This morning, I noticed a comment caught by our spamguard:
rape pornrape picturesrape fantasylesbian rapehentai rapegay rapegang rapedate rapeanime rapeanal raperape videorape videosrape
Subtle. With that “fantasylesbian” bit thrown in, I almost missed that this might lead to some rape porn.
I had a feeling the link provided would be [THE LEAST WORK-SAFE LINK I'VE EVER POSTED] one of the ugliest sites I’d ever visited. It was, but it also provided a surprise: it turns out that the patriarchy keeps its handbook at a “rape paysite portal.”
[Warning: This is disturbing, graphic stuff. Proceed at your own risk.]
The featured link was to BridalAbuse:
There is nothing more precious than a sexy bride on her wedding day… except when she has a huge cock buried in her tight ass and one in her cunt at the same time while she screams and cries for mercy!
Prima Nocta explained! Good to know. But that’s a little advanced for most patriarchamalists. Is there a more remedial course available?
Why, yes, at SleepingBitch:
Men always get what the want! Even if they have to break the rules and morale principals for that! This site is ready to prove it! Treacherous men with wicked desires are loading these babes with sleeping pills and drugs with the one and only purpose! To be in control of these delicious chicks!
Isn’t that just the best summation of the patriarchy you ever heard?
1) Men always get what they want.
2) They’ll do anything to keep it that way (though presumably they would break moral principles and not “morale principals” (would that be a patriarchally approved name for male cheerleaders?)).
3) Sex is about control of teh bitchez
But what kind of men are susceptible to this kind of teaching? Oh, right, the Nice Guys with their BrutalPassions:
Katrina is one of my long life friends. I have always wanted to fuck this little cock-slut, but she doesn’t want to risk out friendship. On I big night out we went dancing on a club, I sad all night in the corner watching this little fuck-toy dance sexy. She has the most stunning ass ever and I heard from friends that her pussy is so tight and that she likes it in the ass. I decided that I would try that slut no matter what!
Sometimes, though, women are actually willing to have sex with you, but as the patriarchy knows, that’s no excuse not to rape them. ForcedDB explains:
This slut decided to take home 2 strangers from a party… – See how The guys put drugs in her drink and start to violently forced Carrie’s Tight slutty ass and leaves her crying…
Remember, boys, it’s not about the sex, it’s about the control. And slut-shaming via violent rape. Textbook patriarchy, yo.
I’m sure some of you are wondering if you can be a racist and a member of the patriarchy. Of course you can, silly! Just ask ViolentAsians:
Asian women are famous for their beauty, their obedience and their submissive nature. They are the perfect victims!
They can never be too submissive. Better rape ‘em anyway to be safe. In fact, as ManiacDiaries will tell you, rape can be an excellent teacher:
I had no idea what that stupid chick was doing in the dark park. Girls like her usually sit at home and read smart books. But she was brave enough to head for the farthest exit alone in the darkness. And she was dumb enough to resist me when I grabbed her. I spent too much time calming her down with hard blows, but she still made weak attempts to set herself free.
Lesson learned.
But hey, the patriarchy doesn’t just have to humiliate women. It can incorporate the men dumb enough to like willful bitchez, too, and turn them into ForcedWitnesses:
A victim is raped, abused, humiliated, and her lover is made to watch the whole thing, tied up and powerless!
We’re getting into abstract territory again, though, so for those of you who’ve lost your way on the basic path to good patriarchy, maybe you should watch some ForcedSexTV:
Look at these exhausted faces! Look at all these tears and bruises! These are ordinary girls and women you see everyday out in the street. Look at this masked friends! They violate these poor babes? fuck them most brutally, humble them and jeer at them most mercilessly! Men can achive everything by force!
Excellent point. Let’s add to our 3-point patriarchy checklist above:
4) Men can achive everything by force!
ForcedGirls also has a helpful reminder:
He’s hot to have his dick plowing in deep into some slut’s warm, wet depths. It doesn’t matter if the slut he finds doesn’t want to have a dick in her, for her opinion is inconsequential. He wants to fuck her and he will FUCK her! All here screaming and pleading won’t change a thing.
5) Her opinion is inconsequential.
Don’t want to play along? Well, if you’re a woman, I think you get the idea. If you’re a man, don’t think you’ll get off easy with a raping of your woman. You pussyboys are also on the hitlist via GayViolence:
Swallowing, sucking and sticking down in the dirt is what these pussyboys want. It’s the base desire to be fucked like a woman at the hands of a violent virile stud who has no regard for the laws of man or even simple, common decency!
6) Fuck common decency. Right in its tight, bruised asshole.
Oh R Mildred, you know what, blow me. I don’t abhor infighting. I love fighting: it gets me wet. What I abhor is whey-faced little gits handwringing about how much they CARE about capital w-Women while simultaneously being nasty as shit to the actual women they’re supposedly fighting for. HELP HELP YOU’RE BEING OPPRESSED. Spare me.
You know: that last time this blew up in here, with Pony spouting her vile crap about Renegade Evolution: Renegade had a few things to say about that on her own blog. Among them her intense irritation at how the -only- thing people seemed to take exception to is her actually being called “whore.” Like, you know, that’s the worst thing you can call a woman. Still, yes. (Marc: I know, “that’s a terrible thing to say.” Save it). That in fact that that was by far the -least- objectionable thing in the slew of slurs and insults and speculations about her looks and mental capabilities and morals and so forth: technically, it’s true; yep, she’s a whore. And?
And, I’ll tell you what else, “and.” There is a woman posting on her blog who self-identifies as a Southern Methodist Republican housewife. When pony came in posting her bullshit in there, (to wit, you’re a real dog), know what she said to RE? “You are beautiful and fearless.” That’s it. That’s all.
And I have more respect for her for that than I do for any number of spavined “radicals” and other supposedly enlightened folks who can’t even be arsed enough to leave their own protected enclaves long enough to actually talk to someone like RE on her own turf, much less the god-forbid religious Republican woman. Who, yes, I disagree with on many, many things; and she says a lot of shit that makes me wince. As do a number of other people very far off from me on the ideological spectrum. And yet, I respect them, if, IF, they can -ever- turn it off for five minutes and listen to what other people actually have to say. To show some goddam motherfucking empathy, which is, guess what? -Not- the same thing as “oh, oh, I feel soooooo baadddddddd. You feel bad, too. Then we can all feel bad together: that is progress. That is MORALITY.”
Mildred. Marc. *nod*
And I certainly don’t deny the power of fear: what I am saying is that is one particular power dynamic I do not wish to consent to any longer, as much as possible, anyway. Your own mileage may certainly vary. I certainly don’t expect it to be easy. Never has been.
And yeah, the depressive position doesn’t help much; but working myself into a state of near-incandescent rage isn’t actually all that much better. Good as it feels at the time. Yes. Like right now.
and i agree with junk science: no problem with actual criticism, serious criticism. But, well, okay, “it.” Which it? Rape porn? This shite? Yeah, it’s vile. Where’s it coming from?
You know, Elaina: well, i think I’ve said some of this stuff to you before, in a different context. But looking critically at the roots of…whatever you’d like to call it, patriarchy. It goes farther than that. Like: this urge to tear oneself free and be “pure,” which I see a lot of in radical feminism (at the site at which we last had this conversation, for instance): that itself, as it turns out, in -also- in the template. Christianity. Calvinism, specifically, in this country. “Nearer my God to thee.” It’s just turning it on its head. Now the original sin is with Man, not Eve; the badness goes straight back to the source. Don’t punish the hookers, punish the johns. (For example). All of them: every man Jack. The notion that the sexual desire -itself- is bad still isn’t really tackled though, not really; more important, neither is the desire to -punish.- Both power and sexuality are, I think, a lot more complicated than we’d most of us like them to be.
