Is penetration inherently dominant? Is anyone who thinks otherwise retarded? Find out in r/sex! (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
250 ups - 80 downs = 170 votes
103 comments submitted at 20:57:00 on Oct 24, 2013 by notathrowaway03
Is penetration inherently dominant? Is anyone who thinks otherwise retarded? Find out in r/sex! (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
250 ups - 80 downs = 170 votes
103 comments submitted at 20:57:00 on Oct 24, 2013 by notathrowaway03
that's a bit of a mischaracterization of dworkins views. your style of 'reimagining' what sexual roles symbolize is not unlike what she was encouraging.
edit: stop downvoting, this isn't a troll, i am not using abusive language, i am trying to have a discussion, and burying isn't appropriate to indicate disagreement.
>your style of 'reimagining' what sexual roles symbolize is not unlike what she was encouraging
My last sentence. Read it.
well, it's not retarded to discuss, as it clearly led to improvements in sexual interactions between heterosexuals over time
No, it has not.
Dworkin's brand of feminism is perpetually searching for victimhood, it makes women into perpetual victims. It is like how Mao wanted perpetual revolution, it was utterly unproductive to the cause of socialism and collapsed on itself.
It doesn't make women into perpetual victims, though, because a lot of the complaints were addressed/social expectations adapted. Looking at pornography in 1980 vs. pornography in 2013 is like night & day. Things certainly aren't perfect and a lot could be improved but those sorts of criticisms clearly led to better, balanced relations between the sexes and their sexual activity.
>Looking at pornography in 1980 vs. pornography in 2013 is like night & day.
That's because of natural progress, you know. Not because of any one ideological maniac.
>That's because of natural progress
I disagree. I think the idea of "natural progress" is dangerously Whiggish, and downplays the value of reform movements.
(Please note that I have no stance whatsoever on Dworkins, as I am not at all familiar with her work. I'm simply commenting on this particular part of your statement.)
>I disagree. I think the idea of "natural progress" is dangerously Whiggish, and downplays the value of reform movements.
Natural progress is a thing, though. It's certainly true that each generation is both smarter and more progressive than the last.
That's not to say that reform movements don't do anything, or that they do little, but I wouldn't say that Dworkin alone did anything but hold progress back. Such extremists like to justify their rhetoric by talking about how being aggressive and vitriolic is the only way for them to get heard and achieve progress, but that progress happens in spite of them, not because of them.
Not sure if this troll bait but I'll bite.
>It's certainly true that each generation is both smarter and more progressive than the last.
That statement is total bullshit. Society has regressed on multiple occasions. The Collapse of the Weimar Republic is one example, with a nation undergoing a cultural revolution in the 1920's that ended up a fascist dictatorship in the 1930's under which countless atrocities occurred.
Or perhaps Cambodia which went from a constitutional monarchy to the "Democratic Kampuchea" under which 2 000 000 people died in four years.
Sure Dworkin's a fucking nut but radicals and extremists have both assisted and resisted progress and I think that you should probably refrain from the assumption of continual progress.
It was obviously a general claim.
If you want to make it specific, the context was "from 1980 to 2013", in a society that would have had a porn industry between those years.
Because as we all know, progress never has to be fought for, it just happens naturally. You couldn't sound more obtuse if you tried.
Making up crazy ideas about sex and gender isn't really the same thing fighting for progress. Speaking of being obtuse.
Anyway, see this reply.
You aren't obtuse for thinking one specific person might not have done much to progress society, you're obtuse for thinking progress happens naturally. Change is always resisted.
Progress does happen naturally. Why do you think change being resisted means that it isn't? You don't think change is natural?
Porn is pretty fucking sexist nowadays.
http://theinternetisterrible.com/167/corn-pron/
Of course, there is a bunch of gross Mr. Throatscrewer or w/e that hasn't changed much, but there is also stuff with mellow music or gentle attention paid to the clitoris, etc. that women actually admit, of their own accord, turns them on. I saw some ladyposter on askreddit? or maybe askwomen? a couple days ago saying "passion hd" worked well for her, and I can't imagine any equivalent sort of woman in 1980 saying something similar unless she was being paid to.
While I disagree with you, I think it's shitty that you're being downvoted. That said...
A woman watching porn in 1980 could at least see women who actually looked like regular women. Modern porn, unless it's for the fetish set, involves women with completely shaved pubic areas, an uncommon type of small labia (often achieved surgically), gigantic breasts on otherwise low-fat bodies (almost always achieved surgically), and assholes that have literally been bleached to look prettier.
If the people who made porn actually cared one whit about what Dworkin says, or that Lacan describes how visual media make women constantly aware of being viewed and creates an impulsion to be viewed positively (I can't mention the "male gaze" without explaining it because so many people use the term wrong), or how much within the area of women's/gender studies has been written about porn, this would not be so. But people who make and sell porn for money have no incentive to read a bunch of papers and books on philosophy and psychology and whatever else that giant mishmash of a discipline (really more of a meta-discipline if you ask me) go on about. They don't care. It's not going to change the producers until it changes the consumers, and it seems to me like Dworkin has only made the general public less likely to take actual feminist issues seriously.
I personally guarantee you that there is more porn today of women with "regular" body types(even barring fetish specific stuff) than there was of the then commonly accepted "regular woman" 30+ years ago.
You take issue with one sect of pornographic material, which is perfectly okay. However "porn star" content isn't the only thing out there.
This is what always gets me about their (the collective "their") argument -- these people must not be watching much porn if they think it's just a bunch of fake orgasms from girls (and guys) who bleach their assholes every other day. Yeah, maybe some people watch that kind of porn (though I really don't know why), but the rest of us try to find better shit. And only idiots are paying for shit in the first place. You're not gonna have much influence on the fuckin idiots who are already spending 10+ bucks a month just to watch some half-way decent "professional" porn. They're already a lost cause.