General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: With all the anti-pornography talk, can we have a sex positive thread? [View all]zazen
(2,978 posts)Last edited Mon Nov 25, 2013, 08:39 AM - Edit history (3)
Seriously, the ACLU might defend the KKK's right to free speech, including promoting violent acts against minorities, but do they really turn around and argue and promote the beauty of racism and how all of we civil rights activists must realllllly hate white people and the wonders of white privilege?
This is such an old debate. Yeesh. Everyone--on the feminist boards and here--needs to go back and read John Stoltenberg (LGBT) on the degradations of gay porn and all of the arguments on the Minneapolis and Indianapolis legislation in the 80s.
Think the Dred Scott case in the 1850s and the decision that should have happened. Just because whites don't have the right to own a black man as personal property is not an attack on constitutional rights to personal property. Humans aren't others personal property. Private property rights are vital in our constitution--it's what gets defined as "property" that has evolved, as our understanding of human (and environmental) rights has progressed through the centuries.
Likewise, just because pornographers (and revenge porn stalkers) don't have the right to document rapes and sell them, doesn't mean citizens don't have a right to free speech. Other people's bodies (mostly women's and children's) are NOT the property of their pornographers or anyone else's. Your free speech right stops at another person's body.
YES, there are smart legal opinions--Edward Said from Stanford Law, I believe (that _should_ have been integrated in the failed Minneapolis legislation) that argue that one can apply traditional legal artistic/intellectual value criteria to simulated rape in film & literature, like The Forsyte Saga or Lolita. Frankly, a great way to educate people about rape is _through_ art--and what feminist in his or her right mind would want to jeopardize that? I think the marital rape in the Forsyte Saga should be shown in every frat and high school in America. It's hard to make it all "sexy" when you see it so painfully portrayed by two brilliant actors.
Civil litigation in particular recognizes nuances and probabilities all the time. Just because some things fall in the middle doesn't mean we need to allow documentation of trafficking to be traded around the Internet by organized crime, conditioning pubescent sexuality by orgasm to the torture and degradation of human beings, mostly females.
In short, it is precisely _because_ I respect consent, and the integrity of humans, and the need to shelter our young from adult-level harms while they are developing, that I support holding these rape traffickers accountable. Great sex is all about consent, and that can include consent to simulate non-consent. True consent has to come from a place where you really feel, and are, safe.
Violent porn has already harmed the people in it, and fosters a world where free expression of sexuality is NOT safe and where people (mostly females) learn to hate their natural bodies and natural responses and desires.
Let's start to move past this old, false dichotomy of "anti-pornography" vs pro-sex.