I had already been thinking that the mythology of the Patriarchy a la Dworkin does sound a lot like Original Sin, only inverted. then I found this book called “Deadly Innocence” by a Christian feminist thealogian which pretty much spelled this thesis out. As it happens, she bases her thinking not on the porn/prostitution business at all, but (among other things) on her experience in a womens’ anti-nuke camp in England in the early 80′s.
But I’ll save that for my own site; I’ve been meaning to get back to it. Along with the Mary Daly she keeps referring to.
FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK! I’m going to change my name. That’s all there is to it.
Elaina I’d love to read your blog. It sounds like you have things to say that I want to hear, but I can’t read dark type on a dark background.
I have never called any woman a dog. But I have called a woman a whore; she is me. I was a whore and said so here. I don’t whitewash. I didn’t do what I did out of choice or enjoy it, although if you’d have asked me at the time, I would have said so. One of the reasons I would have said so would have been people like BelleDame222 who surrounded me and praised and stroked me for doing it, “defended” me from the people who told me I should stop. I wanted love. I was as clueless as most whores and thought that’s what the john’s offered. I talked a good line; I was in sales. I loooooved what I was doing. I knew exactly what I was doing, thank you leave me alone. Bullshit.
Half-breed girls were born of whoring and a white man’s ownership two hundred years ago in Western Canada, and it still exists as the primary choice for them today.
Belle you’re a john plain and simple, it’s you and people like you keep women enslaved with your porn/rape fantasies, and it’s people like you rad fems are coming after.
Apologies R.Mildred, I won’t post again to this thread.
I think one of the worst things about rape porn is that it can desensitize people and break down any respect they do have for women. I’m all for first ammendment rights, but I can’t deny that I think stuff like this can be very harmful. There are many action movies that show violence, and those can desensitize people even if the violence isn’t glorified. But this porn is making rape look like something that’s good, and it’s really hard to separate fact from fiction.
Another issue I have with things like this is that it seems particularly angry. I won’t say I’m shocked by it, because I knew it was in existance. To me, I don’t think it’s as much about being turned on as it is about being angry at women. The language and terms show that–the women are portayed as being deserving of the treatment they get, which is what I find pathetic. And, honestly, if we were talking about a white supremist website that implied black people deserved to be beaten up for walking in certain places, there’s probably be a lot of outcry over it.
That’s one of the things I find particularly sad about rape. Even in cases where it’s not eroticized, you still have people who suggest the woman brought it on because she dressed provocatively, or flirted with the man before he attacked her. But rape isn’t about what the victim did or did not do, it’s about the horrendous choice of the person who assaults them.
I don’t think that BDSM is the problem, or that it’s necessarily unhealthy for people who know what they’re doing. Though I don’t believe I could be happy doing those sort of things, I think it’s more about trust than anything else. Being genuinely hurt or upset isn’t BDSM–it’s abuse. Unfortunately, rape porn is often passed off as BDSM porn.
You said in just about so many words that R Mildred was ugly, Pony (“she’d be barking.”) Then you went to her blog when she posted her picture and said “I was right!”
-You’re- ugly. No matter what you look like. And no matter what kind of ideology and/or wounds to your own inner moppet you hide behind. I’m sorry you had a shit time, but you know what: it doesn’t excuse your behavior now. And that’s the last thing I’m saying to you.
As for the rest: I found this apropos on a number of levels, today:
“But it is not enough to stand on the opposite river bank, shouting questions, challenging patriarchal, white conventions. A counterstance locks one into a duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat, like the cop and the criminal, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence. The counterstance refutes the dominant culture’s views and beliefs, and, for this, it is proudly defiant. All reaction is limited by, and dependent on, what it is reacting against. Because the counterstance stems from a problem with authority–outer as well as inner–it’s a step towards liberation from cultural domination. But it is not a way of life. At some point, on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave the opposite bank, the split between the two mortal combatants somehow healed so that we are on both shores at once and, at once, see through serpent and eagle eyes. or perhaps we will decide to disengage from the dominant culture, write it off altogether as a lost cause, and cross the border into a wholly new and seperate territory. Or we might go another route. The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.”
–Gloria Anzaldua, via Slant Truth
http://www.slanttruth.com/2006/09/27/transformative-politics-5/
…jesus. “that Renegade Evolution was ugly,” I meant to say there, of course. R Mildred you apparently like, now; now that she’s said a few things you -do- like; which I guess cancels out any such sentiment as
“and while some idiot who never got over am incident of abusive sex they experienced once and has decided that, due to the wonderful combination of being frightfully dull and being too shit scared to risk being hurt again, that all sex with guys is Teh Icky and anyone who has sex with guys is trying to cozy up to the patriarchy etc…etc… *yawn*, those of us with two brain cells to rub together and an ability to actually connect in a sexually intimate way with other human beings of a male persuasion tend to be able to find ways to invite men into our beds without turning it into a threesome with the patriarchy.”
Do you have two brain cells to rub together, Pony? Personally I don’t see it; but I would never connect it to your having been an abuse survivor. I think you’re a hateful idiot DESPITE being an abuse survivor; it really has fuckall to do with whether or not you’re able to connect in a sexually intimate way with men, or anyone. Frankly.
>Another issue I have with things like this is that it seems particularly angry. I won’t say I’m shocked by it, because I knew it was in existance. To me, I don’t think it’s as much about being turned on as it is about being angry at women. The language and terms show that–the women are portayed as being deserving of the treatment they get, which is what I find pathetic. And, honestly, if we were talking about a white supremist website that implied black people deserved to be beaten up for walking in certain places, there’s probably be a lot of outcry over it.
That’s one of the things I find particularly sad about rape. Even in cases where it’s not eroticized, you still have people who suggest the woman brought it on because she dressed provocatively, or flirted with the man before he attacked her. But rape isn’t about what the victim did or did not do, it’s about the horrendous choice of the person who assaults them.
I don’t think that BDSM is the problem, or that it’s necessarily unhealthy for people who know what they’re doing. Though I don’t believe I could be happy doing those sort of things, I think it’s more about trust than anything else. Being genuinely hurt or upset isn’t BDSM–it’s abuse. Unfortunately, rape porn is often passed off as BDSM porn.>
Yes to all of that.
And you know what else: it’s angry at women and it also betrays implicit disgust at the (male) self, I think, for having such “weak” desires in the first place. Which itself is, yes, patriarchal; but it is inextricably interwoven with the fear and hatred of -sex.-
So they turn it around into something more “acceptable:” punish the woman for turning me on and threatening to sap my precious bodily fluids. Here you have the most extreme outcome. Well, no; like I said, actually strictly speaking such images as you find in horror movies, and the glorification of serial murder, is probably the most extreme outcome: then you have the ultimate penetration, with the knife instead of the phallus. No need to dirty himself at all; and now the threat is dead dead dead.
