Larry Flynt would have you believe sexual violence is a big joke. Kink.com presents it as ripping good fun. Our opponents maintain that porn is mere “entertainment”, “art” and we should lighten up. Let’s pull back to examine what sexual violence actually means to those who experience it. Linda Mbabazi writes this month from Kigali […]
Continue reading Rwanda: What Sexual Violence Is (explicit language)
Porn defenders commonly characterize it as ‘harmless fantasy’. Few viewers, they say, will act it out in the real world. Unfortunately, research on learning suggests this assumption is risky. Visualizing an action is close in training power to actually performing the action. Learning from porn is also reinforced by the pleasure of orgasm. This article […]
Continue reading Fantasizing About an Action Trains the Brain Almost the Same as Doing It
On June 18 Capital Video underwent a long-awaited violation hearing in Springfield. At issue was the viewing booth entertainment license of its Amazing.net porn shop in Apremont Triangle. This store has been controversial since its installation in 1990. The viewing booths were added in 1992. Several Springfield police officers and undercover detectives testified during the […]
Continue reading Gazette: “Porn store’s viewing booths raise stink in Springfield”
Gabriel Rotello published Sexual Ecology: AIDS and the Destiny of Gay Men in 1997. The Nation described it as “The most important book about AIDS and gay men since And The Band Played On. And it is far better.” The Boston Globe wrote, “Rotello’s ambitious book is the Silent Spring of the AIDS epidemic.” NPN’s […]
Continue reading Sexual Ecology: Porn, Promiscuity, and AIDS (explicit language)
Claiming you like a world of shallow relationships, exploitation, cruelty and abuse may make you feel better about it, but it is not true liberation. Rebecca Whisnant critiques third-wave feminism in “Not Your Father’s Playboy, Not Your Mother’s Feminist Movement”. This talk was delivered at “Pornography and Pop Culture: Re-framing Theory, Re-thinking Activism”, a conference […]
In “Failure to Protect”, the Summer 2007 issue of Amnesty International magazine reports that American Indian and Alaska Native women are 2.5 times more likely to suffer a rape or sexual assault than the general US female population. Moreover, “at least 86 percent of the men who commit sexual violence against Native Americans and Alaska […]
Continue reading Non-Indian Men Raping American Indian Women in Large Numbers
Some of our opponents try to deter us by claiming that porn is not important. Often they go on to suggest that we must be motivated by some hidden agenda, personal defect or boundary issues: Silkheat: “I am finding myself wondering why you focus on this issue when there are so many more important things […]
Continue reading Survey: “Suicide attempts by teens linked with assault” (explicit language)
In 1988, Bruce Freeland, planning director of Bellevue, WA, surveyed the experience of other cities with adult enterprises. He finds that increased crime (e.g. rape, prostitution, drugs, robbery) and nuisances (e.g. noise, litter) often attend these businesses. Here are excerpts from his report: …adult entertainment regulations must seek to mitigate the secondary impacts of the […]
Being a liberal city is no guarantee that porn shops will be free of secondary effects, such as crime and drug use. This May 21 article in BeyondChron, “San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily”, calls the replacement of a porn shop with an art gallery a “breakthrough” for the Tenderloin district: When an art gallery moves […]
Continue reading San Francisco: Loss of Porn Shop Brings Hope to Tenderloin District
Catharine MacKinnon, Elizabeth A. Long professor of law at the University of Michigan, observes that torture and abuse typically get a free pass when they’re framed as commercial entertainment. Some excerpts from “X underrated”, published in The Times Higher Education Supplement (May 20, 2005): A…magical framing move occurred in connection with the scandal surrounding Abu […]
Continue reading MacKinnon: Framing Torture as Porn Magically Makes It Acceptable