� Some Sites I like � I'm reading |
Review of XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography by Wendy McElroy get off my bum and do it sometime this weekend or next. (Probably next so the PMS will wear off.) Anyway, McElroy's book does a wonderful job of examining the sex industry from an objective point of view. She does not work within the industry or try a couple of jobs, she merely interviews the participants and watches the process. She gains a lot from these encounters, however, and her ability to stand apart from both the society of sex workers and the anti-pornography fanatics gives her a fantastic view of both sides of the argument. This view illuminates some underlying tensions between both factions and within the people who choose the renegade art of sex work. One of her conclusions I found most apt was her realization that the hardness sex workers often portray is tinged with sadness and a yearning for regular people to find them normal. Many sex workers have to defend their reputations as smart thoughtful people, which makes them diffident to non-sex workers. She cited several, especially men, who even thought their sexuality or sexual style as superior to the normals beliefs, but even these examples looked to her for some slight acceptance. True, she does show the ugly side of pornographers who can look at most women as pieces of meat, but they have a human side that she is able to discern as well. Overall, McElroy does the best job I've seen of an outsider trying to describe how the sex industry works, and its effects on the women within it. I think her outsider approach gives her an edge on the usual competition (current or former sex workers writing about their trade). Of course, I think you'll understand this better if you hear it from her. So, the rest of this entry is devoted to her text, even if there are no quotation marks. "Yet mixed up with this in-your-face approach was a strange eagerness to be understood and to be taken seriously by the regular world. Several times in the middle of a conversation, I suddenly realized it was important to the people I was talking to that I accept them, that I like them. [...] They were used to being rejected, even despised, by the people around them. On one level, they hungered for decent treatment and acceptance from the 'legitimate' world. On the other hand, they had acquired the survival skill of automatically treating others with the contempt they fully expected to receive back." [13] "Without women...the industry would not exist. This is a form of acknowledgment, but not a form of respect. Women in the industry are like thoroughbred horses, without whom there could be no day at the races. The women are valued, they are cared for, they are protected--but I didn't see them respected. For example, when men spoke of each other...it was about their work, their accomplishments or lack thereof. [...] Women were always discussed in terms of their physical components. [...] As in every other endevor...women in porn will probably get respect only after they get power." [40] [a good value neutral definition] "Pornography is the explicit artistic depiction of men and/or women as sexual beings." [51] "If a woman enjoys performing sex acts in front of a camera, it is not because she is a unique human being who reasons and reacts from a different background or personality. No. It is because she is psychologically damaged and no longer responsible for her actions. She must, in effect, become a political ward of radical feminists, who will make the correct choices for her. This is more than an attack on the right to pose for pornography. It is a denial of a woman's right to choose anything outside of the narrow corridor of choices offered by political/seuxal correctness. The right to choose hinges on the right to make a 'wrong' choice. [...] But radical feminists are going one step farther than simply denying that women have the right to make wrong choices; they deny that women have the ability to choose." [106] "Pornography is one of the windows through which women glimpse the sexual possibilities that are open to them. It is nothing more or less than freedom of speech applied to the sexual realm. Feminism is freedom of speech applied to women's sexual rights. [...] It is time for the feminist movement as a whole to become 'improper' and so outrageous as to suggest that sex can be fun and fulfilling. It is time to take sex out of politics and to put it back into the bedroom, where it belongs. Sex is a private choice, and not a political matter open to a majority vote. It is a rebellious process of self-discovery. And feminists should be adamantly defending those women whose sexual choices are under attack. They should be defending women in pornography. Modern feminism needs a little less dogma and a lot more heresy." [128] "But feminists are so angry at men they will not listen to dissenting opinions--and especially not to men's pain, their voices or their needs. As she [Nina Hartley] put it, 'We're still just so angry at them and their penises and their need to put it in us. It is a very anti-sexual response.' Their anger prevents feminists from realizing that men are as oppressed as women are by sexual, social, and political attitudes, if only in different areas of sexuality." [162] Those are the best nuggets. Check it out yourself if you like these sorts of books. I think my next good sex book will be one of those therapy manuals. Whoo! Exciting stuff. I did send my thesis out to the Electronic Journal of Sexuality. We'll see if it gets anywhere. Give it a few weeks. I'm going to hack out a query letter to one of the markets in Katy's book too for Back Door. I still don't know where that will sell, but I'll give this a shot. After that, I guess I'll have to go porn shopping. I wonder how many writeoffs I can get. If they give me this sales job, I was thinking of getting a $300 GPS system so I wouldn't get lost, but if I gotta buy lots of porn mags too can I declare both? Hmmm don't know. Oh well, we'll see. Daphne |