But you don’t get away from all that by turning right back with “punish the man for his filthy -sexual- desires.” If anything, you -reinforce it.-
You focus on the BEHAVIOR. You focus on the RAPE. You focus on the POWER. To keep talking as though I don’t know sexy lingerie and blowjobs and cleavage-baring tops and “naughty” Bettie Page-type images and this and that and the other thing–and, by implication if not outright declaration, the men, for being turned on by such things–are responsible for upholding the “patriarchy”–well, you know what, in fact: as I’m seeing it, no. Not as such. Certainly it is not helpful to continually separate out such cultural signifiers from the greater context of the -flip- side of all this, the Bible-based (primarily) one that says any such indulgences are wicked filthy dirty bad. You will -never get past this- by talking as though it isn’t still very much alive, lap dancing, “pornstitution” and all. All of that is a very thin layer indeed over MILLENNIA’S worth of “just don’t do it at all. Don’t look. Don’t touch. Don’t even -thnk- about it. Filthy, filthy harlots. Strumpets. WHORES. PUNISH THEM.”
You can talk about the semiotics of such things, of course. Or you can speak for your own damn self, say, “I experience high heel wearing or blahblahblah as disempowering.” Sure thing. That’s all swell.
But that’s not the kind of discourse that’s been happening, and frankly it really pisses me off when it is suggested–again!–that those of us who object to the -sloppy- and frankly often irresponsible (do y’all -really- see what happened with Random Bird as significantly different from what happened with Jessica? oh, right, one’s “one of us” and the other’s not) ways in which all this gets talked about on these here blog O’ Spheres, are in fact saying that “oh don’t talk about sex, sex is off limits from criticism.”
Well, y’see, the problem -is,- just plain offering up something that disgusts you–even something like this here rape porn, which is clearly disgusting by pretty much everyone’s standards here, I think that’s clear enough–just doing that and then going “ooh, ahh, ain’t it awful”–know what? That’s not -criticism.- That is -wanking.- Yes. The money shot are the tears of shock and horror and recrimination (and, lest we forget, Blame); but ultimately it amounts to the same damn thing.
Yes. Okay. This shit is vile and foul. No shit. Now what?
And meen and nasty as I’ve been, in the spirit of “now what,” I will offer this as an example of the kind of criticism of sexual imagery I find useful, or at least an attempt at a hint of a beginning:
As it happens, I went with some friends to the Museum of Sex yesterday. Among the exhibits was a history of Japanese erotica/porn, from the Edo period till today. Rather an eye-opener. The early woodcuts and drawings were, on the whole, depictions of pleasurable intercourse between adults. Prostitutes, perhaps; nobility, in some cases; but relatively mutual and enjoyable-looking nonetheless. Realistically portrayed, for the most part, apart from a feitsh-y emphasis on exaggeratedly huge penii (status symbol, said the cliff notes). One caption said, forget the exact words, but something along the lines of: “her pleasure is so great that it lifts her off the ground;” and indeed the position looks like she’s almost floating. Or at least as really good quads.
Then we flash forward to the current crop of manga, hentai, yadda: big BIG difference, stylistically, although as the placards noted, some themes do remain consistent. But now the women are these doe-eyes elfin looking things, often resembling children with large breasts. As it turns out, for a long while any representation of pubic hair was censored; therefore that became part of the convention, the hairless look. This is not true of the early woodcuts. It’s also far more mechanical-looking, which is perhaps not surprising: technology’s advanced a lot, and so has the -worship- of technology. Man, especially, as Machine.
More relevant here, perhaps: for the most part the women, and/or the penetrated (there’s some stuff about shemales, and yes, the yaoi, male-on-male, which interestingly enough quite a lot of women are into these days) look quite unhappy, on the whole. Tears and cries and…it’s all quite disturbing. (to me, the cutesy-wootsy faces and squeaky-clean lines just makes the hardcore rape and incest imagery all the more upsetting).
So we’re looking at this, the timeline, and going, “so what happened?”
And, well, it looks like there are a few answers, some hinted at in the placards. For one thing, when Japan started trading with “Western” countries it started to cater to “Western” sensibilities in many ways; this included erotic art; and the sensibilities of the time were heavily repressive.
And then, too: we’re looking at a quote by..somebody wrt being invaded by the outsiders; and suddenly: of course. Well, that’s -one- thing:
As we know, those who were abused tend to replay their abuse later in life. Sometimes it’s a simple (well, never -simple-) re-enactment, in an attempt perhaps at resolution; in other instances the abused becomes the abuser, switching roles, as it were.
That’s the micro scale: literal sexual abuse. As we know.
But how does this play out on the larger scale?
Well, let’s see: men feel “invaded.” Powerless. Colonized, perhaps. How to get their power back? Why, turn to the next available subject, the next one down the power rung. Hey, I’m fucked in the rest of the world but in the bedroom I’m KING, dammit.
And so it is here as well, I do believe; yes, the anger and rage is there, yes, it comes out directed at women.
-But where is the anger coming from?-
Until that can be satisfactorily addessed, this will go nowhere.
What I am saying is: first of all, it’s clear to me that it’s not because they’re mustache-twirling villains. They may well be sociopaths, the particular men who produced this porn. But you want to look at it on a cultural level, O.K.: this:
“Men can achive everything by force!”
…is so patently a defense. Dude, if that were true, would “men,” THESE men, really be putting this much energy into furtive wank material on the Internets?
No.
They -feel- *powerless.*
There’s a lot of that about these days. Increasingly so.
And no, for fuck’s sake, this is not about “well then let’s pay as much or MORE attention to the poor poor menz; let’s just forget about the women…” Fuck no. This is not about sympathy. This is about–what was it now? Examining. Looking for roots.
And the problem I keep seeing–from radical feminism as well as from the more mainstream currents of thought from which I believe this is in fact derived, “radical” moniker notwithstanding– is this assumption that in fact the act of fucking -or- raping is always only reducible to itself. That it can’t be symbolic of anything except what it is. Penetrating the woman’s body. And any other sort of “invasion” is symbolic of that fleshly act.
Well for damnsure it’s concrete enough to the -victim- of an actual, physical rape.
But if we’re talking about -imagery.-
For that matter, if we’re talking about what’s going on in the sordid little mind of the rapist himself.
What does it all mean, dear?
Me, I just keep flashing on this song title. it was a favorite of my best friend’s abusive asshole brother. “I Want You To Hurt Like I Hurt.”
These feelings of powerlessness and invasion are unbearable. Quick, pass them to someone else. -dump the load- Ah, that’s better.
-That- is a transaction that is pretty damn universal if anything is.
Now, where feminism and particularly radical feminism comes in handy is that it helps to break down exactly where and how -women- get to -collectively- be tag-you’re-it in this little game. That’s crucial, that analysis. Because it’s real. Women Are It. A lot. Bigtime. You see it here. For instance.
But it’s not enough, ultimately. Because -if- it boils down to:
Men did it! The Patriarchy did it! THEY did it! or at least invented it…
… you’re still not really seeing the game itself. You’re not getting at the roots of “why,” not really. And in this instance, particularly, the ways in which repressing sexual desire–hell, repression in general– is -also- part of the game. You don’t get one without the other, point o’ fact: sex-phobia and misogyny. Go together like chocolate and peanut butter, if less delicious.
Which I think a lot of people here understand;
what’s less clear, I think, are the subtler ways in which most of us reiterate and reinforce the sex-phobic part of the equation. I see it as a big blind spot, in fact.
There is also a problem in that there are other “macro” aspects to the culture that simply never get addressed at all. And the net result is…well, as I’ve been seeing it, a big old incoherent mess at best; reinforcement of some of the shibboleths we’re all supposedly against at worst.
