Candid comments from people who work in porn routinely skewer attempts by academics and porn defenders to ennoble the porn industry.“Billy Watson” is the blogmaster at I Shoot Porn (explicit). In his June 1 post, “I Be Google’n”, he laughs at the notion that porn actresses are not prostitutes. He also gives ranges for what […]
Feminist Perspective
MacKinnon: Framing Torture as Porn Magically Makes It Acceptable
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 […]
“Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes” Screens in Northampton on June 3; Q&A with Director Byron Hurt
Men’s Resource Center for Change invites the public to a screening of Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes. Showtime is this Sunday night, June 3, 7pm at Northampton’s Academy of Music. The screening will benefit VOICE MALE: The Magazine of the Men’s Resource Center for Change. It will include remarks and Q&A with director Byron Hurt. […]
“Spousal Use of Pornography and Its Clinical Significance for Asian-American Women”
Eunjung Ryu published her research paper, “Spousal Use of Pornography and Its Clinical Significance for Asian-American Women: Koren Women as an Illustration”, in Journal of Feminist Family Therapy 2004 (Vol.16 No.4). The complete article is available from The Haworth Document Delivery Service. Ryu examines the impact of porn on sexual attitudes, relationships between couples, and […]
Women Underrepresented in Media, Undernoticed
While we don’t believe you absolutely have to be a woman to care about women’s interests, it is inescapably true that women are underrepresented and undernoticed in American media. Concerns arise, for example, when large white men such as Bill Dwight, radio commentator for WHMP, poo-poo the notion that adult enterprises could subject neighbors to […]
The Lies of Mainstream ‘Lesbian’ Porn (explicit language)
Some porn defenders suggest that lesbian porn is an example of porn that is harmless, something that women freely and positively choose to do, and that sends no bad messages about women. While this may be true for a handful of films, it is not true for your typical commercial production. Biting Beaver explains in […]
I Was a ‘Self-Esteem Vampire’: A Woman’s Journey Out of Watching Porn (explicit language)
For blogger Biting Beaver, the special ‘juice’ of porn lay not in the sex but in the domination, the degradation of others for her viewing pleasure. She describes her journey into–and out of–watching porn: Women and Pornography: My Story …It’s almost as if the phrase, “But BB, women look at porn too” is intended to […]
Testimony from Northampton Shelter for Battered Women: Half of Abusers Use Pornography as a Part of the Abuse (explicit)
Massachusetts legislators heard testimony about peoples’ encounters with porn at a hearing on March 16, 1992. This account appears in In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings (p.423-425). Submission of Gail Kielson, Boston, Massachusetts My name is Gail Kielson and I work at Necessities/Necesidades, an organization in Northampton, Massachusetts that provides services to battered […]
New York Times: “The Girls Next Door”; Worldwide Sex Trafficking; Role of Porn
Our opponents like to focus on the handful of women who have become relatively rich selling sex, women who have achieved a measure of choice and control in their lives (example). The reality for vast numbers of other participants in the sex trade is far less appealing, as The New York Times makes clear in […]
D.A. Clarke: Women Adopting Men’s Bad Habits Is Not the Answer
Recently “Sarah Coeur d’Or” criticized us for not publishing some of her comments. If we claim we care about the participation of women in public debates, she argues, then we are obliged to publish the comments from all people claiming to be women, regardless of the merits of these comments. We disagree. That an opinion […]