Getting Off: a pornified life

[denelian]

the title of the book is actually "Getting Off: Pornography and the end of masculinity" its by robert jensen.

before i talk about the book, i have to tell about thursday night. i was at Pete's (and soon to be *MY* place) where JT also lives. we were playing "Anita Blake", which is set up in a very Amberesque sorta way, only not even stats. just stuff that is, and is not. and of course, we are playing "ourselves". then Keith comes over, we stop gaming, JT starts making "women are stupid jokes".
so i make "men are stupid" jokes. i'm pretty sure i win this unspoken contest, because after a couple of volleys he just shuts up and concentrates on his video game.

I, a person with tits and a vagina, beat a guy in a pseudo-intellectual competition. and wasn't beaten for it.

that is the anomaly.

seriously. there are stats everywhere, if one wants to look, about how many women are raped, assaulted, insulted, beaten, molested, abused, neglegted... the MOST CONSERVATIVE i have seen is 1 in 5. 20%. in THE UNITED STATES. not saudi arabia or pakistan or chile or rwanda....
a first world country. arguably THE first world country, at least for a while there.

there are always jokes about women, generally revolving around the fact that, to our sorrow, "we have all the pussy".
as much as i like sex, i would GIVE UP my "pussy", if only it would stop. if i didn't have to fight for the same basic respect that guys are automatically given. if i could re-take the Politics of Russia class, and NOT have to literally YELL to be heard, because i was the only one in the class with tits. if i could walk down an alley at night alone without fearing a random madman will decide that i'm rapeable. if i could never ever ever again hear that i should wear lipstick so guys will like me more.

it's a trap; it all is. Britney Spears and her cohorts are only the most obvious example of our "Porn Culture". MICHAEL JACKSON didn't have to dress like a trollup to sell records when he was 16. because he was born with a penis (wherever he has lost it since...) Boys fuck. girls are fucked. Pete and i go on a date, he takes 10 minutes changing his clothes. he has to wear: pants, shirt and shoes. granted, nicer than normal (at least, if he were dating someone who wasn't me, the only time i cared what he wore was for my sister's wedding). on a normal date, if i wasn't me, what would i wear? a skirt, and hose, and high heels, and a dressy top. and makeup. lots of it, and jewlery, and hair accessorys. it takes Pete 10 minutes to dress up - it would take me over an hour.

and lets ignore the fact that if i had a "white collar job" i would have to do that EVERY DAY. i HAVE had jobs where i had to do that - the makeup was MANDATED. in an OFFICE.

but this book isn't about that. it dwells specifically on the social and specific ills that can be fostered by pornography. and its a good book, attacking the porn without attacking sex, or sexuality, or the expression of sex. it attacks the specific emotions that are used by porn (mostly cruelty and violence, misogyny, hatred, fear), and attacks the base of those emotions: the concept of masculinity.
seriously. why does *ME* having a good job make some random dude less of a MAN. how does *ME* controling my own fucking uterus? *ME* marrying someone i like? or not marrying? or not wearing lipstick - or wearing lipstick?

why does every guy i know (and really, it IS every guy i know that i have talked to about girls) express something that resembles the Madonna-Whore complex? some girls are good enough to fuck, but not to date, to love, to marry? if they aren't good enouogh to date and etc., then WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU PUT YOUR DICK IN HER?

because it's "just sex". or, as an ex once said "sex is like pizza; even bad its ok"
that doesn't make it right. random sex between friends is one thing, if everyone knows the score and its mutually agreed upon. having sex with a stranger (because she was drunk! and there! and i wanted to fuck! who cares what she says now!)? fuck that. fuck YOU. that's a PERSON, even if you think she's the biggest whore on the planet, she is STILL a PERSON. equal, in every conceivable way, in every conceivable agency, to you. so she has tits instead of a penis. how does that make hr "lesser", or even "other". don't try to tell me girls are stupider than boys. a)that's not a word and b)i'm smarter than you and *I* am a girl.
really, i am. except at programming, because it's boring.

it's so dumb. get over it. in evolutionary terms, if you want smart babies, you need smart parents. PLURAL. how are you supposed to know that the woman you marry is smart and has good genes unless you TALK TO HER AND SEE THAT SHE IS SMART? and in order to fully realize intellect, one needs to be EDUCATED. and in order to TEST that intellect, one needs to WORK.

so really, the feminist movement is to MEN'S advantage.