So, you know. It’s certainly possible to spend one’s entire life just cleaning up the mess that has been made of actual raped womens’ lives. There are a number of excellent organizations which will help facilitate one should one wish to become more of an activist in this regard. And if one decides that in fact, after all this, YES “pornstitution” is part of the problem, can never ever in any way be part of the solution, well, you know, there are organizations for that, too. As I expect Elaina or at least some of the other radical feminists here already know quite well. For those who don’t:
http://www.catwinternational.org/
…is Janice Raymond’s (co-run) organization: against trafficking, against prostitution, certainly against rape; favors the Swedish model. They accomplish quite a bit, apparently. They have other resources for anti-porn and so forth as well, I do believe. Knock yourselves out.
Personally I’m more interested in adddressing rape as rape, exploitation as exploitation, and sex work as at least potentially distinct from those things; but, you know, I could be wrong.
What I -do- know is that simply pointing and going “oooooh, ICKY! GROSS! RAPE PORN!! (or whatever) Horrible, foul” …really? Not serious. Not of itself. I mean, if that’s where you need to be, then O.K.; just, you should know that this shit? Is not news to many of us. Really. And suggesting (again) that you have Considered this whereas those of us who happen to disagree with you on certain points have not: really fucking irritating.
In societies in which women had no ability to earn a living tha same ways that men did, being a prostitute or concubine was one of the few options that took the burden of support off the family. Appearing to enjoy the sex that was required might lead to better treatment; appearing not to enjoy it probably lead to beatings and/or deprivation. You can choose to believe that women who had no choice but to service men sexually were treated to wonderful, orgasmic sex, if you want to. It’s not like women had much opportunity to write or paint contradictory accounts of their lives, is it?
The entire point of keeping women from owning property or from indepently earning a living is to force them into some sort of servitude – perhaps as a wife who must put the needs of her husband first in every instance, perhaps as a very poorly compensated “housekeeper,” or in some sort of sexual servitude. In every case the women who can perform her duties in a way that is particularly pleasing to men receives better treatment from men. She is still being coerced.
Objecting to coerced sex is not the same thing as opposing sex generally, but the porn industry and its cheerleaders would have us believe that it is.
See the concern troll for what she is – someone who claims not to like rape porn but almost against her will is forced to defend it because sex, free speech, the very fate of the Republic is somehow at stake. Note what she is doing, and wonder why.
Me, I just keep flashing on this song title. it was a favorite of my best friend’s abusive asshole brother. “I Want You To Hurt Like I Hurt.”
These feelings of powerlessness and invasion are unbearable. Quick, pass them to someone else. -dump the load- Ah, that’s better.
Nice theory, belledame. If the anger that leads to rape is caused by feeling powerless, then women should rape more than men since we feel that powerlessness more than men. But we don’t. Why?
Because it’s not about powerlessness. It’s about feeling entitled to have what you want on demand and then, when you don’t get it, throwing a temper tantrum like a spoiled brat.
This anger at not getting what isn’t yours will only disappear when we quit coddling and spoiling men and telling them they are entitled to have what isn’t actually theirs.
Shoot, I just lost my post somehow.
Anyway, I was trying to agree with Amanda and say I’ve often heard Belledame 222′s line of reasoning applied to bullies. And this is bullying, in its most extreme form.
Neither GW Bush nor the Marquis de Sade came from backgrounds of pain or neglect or hurt. On the contrary, they were both infamously coddled and spoiled, reared with a sense of privilege most of us can barely comprehend.
Both notorious bullies.
Because it’s not about powerlessness. It’s about feeling entitled to have what you want on demand and then, when you don’t get it, throwing a temper tantrum like a spoiled brat.
I agree that’s what the anger is actually based in, but I think it ends up feeling like powerlessness. Women don’t like you, whatever, you can’t talk to a woman, you’re not a sociopath exactly, but someone who can’t connect with people and suffers a great deal of loneliness for it, and you end up feeling powerless, even more so now that fewer people are willing to indulge your temper tantrums. Which, of course, probably wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t occurred to you to not think of women as human beings in the first place. But I don’t see how you can reach a real misogynist with that argument. They’re so often full of self-pity and bitterness that they won’t or can’t hear that other people have feelings just like they do. Calling them out as the entitled assholes they are will only drive them further into their own shit, as far as I can see.
“See the concern troll for what she is – someone who claims not to like rape porn but almost against her will is forced to defend it because sex, free speech, the very fate of the Republic is somehow at stake. Note what she is doing, and wonder why.”
Benita, is there a difference between being a “concern troll” and simply disagreeing?
I don’t see BD as concern-trolling so much as bringing other ideas to the table.
But I can see where even that would cause alarm bells to ring in a discussion that is so heavily charged.
So, I note what she’s doing, and I think that WHY she’s doing it is to make sure that a broader and more inclusive analysis is possible. It may later be rejected, sure, but it can’t even be discussed unless someone brings it up. And most of the time MORE discussion is better than LESS.
Why do you think she’s doing it?
Is it somehow wrongheaded/foolish/stubbornly contrary to be nervous about free speech issues in these times? even if one of the reasons you’re nervous has to do with restrictions on depictions of sexual activity?
“Because it’s not about powerlessness. It’s about feeling entitled to have what you want on demand and then, when you don’t get it, throwing a temper tantrum like a spoiled brat.
This anger at not getting what isn’t yours will only disappear when we quit coddling and spoiling men and telling them they are entitled to have what isn’t actually theirs. ”
Thank you!
Marc, you posted about rape porn, plain and simple. Along the way some of the commenters tossed in BDSM. Many of us are BDSMers or pro-SSC-BDSM, and some of your readers are simply certain that BDSM of any kind is inherently patriarchal. There is not a lot of room for common ground.
My question to you is this: are you going to let a post on rape porn become the big BDSM fight? Do you think it’s all the same issue, or do you think that’s a big thread drift?
I know I said I wouldn’t, but I’ll just jump in briefly in response to Thomas:
This thread, unlike virtually every other, did not in fact turn into a BDSM trainwreck. Maybe that’s because the SSC’ers are tired, or maybe, like me, they had adverse reactions to this post for completely different reasons. I think it’s an appropriate objection in general, although I’m not curious as to marc’s answer, but I don’t see a real example here.
Somebody help a newbie out – what is SSC?
It stands for safe, sane, and consensual, which refers to a number of different things. Some BDSM’ers use it to distinguish conscientious practice from practices they see as lazy, reckless, and likely to result in abuse.
Yeah, Thomas, this was actually a thread about how stunned I was that a rape porn portal openly communicated so many patriarchal ideas that often are only implied. They come right out and say things like “it is about the control, not the sex” and really spell out explicitly why and how men like to use sexual violence to control women. Stunning stuff.
And I think that was why I was so squicked out and furious about this post–I don’t know if I can hang out here even now. I’m hoping to post about the drifted issue myself, eventually, and maybe then.
You know, it’s really easy to have a long “geez, men who like this stuff are so creepy” debate, but reading this whole thing (belatedly–a commenter on feministe linked to it) has made me uncomfortable for an entirely different reason: I’m a woman, and I get off on “this stuff.”
To clarify- I didn’t actually go to the portal, because I was at work and I’m squeamish, but upon reading the excerpts I immediately recognized one of the sites as one I’ve viewed (at least their sample videa clips) multiple times through a different portal.
