[notathoughtgiven]

@notathoughtgiven What are your thoughts on Andrea Dworkin?

I haven’t read a lot about her works. I do know her for her stand that pornography was about rape and domination of women. Which it can be that. But I find that too simplistic to say all pornography is about rape and domination of women. I like her stance about bring pornography to task on civil rights instead of obscenity. If there are people that want to see sexual acts and their are people willing to act it out then I see no problem. But when it involves putting someone else down and force without their consent well that is wrong.

[atreestump]

I think it’s fair to say that pornography does give men, especially young men and boys, a wrong impression of sex in general and certainly does add to domination, I don’t think you can isolate it from capitalism in that regard either. She did at least talk to sex workers directly and based her works around those experiences, which is fair enough. I guess one has to draw a line between art and porn though at some point.

While I don’t see any problem among consenting adults, I think I have the same grind with this type of ‘liberation’ as being similar to the Cosmopolitan ideal of woman, which may be promoting a kind of street wise version form of woman, but can also be regarded as being for the male gaze and in that sense, it still adds to unequal gender relations.

As Dworkin was a radical feminist, I think she was in the mind of active solutions that don’t beat about the bush and so she isolated porn as a major exploitation of women and was against it for precisely that reason – radical feminists are the backbone of feminism to me, they carry the true spirit of the first wave.

[notathoughtgiven]

I think it’s fair to say that pornography does give men, especially young men and boys, a wrong impression of sex in general and certainly does add to domination,

I would agree with that. Certainly gave me the wrong impression growing up about sex. But I really didn’t have anything else to dispute that in my life at the time.

I guess one has to draw a line between art and porn though at some point.

Maybe its the distinctions that are the problem. If its two people engaging in sexual act then its porn. While some people only call it porn if it is about domination and if its done as an expression of the act then its art.

While I don’t see any problem among consenting adults, I think I have the same grind with this type of ‘liberation’ as being similar to the Cosmopolitan ideal of woman, which may be promoting a kind of street wise version form of woman, but can also be regarded as being for the male gaze and in that sense, it still adds to unequal gender relations.

Yes I agree. If it is just about being for the male gaze then it does nothing about the unequal gender relations. Women are still bowing to men and what they want instead of doing it for themselves and what they want.

As Dworkin was a radical feminist, I think she was in the mind of active solutions that don’t beat about the bush and so she isolated porn as a major exploitation of women and was against it for precisely that reason – radical feminists are the backbone of feminism to me, they carry the true spirit of the first wave.

Not only active solutions but solutions that worked. Like shifting the focus of what pornography was from being obscenity to being about civil rights was a way to make changes that worked. To make it equal for everyone. In that way I agree with you. Radical feminists are the backbone indeed.

[atreestump]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85Ly9w3XsTo

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