s say) is implicitly anti-feminist.

82

Have any feminists argued for a ban on porn? I think their views more closely correspond with the latter view.

83

My pedantic Russian friend was really annoyed with the phrase “pierogies”, since apparently “pierogi” is plural in Russian. I told him that it’s a loan word and so it shouldn’t really bother him and came up with an analogy which I now forget, but yeah…

Sorry for straying off-topic. :frowning:

84

It’s not feminist OR unfeminist or anti-feminist, because it affects no one except her, and her behavior does not represent or reflect upon the 50% of humanity who happen to have girl parts.

That *is *anti-feminist, because they are actively trying to oppress other women. There’s a world of difference between doing your own thing and trying to make it so that everyone has to do your thing.

“Feminism” means “believing in the equality of men and women”. I support the rights of both men and women to get naked for fun and profit. I reject the idea that every move I make must benefit the sisterhood, because I reject the idea that my actions reflect on all women. The majority of serial killers are white men, but no one extrapolates from that that all white men are good for is serial killing.

I believe that the best way to gain and defend our rights and freedoms is to demand them, use them, and scream bloody blue murder when anyone tries to infringe upon them. It is not to scold other women for using those rights and freedoms in ways we disapprove of.

85

This is exactly it. We’ve got three options here…either something is PRO-feminist, it’s neutral, or it’s ANTI-feminist. I think in order for something to be PRO-feminist, it’s got to, you know, promote feminism. There are many many choices women can make that don’t promote feminism and in fact may hurt the cause. Michelle Duggar can make the choice she wanted to make, and bless her heart for doing it, but she’s not promoting feminism. Her choice is AT BEST neutral and at worst anti. If your choice hurts the chance for other women to make their own choices, then it’s probably worse than neutral.

86

I will happily join in any fight to ban exploitation, in the garment industry or in the porn industry if it is found to exist there. But exploitation and abuse are an evil in themselves, and have no necessary link with sex or sex-related industries.

I am equally insistent that laws protect babies who appear in G-rated movies and television sitcoms by limiting the time they can spend under the hot lights, for example.

And yes, I HAVE heard some feminists proposing what certainly sounds like a ban on erotica.

Interesting anecdote: Do you remember the 80s sitcom “Designing Women”? In one episode I watched last night, the scrappy feminist Julia Sugarbaker told a woman who runs a nudie magazine that someday, her magazine would be “zoned out of town, out of the county, out of the state, the country and the planet.” Her comments were heartily cheered by the largely female audience, I remember thinking it ironic that when she came to banning porn on the planetary level, she would receive enthusiastic support from conservative Islam, the same people who would, if they could, deny Julia Sugarbaker the right to run a business, hire and fire men, dress as she wishes, or even leave the house without being covered up and led around by a male relative.

87

Which, if it’s to be coherent and rational, means empowering women. Empowering women means allowing them to make any choice they see fit to make as an autonomous being. Therefore women making autonomous choices promotes feminism. Trying to castigate women for making their own choices is anti-feminism. Claiming that the behavior of an individual woman somehow reflects on all women isn’t just anti-feminist, *it’s sexist. *

Complaining that autonomous women are making choices you don’t like and are therefore “[hurting] the chance for other women to make their own choices” and thus “AT BEST neutral and at worst anti” is incoherent nonsense. Then feminism is no longer about empowerment, but control.

88

Actually, she’s got a point there. I tend to agree more with you Finn, and Diana G, but there is something here also.

In a perfect universe where people don’t look at someone’s choices and extrapolate out to the rest of “people like them” then yes, the goal should be for everyone to be equal and for everyone to be judged on their own individual merits, and for their “groups” conversely to not be pre-judged by the actions of individuals sharing those traits.

We aren’t in that world, and in the current imperfect place where we are, an activism-minded person should consider that their choices impact what people think about the group or groups they belong to. Those choices also necessarily impact the choices of people in those groups in the future, and if you’re being an activist, it’s something that should be taken into consideration along with the personal gains or losses you take into account. It’s just the way things are right now.

What I disagree with is that **Sarah **seems to think that enforcing that consideration should be a goal of feminism (or that people should be considered feminists only if they DO make that consideration), rather than encouraging people to point it out to the world at large as a painful and irritating phase in the process of moving towards actual equality.

89

As a fanatical believer in free speech, far be it from me to limit anyone’s right to compose a post to prove that she said that I said that we said what I did not say, or to argue that a statement becomes a logical fallacy when it fails to distribute the middle term, but. . . . .