(/rant)

Comments

[gwydapllew.livejournal.com]

I understand that you are ranting after reading a book that caused you to think, but it's more than a little insulting to generalize men in the fashion you have done in this post. You are conflating your opinions with various assumptions, and then stating that every straight man is what you describe.

Before you start making accusations of sexism towards every man on the planet, you may consider that 'sexist' is defined as 'making assumptions based solely on a person's gender.'

[denelian.livejournal.com]

you are misunderstand. i am not attacking MEN (athough to an extent i am attack "masculinity"); i am attacking the PATRIARCHY. the only time that i stated something about straight men all being alike, it was me saying that every guy i had talked to had given me that sort of spiel. the rest of it, attack the tools the patriarchy uses to continue to place women in a lesser place then men. please re-read it.
those places where i am talking to guys about when and how and who they fuck - those are directed at the men i know who do that. i'm just not calling anyone out, not naming names, but they know who they are. and we have talked about, each and every guy i was thinking of.

i never once made an accusation of sexism towards every man on the planet. nor do i think i made sexist accusations myself - again, every accusation i made was specific, even if there were no names. generlly becase they happened with too many guys.

finally, i have to ask - do you understand what i mean by patriarchy? and why it's bad? can you check your own privledge enough to think about what i wrote (probably not well, oxycodone isn't conducive to that, i grant) and see that while at NO POINT did i attack *YOU* (and honestly you weren;t one of the guys i thought about a lot), that some of these thing DO apply to you? and how scarey that is to me, and most women, even if we don't articulate it to men. (because it's a bad idea to tell me that they scare you - either the guy gets mad cu hes a "NICE GUY, damnit!" and scares the girl more, or he then proceeds to take advantage of the fear. not all the time, just enough that we have all learned better by now)

really, none of it was supposed to be an attack, or even an accusation. and none of it every was "every straight man", just every man i had spoken to on a specific topic.

so i conclude that for whatever reason, you didn't get it.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

actually, i went and re-read it myself, and EXCEPT for the one line where stated it was guys i know with whom i talked about girls. there are no other generalizations about men. then there was a conversation i had with a guy who had sex with a girl he didn't like, and i mostly translated it and put it in as an EXAMPLE. again, not all guys. really, where are you seeing me attacking all guys? they only place that "all guys" comes in is when i am explaining to guys why feminism is good for them too, and give one concrete trail of proof.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

and one last one, because drugs make it hard for me to think of more than one thing at a time.

this is where you check your privledge or you don't get the conversation. GUY ALL THE TIME do this. you do this, i have heard you "all women want x" or do X or whatever. i don't believe i did that in this little piece, becausse iwas trying hard to avoid it, although even after multiple misreadings i grant i may have missed something. but i at least TRY not to. now i WILL make a sweeping statement applied to all the men i have ever met; i have NEVER met a man who didn't marginalize women, who didn't blow them off for being women, didn't look down on the for being women, didn't make PMS/rape/assult jokes. NOT. ONE. to some degree or another (many are much much worse than you, and you are definitly on the low scale of assholery of that type.)

[anivair.livejournal.com]

making jokes about pms is not the same as marginalizing women in exactly the same way that making jokes about men is not marginalizing or sexist. Jokes are jokes. they're supposed to mock a little. that doesn't make me a sexist because I tell them. it makes me a sexist if I judge women based on the ideas presented in those jokes. I can tell PMS jokes till i'm blue in the face and not think less of women for it.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

really? so making jokes about how H. Clinton is a chick and so MUST have PMS and so CAN'T be prez doesn't marginialize all women?
in general, i agree that the little bittie jokes aren't that bad. but if they make someone ELSE think that a woman can't be an adult because "she has PMS, she's ruled by her hormones, she'll declare war on Britain if the don't send her tea!"???
and again, check your priviledge. not to be bitchy here (see?) but the worst joke anyone is going to make about YOUR gender is that you are an asshole - something that, despite the fact most people claim to dislike assholes, MOST men (not you, or most of the guys i know) strive to BE assholes.

the mildest joke *I* get is that, because i have a utuerus, all i can do is have babies.

i'm not - would NEVER - say that every joke is bad, or chauvinistic, or that you or Alex were bad because you make those jokes. everyone who knows you knows that YOU SPECIFICALLY are not sexists. and really, yes, most of the jokes we here AREN'T that bad. but they all feed into the same culture of patriarchy, the same general oppression. as do jokes against guy, i admit (and i shouldn't have had the contest w/ JT, i know.)

its the gendering we should really fight against, the idea that women are more nurturing and that men are more courageous. really? is that REALLY TRUE? or is it socialization? i've met some really fucking brave women, who make most men look like cowards... but somehow, courage is a manly trait and compassion is a womanly taint. not to mention all the FUCKING PINK - if anything is marketed towards women, it WILL come in pink. HANDGUNS with pink!