So this totally makes me a sick fuck, right? Apparently. But I really have to challenge the idea that people (the original wording was “men,” but since we’ve established that I’m female, I’ll broaden it) jack off to what they find arousing, and never what they find sickening. I don’t think I’m the only one who is actually aroused by what I morally find sickening. In fact, most of my fantasies (and thus what I find visually arousing) are things so completely disconnected from my sexual reality that I would be really enraged if I saw them happening in front of me. I mean, for starters, I’m a lesbian, yet I get off on straight porn.
To be clear, the site I’ve visited isn’t one of the more brutal ones (or so I gather from the original post)–I’ve seen it with various names, but it’s of the drugged and asleep variety. In reality? Totally disgusting, morally reprehensible, all the rest. As a porn site? I see it as clearly staged, which somehow makes it okay for my brain–quite frequently you can see the actresses moving, and they’re usually in positions that simply wouldn’t be possible with a truly unconscious woman.
Anyway I just wanted to chime in because a) I’m a sick fuck, and thought y’all should know you’re not just dealing with male porn consumers b) I do think for a lot of us the distinction between reality and fantasy is important, and maybe makes some of us not quite so sick fucks and c) this is NOT BDSM, and it makes me sad how quick some of the commenters were to condemn the whole kit n caboodle.
I’m not at all surprised that there are women who get off on this. I wouldn’t know if all the men who like rape porn secretly want to abuse women, although I would think a good percentage of them do, but deep down, lots of people identify with victims. Unless, of course, you’re fantasizing about raping the women yourself, which would be different.
You’re not a sick fuck, MK.
I think a lot of people get off on violent porn because much of our cultural understanding of sex is heteronormative and reliant on power and control. Which is why rape porn shouldn’t be so much of a surprise to any of us. It’s a pretty natural extension of “regular” porn, which in turn is a natural extension of what we see in our day to day lives, and how sexuality is generally structured.
I’m sure many of us are disgusted, but I can’t imagine that anyone is shocked.
MK, I don’t think you’re a sick fuck. I personally dislike that kind of porn, but i do get that there are reasons why someone would eroticize it besides “i am a rapist.”
i realize that this probably sounds like it’s contradicting
>Nice theory, belledame. If the anger that leads to rape is caused by feeling powerless, then women should rape more than men since we feel that powerlessness more than men. But we don’t. Why?>
Perhaps because the patriarchal society is not set up so that that is a culturally acceptable option for us. There are, however, other ways of discharging that anger that -are-, more so (downward, kick-the-dog). Beating the crap out of your children, for instance. Verbal and emotional abuse. And so on. They’re not as dramatically obvious, sometimes, but i would not argue that they aren’t also devastating.
It’s also not exactly a theory i’ve invented; there’s plenty of evidence that abuse fosters abuse. It is true that there is “entitlement,” but..well, it gets complicated. Yeah, by all means: if someone’s being an asshole, you say, “hey, stop being an asshole: I’m not going to tolerate this.” If that’s what you mean by not “coddling.”
But actually, that’s a good question, “why.” I mean, by the answer you follow it with, it tends to suggest, perhaps, that actually being in the one-down position has been a -good- thing for women; in that at least it means we’re “put down” enough to not go around killing and raping people; and that the way forward is to bring men to a similar place. Through, apparently, -more- shaming. That is: not “you fucked up, go fix it” but “YOU are BAD.” anyway it’s really easy to tip over from one to the other, as I’ve been observing it. and one needs to be fucking careful about this. not because it hurts the mens’ delicate little feelings; because it doesn’t -work.-
..That, or a kind of implied essentialism, cultural if not actually biological. Women are the moral sex, you know. That notion has actually been around for quite a while, and is pretty damn patriarchal its own self. The Victorian angel in the house, don’t you know; she pops up in more ways than you might think; she wears a lot of disguises, but she hasn’t gone away. The goal then is to “civilize” the men, pretty much. I could talk for a long while about that one. not here, though.
>Because it’s not about powerlessness. It’s about feeling entitled to have what you want on demand and then, when you don’t get it, throwing a temper tantrum like a spoiled brat.
This anger at not getting what isn’t yours will only disappear when we quit coddling and spoiling men and telling them they are entitled to have what isn’t actually theirs>
First of all: “we” who? Personally I don’t feel that I particularly spend a lot of time “coddling” or “spoiling” men; but then, as I’ve said in other contexts, what often seems to be tacitly accepted as a kind of universal experience for women is not in fact -my- experience, or many others’.
Second: as I’ve said: “understanding” =! “oh, that’s all right, then, you poor dear. Do what you will.”
But if one is really going to blame the System, then one has to look at -all- the possible angles, not just the ones that map to one’s own experience.
…it is also possible that the “entitled” -have- in fact been cheated, and rather badly; just not in the way they think they were. The “entitlement” serves the system in that it is a kind of consolation prize for what was originally denied. No; sorry; you don’t get unconditional love; you don’t get to have a soul-satisfying career; you have been set up to believe you must be THE #1 winner in a rigged game of lotto where you cannot possibly be the winner by those terms; and your emotional and inner life must be limned by xy and z; but on the plus side, look! nookie! beer! flattery! years’ supply of Rice a Roni! there, that makes everything feel better, doesn’t it? –hey, look, those feminazis are trying to take the nookie and beer and flattery away from you! that was your BIRTHRIGHT. ATTACK ATTACK KILL KILL
…works, too.
>but deep down, lots of people identify with victims
actually, i think more men than one would tend to think identify with the women, at least in fantasy. anyway there is a reason why professional dommes far outnumber pro-subs.
>See the concern troll for what she is – someone who claims not to like rape porn but almost against her will is forced to defend it because sex, free speech, the very fate of the Republic is somehow at stake. Note what she is doing, and wonder why>.
Well, you just keep wondering there, that’s what you’re good at.
I really don’t know how to make clearer that in fact I am not -only- concerned wrt free speech here, although yeah, i am a bit dismayed by just how lightly people toss it aside (d’you think you’d be posting here at all if it weren’t for “free speech?” I think some people take a fuck of a lot for granted, frankly; among them that “oh, well, i am a good person and this shit is sick; therefore when i send the PO-lice after ‘em they can’t ever come after ME);
but, no, in fact, that is not my ONLY concern here; i think that in fact the theory/worldview that says that (roughly) “men do and women are done to and that is how it is no matter how you slice it and ain’t it awful” is not, in fact, terrifically useful from a FEMINIST viewpoint; certainly not if you STOP there.
>Neither GW Bush nor the Marquis de Sade came from backgrounds of pain or neglect or hurt. On the contrary, they were both infamously coddled and spoiled, reared with a sense of privilege most of us can barely comprehend>
Oh, you really don’t want to get started with me on “bullying.”
But as per GW Bush, for example: -as- a matter of fact, if you read his bio, that is an excellent example of someone who was simultaneously coddled, yes; made into an entitlement monster, yes; and also abused. Yes. Know the story about his sister? Dead and buried and parents back playing golf the next day; no one bothered to tell Geeb till after she was in the ground. What difference would it have made. This was a kid who was taught early on to be divorced from his feelings and even his words; years later, essay for school, trying to write about dead sister; Mom had drilled into him never to use the same word more than once (crap writing lesson too, but whatever); having already used “tears,” consults dictionary; “the lacerates ran down my face.” Ha, ha. Teacher gives him an “F” and a scathingly acidulous review.