The point I was really getting at in my OP was to tweak liberal, western feminists who oppose porn/erotica as anti-female by asking what they think of the fact that these courageous Iranian women (and that Egyptian woman) have found that nude photos are a way to oppose a super-sexist, patriarchal society?

To put it another way, if you are an anti-porn western feminist, does it make you feel creepy to know that the Taliban and other conservative Muslims who want to keep women “under wraps” uneducated and powerless are even MORE opposed to pornography and erotica than you are? And did you know that one of the prime justifications they give for their repressive measures is that it protects the dignity of women, protects them from rape, etc.?

Does it make you feel creepy to know that the Taliban would be 100% in agreement that porn demeans and debases women? And that a great deal of support for anti-porn laws in the west would come from conservative Muslims, fundamentalist Christians and conservatives who opposed ERA and all other pro-female measures? Has it occurred to you how very many of the people who would not vote for Hillary Clinton just because she is a woman would also agree that porn debases women?

Did you know that Nazi Germany was one of the most sexist and patririarchal societies in the world? For Nazis, women were baby-machines for the pruction of “Aryan” children. The Nazis were equally down on erotica (as well as gays, transvestites, etc.)

Yes, I know Julius Streicher and his newspaper Der Strummer was a form of pornography, but it was really anti-semitic trash that used female nudes to attract readership. The hook-nosed Jewish employer with the silk hat standing over pink Aryan nude females, draining their blood, etc. And even Streicher soon ran afoul of the Nazis and was more of less a persona non grata by 1945 when the Allies arrested him.

The next time a feminist opposes pornography, perhaps she should stop and consider who her bedfellows are.

90

Oh no no no, I don’t think enforcing anything should be a goal of feminism. I think that if women want to call themselves feminist, then they have to think about whether or not their choices promote feminsim, that’s all. Michelle Duggar doesn’t give a rip about feminism. In fact, she consciously chooses against it, and that’s her right and privilege. I’m just saying that that choice isn’t feminist. I think we all should make our own choices based on our own priorities, but we can’t kid ourselves that everything we choose to do either promotes the cause or doesn’t affect it…some things are detrimental.

But your first paragraphs I agree with.

91

(snipped by me)

I totally agree, but then I was raised super fundie-quiverfull, so I’m a bit more familiar with “doing things for/deciding what’s best for/resticting women for their own good” than I would think most liberal western women are. That’s why I didn’t really get into the discussion until the de-rail.

92

It’s interesting in other ways, too. For instance, there’s little question that Isabella Rossellini’s role in Blue Velvet was representative of a position of a dominated, exploited, damaged woman. But if I am to understand the position against pornography correctly, then this, too, was anti-feminist. If I am to reject porn but not Blue Velvet, then I am forced to suppose that sex is inherently exploitative. Who is really going to argue this with a straight face besides a bedbug?

93

Like Thomas Sowell supports the black power movement?

Edit:

I’m not sure having a woman that’s been raped and their child kidnapped by a psychopath immediately hop into bed with a high school student that was watching them from their cupboard and then beg to be hit by them in order to climax is really the best depiction of how damaging domestic abuse is.

94

Errr… yeah. I meant “represented” not “was representative of.” Whoopsie. :o

95

The problem is that this breeds a Tomorrow, In Heaven style argument. Either we work to create the type of change we want, or we perpetuate the system. I’m not using that phrase lightly; the fallacies involved in bigotry, sexism, racism, etc… are the fallacies of
Composition and Division. By using those fallacies in order to argue for why women must conform to certain gender rules in the name of feminism, all we accomplish is to reinforce those fallacies as valid.

I also disagree with your contention about activists. Hell, for roughly 30 years now politics has largely revolved around the deliberate use of memetic combat. Sexual politics are still politics. Feminists could argue that women are allowed to make any choice they want, as autonomous beings, and only a sexist would judge all women by the actions of a few. Or, they can reinforce sexism (via the fallacies of Composition and Division) and try to coerce the conformity of other women in order to promote ‘the cause’. If that’s the situation, then as Humpty Dumpty said, the only question is who is to be master… men or higher ranking women.

96

I think if you want to tweak people who believe this, you need a time machine set for something like 1980 or earlier. From what I can tell, the idea that porn is inherently anti-female has died out.

