> Marc Mielke raised the following points on my forum, which, in light of other recent online discussions, I felt were pertinent enough to be reposted here:
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> So, I've noticed a tendency for myself, Kirk, and others here to be especially interested and/or sensitive to women's issues, and thought interesting that we who are interested in porn, something typically considered degrading to women, should be more enlightened on such issues than the average guy.
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> My guy friends, who are in no way misogynistic, are much less interested in such things and will jokingly cast aspersions on my manhood for being so interested in such. My daily routine has me visiting sites such as Pandagon and feministing among others which offer a decidedly feminist slant on issues.
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> Reconciling this with my BDSM fetishism is, to say the least, an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
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> Easier to understand is (I'll assume on the part of us all) is sensitivity and understanding of gay issues. After all, once they're done sticking the gays in camps, they'll be after us next...
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> My response?
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> For me, it's not difficult to reconcile at all, and indeed, I've reached the point where I often have to remind myself, during debate with others, that others might not see the connection as clearly as I do, to wit:
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> I consider myself pro-woman, pro-sex, pro-sexuality and pro-porn. If anything, my beliefs in women's equality to men, rather than reminding me that women can be just as good as men, are a means of tempering my slight bias in favor of women, because I am a bit of a misanthrope, so by believing in women's equality to men, what I'm actually doing is reminding myself that women can be just as bad as men.
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> As for how the rest of it interacts, what I believe in is positive, mutually consensual, fully-expressed sexuality. In porn, I like my women happy and smiling, or at the very least - since the more intense forms of sex can cause women to adopt grimaces rather than grins - getting what they want out of the experience. Girls who are having fun is one of my biggest turn-ons, and guess what? A lot of gals get off on flaunting their sexuality, and contrary to what's espoused by pseudo-feminists (whom I mentally distinguish from true feminists), this does not necessary make such women bad, shallow or lacking in self-esteem.
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> BDSM ... well, I've taken part in milder forms of it - there's a reason I have a barely visible burn mark on the back on one hand - but more as a sub than as a dom. Unless I can be the one who's yielding, it tends not to be My Thing, because I'm honestly a bit uncomfortable with being the one who's In Charge (too much a reflection of the power disparity between the genders that already benefits me as a man in the real world). Superheroine BDSM? Oddly enough, I prefer the stuff with actresses to the stuff that's written or drawn, involving no real-life participants. It's not as ironic as you might think, since the stuff with actresses is, by necessity, more restrained in the "torments" to which it can subject its superheroines, and often goes out of its way to break the fourth wall and show that the actresses involved are perfectly willing to subject themselves to such travails. What's written and drawn, however, is limited only by the imaginations of the writers and artists in question, and while some of their stuff can be enjoyable, there's a lot of it that's extreme enough to scare the shit out of me.
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> As with storytelling in general, a great deal of it simply comes down to presentation. William Moulton Marston gets a pass from me for coming up with excuses to put Wonder Woman in bondage every chance he got, because his prevailing characterizations and ultimate message were still very much pro-woman. His gals gave as good as they got, and always laid the smack down on The Man who tried to keep them down. Also, with the advent of college girl Etta Candy, Wonder Woman's full-figured and unapologetically gluttonous sidekick, Marston the pioneer seems to have prefigured the birth and popularization of the "Big Beautiful Woman" fetish by close to half a century.
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> And goddammit, that's what I want for women, fictional or otherwise; I want to see women who are proud of themselves, making their own choices, and loving their lives, and if a gal who's literally a certified genius, like former porn star Asia Carrera, feels most fulfilled when she's eating pussy or on the receiving end of multiple cocks on camera, then who the fuck are we to tell her that she's wrong? I mean, personally, I can't think of a duller profession than one that involves crunching numbers, but I wouldn't be "liberating" any woman by discouraging her from entering into a math-related job field; indeed, as any feminist would correctly point out, I'd be doing the exact opposite, no matter my own intentions.
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> "Feminist" does not deserve the ignoble status it's gained in too much modern discourse, as either an insult or a dirty word, but you know what? Neither does "porn." We can tell stories in the mainstream media that celebrate the shit out of violence - from superhero comics to action movies - even though violence in real life is, at best, a necessary evil. By contrast, unless it's being portrayed as something that's either depressing and/or degrading (pretentiously "artistic" dramas), ridiculously mockable (teen sex comedies) or itself inherently linked to violence (horror and/or "thrillers"), then sex - not romance, but sex - is considered worthy only of being relegated to porn, even though sex in real life can be one of the most beautiful experiences ever, if it's done right. Films like Gladiator elevate horrific violence to an exultant triumph of the human spirit, and yes, they're fucking awesome, but why can't a film do the same for sex?
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