[anivair.livejournal.com]

For the record, I am saying exactly that. You can make all the hillary jokes you want. make them all day. I have. but I still like her, I still don't feel that she would be a bad candidate because of her gender and I'm still very pro woman. All jokes marginalize someone. saying you can't tell jokes about women without marginalizing women is true. You do make fun of them *in the context of the joke*. of course you do.

the point is, that's not wrong. it's when you move outside the context of the joke and take that idea seriously that you are doing something wrong.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

yes, if you are a very very non-sexist person, for YOU and the people who are ALSO non-sexist, it doesn't do anything (except maybe hurt someone's feelings). but the people who are sexist? it encourages them in that mode...

you see?

if not, it may not be something i able to articulate online, and i can try it in person :D

[anivair.livejournal.com]

But what you're saying is that if you're already a sexist pig, then jokes about women encourage you. Duh. but it misses the fact that you're talking about someone who's already a sexist. It's like saying republicans won't vote for obama. It's a done deal.

but since jokes make sexists sound more sexist (though I doubt they make them more sexist) and since they don't make me and other non-sexist people more sexist, my best guess is that they have almost no effect on actual sexism.

My suggestion is to pay more attention to what people are actualy taught about women and less about jokes. I'd be interested in learning when it is that children are taught sexism. Maybe by posturing dick fathers. I was raised almost entirely by my mother who was a single mom and sort of a bitch. I never even learned that women COULD be weak, let alone that they were supposed to be.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

early cartoons. PINKPINKPINKPINK. most socialization is complete by age 3. or at least that is what every book and article i have read on the subject says. if you want, i can try to find some of my old syllibuses (syllibi?) after i am done moving and find some of the articles. boring reads because they are academic, but the info is interesting. did you know that EVERY toy can be assigned a gender? even slinkys?

(the joke thing... it tips those who are not sexist or non-sexist... those who are not firmly in one camp or another. expecially children and teens)

[anivair.livejournal.com]

well, all that means is that we need an equal number of jokes. jokes about sweaty men with too much testosterone are funny, too.

But I didn't know that every toy can be assigned a gender (except in french and spanish). And I'm not sure I even agree. then again, I did play with the little orphan annie mansion when I was little. Maybe there's something there.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

hehehe

i had a strawberry shortcake house that i used as a time machine :D i was ALWAYS weird.

it's not a language thing (the doll, she is pretty!) its an assignment. cars are masculine, dolls are feminine. science kits are masculine, sewing kits are feminine...

who uses what, and FOR what. it's why for xmas i bought both of megan's kids the SAME THING even though they are a boy and girl. and made sure that Kaiden got some girl stuff and Lilly got some boy stuff. it helps :)

[anivair.livejournal.com]

On the male side there is a difference (a big one sometimes) between a girl you're attracted to and could sleep with and a girl you want to date. But there should and usually is just as big a difference on the female side.

And I think you're overlooking the fact that a lot of the stress between the genders comes from the fact that women really do control sex. Women are the ones that decide if and when men have sex. Men rarely if ever turn down sex. I'm sure there are instances where the opposite is true, but it's certainly the exception and not the rule.

So think about this. We live in a society where a big portion of masculinity and your identity as a man is determined by two things. 1) physical prowess and 2) sexual prowess. Is it surprising, from a sociological standpoint, that men who feel as if they have no control over the first resort to the second? it doesn't shock me at all, since those are the two options they're presented with as a gender.

Not that women turning themselves into wanton sluts in the solution, of course. And I'm not even suggesting that it's their fault. Women get the shaft (so to speak) just as badly, as you well know. they're taught to be ashamed of their sexuality and to repress it from a young age, while they are surrounded by images of women that embrace it and are rewarded for it.

The real solution, of course, is proper education. teaching all people not to be ashamed of their sexuality and at the same time teaching them the truth about it. Throw in some balanced sexual roles and you just might see some of this violence going away and you might also see a culture that doesn't need a woman to act like a slut to be successful.

[denelian.livejournal.com]

yes... all of that is true.

just - HOW??? how do we get society as a whole (and it WOULD have to be all of society) to go along with it? too invested in patriarchy

[anivair.livejournal.com]

Not sure. Not even sure we can. but sex education is a big part of it. Almost all problems require education first.