Boo hoo, right? Poor little Dubya, right? Gee, that excuses everything, right? Fuck NO. Whatever he was, whatever happened, he’s paid his money and he’s made his choice: he is a monster now. Yes. And the fact that one can see echoes of fucked-up familial dynamics in the way he runs the administration (I am hardly the first person to observe that the secrecy and walking on eggshells and, yes, coddling, are all reminiscent of the abusive alcoholic’s family) hardly means that one must therefore stop all political activism trying to just stop the motherfuckers from doing any more damage to the entire goddam -world- (“all the world’s a stage,” and some peoples’ psychodramas get more airtime than others, by dint of that very entitlement you mention, yes).
But the fact remains that the monstrosity does -not- comes simply because he’s a happy little camper who always got whatever he wanted.
Monstrosity, as it happens, never comes out of -happiness.-
It’d be much easier to believe that it did. Makes one’s morality much simpler. Hey, look, over there. Evildoer. Thank God, -I could never be like that.-
Truth? We could all be Bush. (or deSade, or u-name-it).
The difference between us is that for whatever reason, Bush isn’t apparently capable of being anything -else.- Not at this stage of the game, anyway. Can’t or won’t; it doesn’t much matter. Too late. Too bad. Much more so for the people he inflicts his shit on, alas.
Most of the rest of us are, at least to some degree.
But you need to actively cultivate it, that “anything else.” And you don’t do it simply by pointing and blaming. Yeah, you probably do need to do that for a while if it’s what’s gonna get you out of that stage of “fuck, I blame myself. I am Bad. Despair.”
But it isn’t enough, I’m afraid; not for actual transformation on a deep and lasting level.
Via Bitch | Lab; on a kind of related note:
http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/10/04/genny-screamers/
>>I think we all know that domestic violence happens to lots of people, rich and poor, of any race, etc. etc. and to think that a working class woman is somehow more likely to experience DV and is, therefore, the ‘authentic’ voice of the abused was silly at best, a harmful reproduction of bigoted stereotypes at worst.[2]
But what was more problematic was that, if there is a correlation between economic conditions and DV, then might the spotlight best be turned on the economic conditions and what we can do about them — and not on the spectacle of the “tangle of pathology” that is supposedly the special feature of family life among the poor and working class of any race? (The “culture of poverty” thesis goes back to the 1950s in a study of Mexican poor.)
Because, yeah, my gramps was an abuser. He used to lock my granny in the attic for not mopping the floor to perfection. But what my mom came to understand late in gramp’s life was that he lived a world of pain where his wife was the stable breadwinner and he always seemed to get laid off from one job to the next because the community experienced plant closing after plant closing due to structural economic change,
And that makes it a little more complicated doesn’t it? It’s not about sexism alone, it’s about capitalism, too. And my gramps had to be understood as a man beaten down by the vagaries of the economy.
This, of course, will be read as relativism — that I actually dare try to understand why people who go through economic crises turn on each other. I obviously don’t condone anything my gramps did. Rather, I understand it. Verstehen. And I seek understanding so as to find a way to explain the situation, without resorting to reduction to a single causal factor necessarily, because I want to figure out how to *fix* it.
Hence, it was necessary to turn the spotlight away from the “pathological” and on to issues of social structure — and that doesn’t mean ignoring gender at all. But it might mean asking questions that are uncomfortable because the spotlight might just be turned onto the very things people in positions of privilege can’t bear to question. They are, after all, almost invariably far more invested in and are the beneficiaries of the very economy that turned my grandfather into a man who was crippled by the age of 40, crippled by early onset athritis from working hard labor jobs. Crippled emotionally from never being able to hold down a steady job as factory after factory was shuttered. The victim, too, of interlocking systems of gender and class relations where he hung his head in shame, unable to aspire to the hegemonic ideal of masculinity dominant at the time: man = breadwinner. Anything else means not a man.
I can’t get up here and do the mainstream white feminism thing where we just talk about gender and sexist oppression. It doesn’t fucking work that way.>>
It strikes me as incredibly condescending to think that people don’t understand that men who beat women might have pressure on them. In fact, that’s not a hidden thing at all. Domestic violence is constructed in the media as precisely that, a lashing out under pressure. Maybe the people who think are ignoring this aspect just happen to think it’s so obvious it’s not worth mentioning.
Yeah. there’s been a lot of condescension all around going on.
For instance, that some people might not understand that other people who don’t constantly go “OH MY GOD, RAPE, AIN’T IT AWFUL” pretty much take -that- for granted, and thus when they say anything -else- in relation to a rape porn thread (for instance) are not, in fact, “rape apologists.” it’s just, you know, they kind of take it for granted that we’re already on the sme page in that regard?
and yes, wrt domestic abuse; and yet BL (for example) apparently feels frustrated enough with the versions of feminism as have been presented to her that she does not feel many people take into account her own understanding of class analysis. having been privy to a number of the same conversations, i can’t say i blame her.
and what -isn’t- talked about much is how the “pressure” might translate into (for example) some fantasy images as seen in certain kinds of porn.
If one continually talks as though it can all be boiled down to “aha! ‘they’ DO just want to dominate and hurt women! because they are entitled and dominating and mustache-twirling villains!” –well, again, 1) this sort of imagery was not news to a number of us, nor is the understanding that yep, gross, horrid misogyny -and- irredeemable assholes exist (funnily enough) 2) so now what? BadBadBad? Stop the evildoers? -Is- that all there is? Well, let me know how that works out for you.
>I am tired of the theory that even rape porn should be above criticism because of “choice,”
Do you understand that no one here is actually making that argument, nor ever was?
By the way:
>Both parties, either sadistic or masochistic, need some serious therapy required. Neither (S/M) is a natural, well-adjusted, healthy human line of thinking/behaviour. Both need therapy.>
Hi. Been in therapy for 7 years and counting. Looking to go into the profession myself, as it happens. I’ve found talk therapy intensely helpful. I’ve found psychodrama group therapy helpful. I’ve found certain kinds of somatic therapy helpful (including, but not limited to erotic-somatic therapy). And yes, BDSM and related erotic “scenes,” while not a substitute for talk therapy, fuck knows, can in fact be -therapeutic- for many people. They can also simply be a rollicking good time, and in ways that have fuckall to do with prior abuse, or indeed anything other than strong sensation play (for example). I would go into some of those ways, but you know: not now. Not here. I’ve made that mistake before. and yes, it’d be derailing, and i’d no doubt be preaching both to the choir and to stone walls, judging from the responses already made here.
But HELLO, speaking of fucking condescending. Did I mention the part about “blow me?” Well, consider it mentioned, Miz “I am the very model of well-adjusted feminism.”
Just to say, though: Thomas, piny: you’re not alone, here. And piny, I wish you would write about all this from your perspective at your own spot. I’m happy to join in, although, it’s not an area where i exactly feel -expert;- it’s not my -primary- erotic focus. I’ve just been around it long enough to understand sanctimonious bleatings such as the above as the patronizing bullshit they are.
Yeah, you might lose some people. If so? Fuck ‘em. This is how we learn and grow.
and some other people who’ve been turned off by all the ignorant, self-righteous, unconscious crap and just stopped posting or even reading might actually join in, and then we could maybe finally have a more interesting, sophisticated discusson about (for example) BDSM or porn from a feminist perspective. I for one would love for that to happen. because this shit is -tiresome.- same exact goddam argument for how many years now? how many -decades?- ehhh.