97

Another point that has not been brought up enough is the lack of any hard evidence that porn or erotica actually harms anyone, male or female.

There was a much-trumpeted study in the 80s, if I recall, that showed that men exposed to violent porn became less shocked by it. Well, d. . . . .uuh!:rolleyes:

And nurses who faint when they first see a human body being cut into on the operating table will later in their careers be able to look at an entire body splayed open and discuss what they had for lunch. Do those nurses have a tendency to go out and cut people up?

Veterans who puked and fainted the first time they saw someone hit by a bullet can later take a nap next to a battlefield corpse. Does that make them murderers when they get back?

Maybe this is the nub of the matter. There is **WITHOUT A DOUBT **a sexist, patriarchal way of thinking in our society which even today denies women rights and equality.

But is the film portrayal of sexual activity really a contributing factor? Or is the feminist movement wasting precious time, energy and resources fighting something harmless that arises out of our basic human nature and that just lets people get their rocks off, fer Chrissake?

It has been noted that the USA is probably the most religious country in the western world, and also the biggest producer of porn.:smiley:

But stop and consider. Porn has become more and more available over the past 60 years, and the standards of censorship have become more and more liberal and permissive. We laugh at the fact that people had problems with “Gone with the Wind” because Rhett Butler says “damn” at the end. Two people in bed together was forbidden in most films at one time. Now I can watch “Will and Grace” and see two MEN in bed together and it’s considered part of a comedy.

Yet how do you explain that over those same 60 years, women have made enormous strides. Hillary Clinton was a serious contender. Women judges. Women heads of state in Europe, Argentina, etc. More and more women in board rooms and as CEOs.

No matter how much we dwell on failures such as ERA and the continuing glass ceiling, the fact is this:

The past 60 years have witnessed BOTH an enormous increase in the availability of erotica and the relaxation of restrictive standards, AS WELL AS a steady march of women towards equality, freedom and empowerment.
Yes, many films show women saying things like “hurt me with your big meat rod”. But that is what millions of women and gay men say to their partners every day.

Let’s just take a step back and consider.

Sexuality is an impulsive, barbaric, illigocal, but highly pleasurable activity, that we share in common with animals (no, I do not mean we should do it with animals!!!:p) and that comes out of the primordial ooze!

Men and women in the excitement of sex regularly call one another “bitch” “animal” and a host of other things they would never dream of saying to their partner in any other context. Some men are extremely turned on by women who treat them like slaves and inferiors, and many women are turned on by men who do the same.

I was once treated by a shrink who found that I was not getting aroused enough during sex because I was too civilized, too nice, too caring. He pointed out that sex arises from our animal nature and that to some extent, we have to let ourselves become egotistical and devoted to our own pleasure. The woman yells “use me” and the man calls her a “slut” and they both get turned on. Or maybe the man says “use me” and the woman says “lie down you bastard”.

People who do bondage/discipline and sado/masochism are just taking this ethos to a new level.

But as long as it is consensual, any intelligent person can see that it is just play-acting designed to stimulate our libidos, and that there is no reason to think it has an effect on the progess of women’s equality.

Frankly, I have never lost respect for men, no matter how often partners have told me to “use” them or their various body parts.

I think pornography is a false enemy of feminism, and it is about time the feminist movement stopped tilting at this windmill. When you get right down to it, the same mentality that wants to keep women in submission also disapproves of porn. And the more sexist the person (i.e. the Taliban) the more likely they are to object to ecven an ankle showing. Think about it.

98

Good thing most feminists stopped being opposed to porn decades ago. Read something about third-wave feminism.

99

I partially agree with you, but as Mark Twain said, news of its death is greatly exagerated. I would settle for saying that many feminists have come to realize that porn is people reving up their libidos and their animal natures so they can enjoy a good rock-off, and that ultimately it is NOT political or part of the struggle for women’s equality.

100

Well, we are not going to argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. If third-wave feminism has dropped its objection to porn, so much the better. But how many women are in fact “Third-wave”? All I am saying is that the “porn is an instrument of male oppression” idea is still around.

Note some of the posts in this thread saying things like “Playboy/Hustler/Penthouse - expressly only about the sensibilities of men, despite involving women, thus objectifying women who are not seen as anything other than receptacles for male sexual desire.” (I believe this is in post no. 3 or thereabouts.

Just saying, it is interesting that brave women in the Muslim world fighting a VERY sexist and patriarchal tyranny would use female nudity as a weapon of liberation.