When White Males Attack: Larry Flynt, Racism and The Left

Johns already answered this.

I do not believe I have tried to paint a rosy picture of the porn industry at any point. It is not useful to polarise people's positions.

I do not see you as an enemy. i broadly agree with the points revol has made and i understand his frustration with seeing his position distorted. i disagree with some of the points you make and think the style is unnecessarily aggressive, particularly when you are responding to men. i do still think you singled out the men as your first line of attack because its easier to do that in this kind of discussion. its a shame, tbh. as i said above it polarises debate, and then as dot says it becomes increasingly difficult to have more nuanced conversations about power and consent (instead of essentialized ones) and to have a deeper understanding of how sex clarifies some of the discussion about power, and muddies other parts. . (sorry, dot i'm stealing your words here. but i think your absolutely right (again). unfortunately i got pissed off and let it show. thats not helpful either.

anyway, the tone of this discussion seems to have improved and other people have joined in the debate. i haven't time to continue the discussion in a more productive way today and maybe i shouldn't have answered the comments above. just wanted to put the record straight.

i promise not to post any more pictures of willies

i consider breastfeeding to be useful. im combining my breastfeeding with my anti porn feminism.

i dont knit though, yet.

revol, youve been really rude and ignorant on this thread, even for you. lucy, dot, are you actually reading his comments? lucy, how can you seriously back up revol whilst giving someone else shit for their 'aggressiveness'?

jack, please, stop parroting revol. its so boring and unoriginal and you're nowhere near as good as he is at being a git. its like watching richard madeleys impression of ali g.

Jack's not even on this thread. If you're talking about me, I'm not trying to be a git, I'm trying to have a discussion.

yep, john, youre right. i made a mistake and thought you and jack were same person. sorry about that.

Cool no worries 8)

i'm not responding random except to say you are pushing this debate back into two snarling polarised tribes facing each other off across the playground.

I think the conversation has taken a much needed upswing from mean-spiritedness to a reasonably complex discussion of the issues. I apologise for my arrogant tone in earlier posts. I shall try to do better here.

For me the core issues, the root issues, are how patriarchies, whether capitalist or socialist (or other), create, maintain, and determine gender and race. Specifically how power is understood and expressed, through social forms such as gender and race. And, simultaneously, how race and gender become forms of imbalanced, oppressive, and dehumanising power, enforced, manifested, and expressed intrapersonally and interpersonally, as well as in less interpersonal social structures, such as through the shape or "nature" of the state and its institutions, while also existing as culturally and regionally (and individually) relative in their expression and meaning.

"Aryan" was a race. Is it now? "Coloured" is a race in South Africa. Is it elsewhere in the world? Genitals and other "sexual characteristics" are natural, so to speak, but their social meaning is not. That we find ourselves in various societies where race and gender are arranged, institutionally, structurally, through law, policy, custom, habit: social and interpersonal and intrapsychological practices (such as the oft-used practices of denial or defensiveness), means that "who we are" is, to a significant degree, determined rather than chosen. But not entirely determined, obviously. We are here, having this conversation, which capitalist patriarchy would presumably prefer we "not have".

Thanks for your posts, Chris and Irrationality. I found them helpful and clarifying.

The problem with making the focus of a conversation about sexism or racism "consent" (if that's what's being suggested) is that consent is, necessarily, such a compromised term, in its meaning, when what we have to choose from is so determined to begin with. The Right wishes for me to be heterosexually married, the Left doesn't mind if I fuck around. Do I have a choice, in Western society, to have sex that is not commerce, that is not sexism or racism, that is not objectification and exploitation, organized around the fetishization of body parts and heteronormative roles? Can I, as a freak of culture, have sex with people who have not had their preferences shaped by standards and practices found in advertising and pornography? If, practically speaking, I do not have access to "institutionalised sex" in those nonoppressive, nonexploitive, noncommodified forms, to what degree is my "choice" to be married or promiscuous "freely" chosen? I would argue that there are many things I would like, sexually, erotically, intimately, interpersonally, in this life, that simply are not available to me because the society in which I live doesn't sell them or produce them culturally.

