a feminist in favor of porn
December 19, 2007 by Cash
The often interesting “Letters from a Broad” blog offers a somewhat startling (in my experience with feminist leaning women anyway) view on porn.
In fact, she goes so far as to suggest
I am absolutely convinced that porn decreases hostility towards women, increases acceptance of women’s sexual autonomy, and makes ordinary women safer
She makes myriad good points throughout the post, but another piece that caught my eye is her inference that pornography increases a male’s healthy sexual desire
Pornography (with masturbation) gives strong positive reinforcement for the idea that there exist women who consent to sexual expression and circumstances where sexual release is harmless and good.
And why be a monster when you’re given the opportunity to be a lover instead?
I could go on quoting this thing all day, but it’s best read in its entirety
I know someone with a Kitchen Aide Mixer… It’s real nice.
Thanks, I’m glad you liked my article!!!
Actually, this attitude isn’t as rare as you may think. I’ve written a lot of posts on pornography and on sexuality in general (go to my blog and click on the “sexuality” or “pornography” topics in the sidebar), and while I’ve gotten some negative reactions from some traditionalists, I’ve also gotten lots of positive responses from women who are glad to finally see a feminist position on this that they agree with.
The bottom line is that the quasi-official feminist doctrine that porn leads to rape is not backed by evidence. The evidence shows exactly the opposite (which makes sense really). And the real-world results are what matters, so the idea that feminists must oppose porn is becoming a thing of the past. I saw an interesting new study (by BYU of all places…) that shows that the overwhelming majority of male college students look at porn at least occasionally, and nearly half regularly. At the same time, it showed that nearly half of college age women have no problem with that (though they’re apparently less likely to seek out porn themselves for a host of complex reasons that are beyond the scope of this discussion). The article goes on to say that since about half of women are less accepting of porn there are relationship conflicts on the horizon (given the number of men who look at porn), but what I see is the opposite: As women gain relationship experience and see that sweet normal guy after sweet normal guy looks at porn, they end up coming to the rational, reasonable conclusion that, in fact, porn is not a scary evil thing that turns men into monsters.
meh