Over at Stan Goff's excellent blog, there's a debate ripping on where pornography is at and how the left responds not just to the industry, but also to the "rights" of prostitutes, porn performers and pornographers. In response to an article by Robert Jensen, an Austin, Texas-based professor, many of the same tired libertarian versus radical strawmen are trotted out. That said, this debate is different from the bad old days of the 1980s "porn wars" in that all sides are talking on the same page.
Jensen penned his piece for Ms., and focuses on the increasingly brutal depictions of violence against women that over the last few years have become the norm in porn. There is also an interesting thread discussing the degrading drift of porn on Adultdvdtalk, where "the industry meets the consumer." My favorite quote has to be from the pornographer Max Hardcore, who writes: "I pay an otherwise unemployable whore around a thousand dollars for two to three hours work. Few lawyers make that much - and they don’t take it up the ass. Call me old fashioned, but I expect people who get paid that much to work hard on the set."
Okay then... We'll just note that and then ponder how much of the discussion on the left about pornography has centered on the idea that "second-wave feminists have stigmatized sex workers." This line of argument is the specialty of industry apologists who signify left while arguing that anything the pornographers do is a matter of "choice." Right... How many women would sign up for the treatment they dish out for free never seems to be of interest to them.
Nina Hartley, a veteran porn performer who is as far from Max Hardcore as you can get inside the unique world of American porn subculture, has taken up the feminist, pro-porn argument on the CounterPunch website. Stan Goff, host of the debate and a former career soldier, is at work on a new book about patriarchy and had quite a back and forth with Hartley not so long ago. His best quote on the subject has to be that "perfect masculinity is sociopathic."
What am I doing in the middle of this? I'm just addicted to argument and it drives me absolutely batty how much the discussion of sexuality is constrained by the limits of this system, not what we can aspire to as free people. It's down right refreshing to have a discussion about "really existing porn," unmuddled by liberal notions of "free speech" and "rights" that ignore the reality we all live in.
I'm posting here because I am really ANGRY at the way ALL of you have presented this issue. You have NOT dealt with the REALITY at all. You are actually doing a really big fucking diss-service to all sex-workers in the third and first world by painting such a simplistic and moralistic picture of the issue. You also repeatedly IGNORE any arguments put forward by actual sex-workers by painting the same stupid characature of our arguments. You continually IGNORE actual organising attempts by sex-workers and you IGNORE all the issues that our organisations (including those in the first world) raise.
WHERE ARE YOUR LINKS TO SEX-WORKERS ORGANISATIONS?
WHY DO YOU NOT SUPPORT OUR REAL, ACTUAL, LIVING STRUGLES?
That article from RW you is NOT reality, it's just simplistic propaganda that doesn't adress ANY real issues. You want reality then why don't you link to sex-workers groups or to feminists like Global Strike of Women who don't support sex-work but actually support sex-workers organising and take the issues we raise SERIOUSLY.
http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/NewStrike/NewSexWorkers.htm
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/620/620p18.htm
http://www.scarletalliance.org.au/
http://walnet.org/csis/groups/nswp/dmsc/
http://www.nswp.org/
www.aim-med.org
It's just pure, stunning hypocrisy to continue to imply that we are justifying the opression of 3rd world women or something - when you won't even lower yourself to so much as mention, let alone support our actual issues, organisation, struggles in the 3rd or 1st world.
Posted by: SW | April 16, 2005 at 01:58 AM
the prvelance of porn is a new thing. people have always had sexy pictures and raunch -- but whole buildings are covered in the bodies of adolescent girls. Hardcore pornography is largely about more or less explicit degredation, something even long-time users and producers have complained about. That's where the money is. What I'm interested in is why so few "pro-sex" (read pro-porn, pro-prostitution, pro-pimp, pro-anything but actual sex) organizations ever feature the voices of women compeled into the industry and unhappy.
Everything -- I mean literally everything -- I've read comes off like PR script written for the industry.
Posted by: taint | January 09, 2006 at 12:22 PM