Dworkin, Masculinity, and Heteronormativity: 3 Things That Should Not Go Together

[alixtii]

So, I'm talking to my ex-girlfriend about Robert Jensen's Gettining Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, and I had a thought which is rather ill-formed and I'm not sure what to make of it

Comments

[kurosau]

I don't know your terminology, or in fact any terminology when it comes to sex psychology and analysis, so I'm afraid I can't be helpful of you there.

However, what little I was able to understand from the link to the book, I think I'd disagree that porn, at least softcore, is dominated by the idea that men need to inform their masculinity by dominating women, and that it subsequently reinforces that idea.

[alixtii]

I can't really speak to pornography as it actually exists in its mainstream (male-produced, male-consumed) incarnations, which is what Jensen ultimately cares to talk about, so I don't have a dog in the race (and I suspect he's right about a lot of things), but--yeah, he fits way too many of the stereotypes of the anti-porn crusader (the ghost of Andrea Dworkin lives on, God bless her soul) for anyone on my flist to be really comfortable with his argument, I think, even despite the fact he's not really talking to any of us.

[kurosau]

Are you familiar with any pro-feminist critics of pornography that would fit the bill of being someone who can approach the issue of pornography from the same standpoint as the average guy who's getting off by it? For some reason, whenever I think of the fight over sex issues and sexism, it always seems to me that certain people's viewpoints are missing.