It strikes me as incredibly condescending to think that people don’t understand that men who beat women might have pressure on them. In fact, that’s not a hidden thing at all. Domestic violence is constructed in the media as precisely that, a lashing out under pressure. Maybe the people who think are ignoring this aspect just happen to think it’s so obvious it’s not worth mentioning.
Are these the same people who think that women reading a feminist blog need to be informed about the existence of rape porn?! on the internet?! And also that it’s kinda, y’know, extremely misogynist both in content and presentation? By the guy who hasn’t internalized similarly obvious ideas like the importance of trigger warnings on this kind of material?
Belledame’s point may well be a basic one; given that at least a couple of commenters disputed it, I don’t think it’s so obvious as to be beneath mention. Particularly in the context of this conversation. The one that sprung out of an OP that fisked violatedbride.com for sexism.
Belledame, it’s really not mine, either–not in the way I understand it to be Thomas’. I wouldn’t mind writing about it, but I really don’t want to set up an oppositional relationship between the theories I use to order that aspect of my life and (most of) the thoughts and ideas being promulgated here. That would be counterproductive and inaccurate. I’m not sure it’s really appropriate to discuss it here. It seems as wrong to derail a discussion of this subject whether the comments take stormcloud’s position or Thomas’.
No; sorry; you don’t get unconditional love; you don’t get to have a soul-satisfying career; you have been set up to believe you must be THE #1 winner in a rigged game of lotto where you cannot possibly be the winner by those terms; and your emotional and inner life must be limned by xy and z; but on the plus side, look! nookie! beer! flattery! years’ supply of Rice a Roni! there, that makes everything feel better, doesn’t it? –hey, look, those feminazis are trying to take the nookie and beer and flattery away from you! that was your BIRTHRIGHT.
So how did nookie, beer, and flattery come to be considered “birthrights” in the first place? Did that happen by chance, or was it magic? Why do men who don’t feel oppressed feel entitled to women’s attention just as well? Your point that thwarted entitlement leads to feelings of powerlessness is well-taken, but where did that entitlement come from in the first place?
They don’t want to hurt women because they’re mustache twirling villians. They want to hurt women to feel powerful. You do not need to feel powerless in order to desire to feel powerful. Look at the President.
Then why don’t women who feel powerless want to hurt men, as a rule?
The point is that they’re not powerless; they just think they are, because they think a birthright that was never theirs is being taken away from them. The question is how they got to thinking it was their birthright in the first place.
FDL: already wrote about the Resident and his own very likely feelings of powerlessness underneath it all. scroll upward.
o yeah, piny, that’s why i was saying maybe some of us should seriously start that discussion somewhere else.
as for the rest, wrt junk science (and others): just cracked open a new library check-out, “Sexual Violence and American Manhood,” by one T. Walter Herbert, as it happens. thus far, a sampling:
“A company of sociologists and psychologists–including Gary Brooks, Ronald Levant, David Lisak, Joseph Pleck, and William Pollack–analyze manhood as a socially conditioned role that possess built-in liabilities. Their work has shown that the traditional male role is traumatic for boys entering the process of socialization and entails humiliation and perplexity throughout a man’s life.
Boy babies, it turns out, are more emotionally expressive than girls; they show delight and irritation more readily, and they cry more. But boys are trained through systematic shaming and rebuffs to bottle up their distresses and joys, and by the age of six they are far more inhibited than their more emotionally confident sisters. The early attack on the emotional vitality of boys bequeaths a familiar set of troubles. Adult men find their intimate relationships blighted by emotional dilemmas they can scarcely discern in themselves. Afflicted by a craving for emotional comfort that is crosscut by resentment, they demand compensation in the here and now for the traumas of boyhood. (Levant, “Nonrelational,” 16,21)”
****
So to answer junk science, “here and now” includes beer, babes, trampolines, and whatever else the culture wants to market, to market. On the whole we’re pretty good at selling “instant gratification;” and I don’t have to reiterate here how the male-directed marketing is influenced by sexism, misogyny, and alienation all toxically wrapped up with, yes, a sense of entitlement. (A good sociological-type example to flash back on: that stupid Burger King commercial “I Am Man” from not long ago. yep, lame, mocking the feminist movement, insulting to pretty much everyone…and at the end of the day it’s also just one damn more example of how “Have It Your Way” has been substituted in a lot of peoples’ minds for “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” without much fanfare or conscious registering of the bait and switch).
Herbert continues:
“The classic pattern of traditional manhood demands an impossible performance of self-reliance and self-command. Men test their manly mettle against other men, in which there are always more losers than winners; and even winners are subject to the uncontrollable mischances of living. American men are not exempted from the the tragic limitations and vulnerabilities of human experience generally, yet the code of masculine toughness requires denying their reality. It is impossible to maintain stoic compsure–to “take it like a man”–when distress is overwhelming, so that a compulsively self-reliant man refuses to believe that overwhelming distress can ever befall him. He cannot afford to acknowledge what everyman suffers: the contingencies of his economic fate, his need for intimate companionship, his exposure to illness, to emotional tumult, to accident and misfortunre. However strenuously banished from consciousness, these realities continue to exert pressure onhis psychic life.
…Sexual desire is among the subversive experiences that disconcert masculine self-command and thus menace masculine self-respect. Sexual yearnings place a man at another person’s disposal, subject to that person’s impulses and decisions. Michael Warner has noted that gay men become targets of phobic hatred not only because they desire other men but because they *desire*; same-sex preference calls attention to a disquieting fact, namely that they are sexual men. The politics of sexual shame trap heterosexual men as well, especially if their lives suggest a sexuality not wholly under voluntary command. (“Trouble,” 17-40)…Sexual intercourse also poses the prospect of interpersonal closeness, which…men perceive as a danger to their autonomy.
Students of contemporary masculinity have noted the prevalence of a “nonrelational” sexuality in which sexual intimacy is divorced from emotional intimacy. The “centerfold syndrome” is an example of this: men caught up in a persistent fantasy life that feeds on images of women with whom they will never exchange a word, while they feel sexually awkward with actual women who love them. Traditional manhood encourages men to be aggressive, moreover, and to funnel emotions of vulnerability and neediness into anger, and this syndrome can generate a sexuality in which coercion is routine (Brooks, “Centerfold,” Levant, “Nonrelational.”) Gary Brooks and L.. Silverstein argue that the “dark side of masculinity–including violence against women in the family, rape and sexual assault, sexual harassment in the workplace–is not a problem of aberrant men who have somehow failed to fulfill the conventional role. On the contrary, such pathologies represent hypermasculinity, the accentuation of traits entailed by manhood as traditionally defined.”
****
[In other words: not news to most people here, I expect, that last bit; and yet, slightly different framing.
Continuing:]
“”The dominant American tradition of manhood visualizes a lone figure against a vast horizon, on horseback in the Wild West version [hello, Brokeback Mountain, anyone?], a myth that denies the interactive dramas that make us who we are and sustain us in the selfhoods by which we know each other and ourselves.
Groups in power take roles that require the disempowered to assume…subordinate postures that acknowledge and bolster the position of their superiors. **Yet the powerful are also required to sustain the existence that their place demands** [emphasis mine]. “Why can’t they live like white people?” a racist white woman once asked me about her white next-door neighbors, whose house and yard were unkempt. Men face similar imperatives to “be a man,” behind which lies a gender bigotry enforced against women [and gay folk, and other "deviants"].
…Pornographic fascination is not provoked exclusively by images in movies and magazines; it is widely accepted as a romantic ideal, and it gives form to living relationships. Code manhood produces pornographic marriages, Terrence Real notes, in which the woman’s compliance–whether voluntary or coerced–performs the man’s need…
[again, this bit: not news]
…Men who chronically batter and rape their wives further illustrate the syndrome in which men project the maladies of their own manhood into women. An abused wife is most acutely at risk when she seeks to terminate her relationship with the abuser, because this awakens the man’s deep-lying dread of abandonment. But, as Donald Dutton asserts, “the men need never frame the abandonment in terms of needing the woman and depending on her emotional support.” In order th preserve the illusion of their masculine self-sufficiency, such men **project their self-loathing onto their mates** [emphasis mine]. Dutton describes the resultant diatribe as “playing the bitch tape,” which invariably contains the same four words: bitch, cunt, whore, slut. The man’s stereotyped but unconscious self-hatred sets this tape running in his head, and it then comes to consciousness as a torrent of abuse aimed at his spouse. Unaware of his dependency on her because he is ashamed of it, and unaware of hating himself for his neediness, the man projects on her the “bitch, cunt, whore, slut” that he feels himself to be. Like Captain Ahab in his demoniac hatred of the white whale, the abusive husband believes that his hateful inner womanhood is visibly embodied and made tangibly assailable in his wife.”
–”Sexual Violence and American Manhood,” T. Walter Herbert
…so, iow:
>>Why do men who don’t feel oppressed feel entitled to women’s attention just as well?
…is perhaps not the best way to frame the question. The problem isn’t that some men (consciously) feel oppressed and others not so much; the problem here is **the construct of masculinity itself.**
This is why I personally don’t separate my feminism from queer theory/activism and sex-pos (my understanding of which is i think perhaps a bit different from some of the other folks who call themselves “sex-positive feminists” here).
>> The question is how they got to thinking it was their birthright in the first place.
Well, and -that- part, “how,” has been pretty amply covered by the feminism(s) that have been discussed here and elsewhere: sexism, entitlement, the “patriarchy” if you insist (a particular aspect & manifestation of it). What I’ve been trying to get at with these last couple of posts is more “why.” which, imo, hasn’t really been addressed so well in a lot of these blog discussions, at least.
I guess however it happens, men are taught to think they need women more than women need them, and this is cruelly unfair and entitles them to compensation. They’re simultaneously taught to think they wouldn’t need women at all if they were real men. So it does come from insecurity and feelings of powerlessness, but it’s all baseless, since women don’t actually need men less than men need women. The idea needs to be pointed out and ridiculed like it deserves.
Sure.
Or, well. Ridicule the idea; and yet i guess for me at least, also try to listen for the downbeat.
I mean: if you want people to let go of old shibboleths they’re clinging to, you first have to point out that it IS a shibboleth, yes; but also be able to point to something that might be a better replacement.
Or, well, that’s vague. I am trying to find a way to convey this without making it sounds like i am all about “o poor poor menz” (as opposed to or more so than women), because, honest, I’m not, here.
But, like, as you say: yep. Both taught to think they need women and simultaneously be too ashamed of needing -anyone- to even be able to acknowledge this. So there are layers and layers here. And if you -only- mock the “needing”/entitlement bit, I think it tends to reinforce the “strong, stoic, fuck you i don’t need anyone” deal. I mean, look at the MRA’s: they bought that angle lock, stock and barrel. “Women? Pah! Who needs ‘em!” (go off to huddle and hate and spit)
The other part of it is…well, again, I have a particular perspective here, but as far as I’m concerned it’s not even all about the heteronorm of men need women/women need men (romantically), although, sure, that’s a big part of it (esp. for het men, obviously).
But I would argue (and the book does this too, later, i think) that also men are taught that they don’t need -men,- either; in fact that’s even more taboo than needing women. And, regardless of sexual orientation, I think that’s a goodly chunk of the problem as well.
At any rate, someone, Bark/Bites was it? long time ago was talking very astutely about the homosocial verging-on homerotic bonding that happens in such activities as gang rape, and even less extreme forms of “male bonding” over misogyny. Understandably, if you’re a woman you’re gonna be focused on the misogyny: they do, they really do hate women!
But what gets missed is in fact that this is -one of the only acceptable ways for men in a patriarchal culture (which includes both misogyny -and- homophobia) to connect.-
That, perhaps, is something that needs to be addressed on a wider scale.
iow, i am saying, again, that i think male homophobia and misogyny are inextricably intertwined; and that a genuine “men’s movement” is gonna have to seriously address the straight-gay thing as well as homoeroticism among “straight” men (for example).
Just a few thoughts…late and everything…
classifying all people, male and female, who might enjoy BSDM as “psychologically flawed” and in need of therapy is not going to stop rape, in life or on film. Nor is downgrading porn performers, or peoples personal sexual desires, in fact, it just alienates them even more, and people who feel as though they are seen as lesser will tend NOT to work with those who insult them on very real issues like rape prevention and real abuse.
please keep that in mind.
pony- go to hell. you are a liar, and if you have issue with me and what I do, have the ovaries to say it to my face, as it were, and not drag me up every time someone mentions ‘rape porn’. i have stated that I do think porn created, with consenting actors or not, that depicts obviously ultra-violet, OBVIOUSLY unwilling sexual activity is ‘not good’. Stop speaking for and about me already.
BD- that book sounds fascinating. I may have to check it out. I tend to agree that a lot of male aggression is rooted in individual males sense of powerlessness, the ways they are raised, and a sense they might have that whatever power they do have is being erroded. Interesting stuff.
Yeah, that one just sent my knee jerking through the roof on a number of levels: hi, how many people can we insult at once! BDSM practitioners -and- people who get mental health treatment! who believe it or not may actually be the -same people- in some cases!
but yeah: that is such a fucking nasty move. “Oh, your sexual preferences aren’t like mine. I can’t be bothered to understand it; You must be sick in the head.” AND: “needing mental health treatment is something to be sneered at.” FUCK YOU.
I got enough of that shit from homophobic assholes -and- from ignorant jerks who yelp about how no, really, there is no such thing as clinical depression, i need to just “get over it”; i have NO tolerance for any of that bullshit in -any- circumstances. Go out and fucking learn something, brain trust. Read a book. LISTEN to people. And meanwhile, if you can’t manage that, fuck off.
BD, the Bush’s behavior after their daughter’s death wasn’t particularly odd or even unusual among Yankees of their generation. A lot of New Englanders still react to tragedy by pretending all is well. And no, it doesn’t excuse or explain GW’s sadism in any way.
I agree. And with due respect, Marc, its one thing to see a thread “drift” and quite another to let it get hijacked. Having read this thread a few days ago and just coming back to it today, I see some clearly trollish blogging behavior above.
Your blog, your discretion, I know. IMHO, a little moderation can be a very good thing.
There’s more to it than that, Gayle; it isn’t just Yankee stoicism, and it wasn’t just that incident. i would go into it more, based on a number of sources, but that truly would be a derailment.
as for trolling: i’ve a feeling that we may be seeing things differently wrt who’s trolling and who’s not. perhaps not. but i for one, though steamed, have been trying to engage with the topic in good faith, and am beyond irritated at the suggestions that -i- am not.