If I want, for example, to have a life where I am not objectified, fetishized, visually violated by others, secretly or not so secretly photographed and later wanked off to, not harassed on the street, not turned into porn by my boyfriend while he is having sex with me, where do I go for those experiences, systematically? I would argue I have no where to go. Because, the capitalist patriarchal system does not provide me, or anyone, free, real space in which to NOT be objectified, commodified, exploited, turned into porn in someone's mind and in actual sex, while my body parts are fetishized. Can my body belong to me, when it has already been mass produced into a sexxxual object through industries such as advertising and pornography? To whom does my body belong, when it is not mine alone? It belongs to society, as a repeatedly objectifiable cultural artifact, unless I purposefully "disguise" that body in such a way that it is not readable as a gendered (or raced) body.

To what degree does this mean I can make "free choices" and to what degree does this mean I can "freely consent" if the sexual menu only offers me (us) things I'm ethically/politically allergic to?

Now of course many will develop tolerances to those allergens. Some will come to find the offerings very tasty indeed. But if I am allergic, so to speak, where am I (are we) to go, and what am I (are we) to do?

My answer is this: I abstain from sexxx, and I fight any or all industries which keep me (us) and sex both systematically limited and overly, oppressively determined, in each case by capitalist (or noncapitalist) patriarchy.

So if i see some one whilst walking down the street or at work or something, find them attractive, and later masterbate whilst thinking of them is that visually violating them? Should i ask people's consent before I fantasies about them? If its not just porn, but the act of fantasing at all that's patriarchial, what should i think about whilst masterbating? Or should i obstain all together?

Can my body belong to me when i spend been mass produced as a labouring object? I spend a few minutes a day loathing my body image. I spend five hours a day being 'objectified' as a worker and more stressing about work. and all this indivdualist liberal essentialism that your 'body can belong to you' is just daft. Your body is always gonna be producued by 'society', even if that society's some subculture producing supposedly 'non-gendered' bodies. Your Identiifying porn as the the source of this problem rather than lack of control over are own sexual production.

and what if people 'freely choice' to watch porn or engage in such 'hetronormative' practices as S&M? (and it constantly annoy me that predominately striaght feminist take it up on themselves to decide what's proper homo activity, despite gay men are more likely to use porn or engage in S&M, or S&M dykes that get attacked for being 'male-identified'). Again it's just this false-conscious nonsense.

yeah that's why i'm not going to eat food till food production is worker controlled.

My suggestion is this: find people that have a similar view of sexuality- have sex with them if you want.

post-captainmission:

for the people on this thread who disagree with targeting porn/sexwork as The Cause of sexual oppression (or even just as the best focus for anti-sex oppression work), what are your ideas about what the best focus for said work would be? (i am defining sex oppression as a lot of the old dynamics [women are supposed to say yes, hate our bodies, use our sexuality to own people and get what we want, men are supposed to always want sex and be able to perform at any time. etc.] that are not unique to sex exactly, but are particularly pointed when it comes to sexuality. i think that these attitudes are not hip anymore, but are still prevalent.)

after my delving for years into this topic, i settled into a more contextual and community-based way to address it, since it's so complicated and situation-specific (and person-specific). i also tend to think that this is the best way to address most things, and that sex is complicated enough that addressing the topic head-on (vs. talking about the more fundamental constructions of society and individuality, for example) may not be particularly useful.

but i'm interested in hearing ideas from people who are interested in working with "the masses" or who just have other ideas about how to approach the problem. and it seems like that would be another way to de-polarize the conversation.

maybe.

Hi

I don't think porn is wrong. No one I know does. The masses are more interested in being in porn than being against it. Apart from those with strong religious convictions, of course.

Love

Chris

Hi

That wasn’t a very good answer to your excellent question. I am a bit ashamed about that, and I’m sorry. Do you mind if I ask a personal question, with a view to giving you a proper answer?

When you last suffered sexual oppression, what were the specific circumstances?

Cheers

Chris

based on your past posts, chris, i wouldn't have put you in this category.

am i wrong?

and i'm not sure how to answer your question. are you asking if i've been raped? if i hate my body sometimes? if i have shame about being sexual? (why does answering my theoretical question require personal information about me?)

Hi

I think I probably disagree with targeting sex work as The Cause of sexual oppression. Funnily enough though, I’m OK with people looking into porn’s role in sexual oppression. The prevailing public attitude to porn does not give me too much cause for concern, I find it all entirely tolerable.

Not necessarily, but I appreciate the risk of you construing that angle.

Because our own experiences inform our individual approach to political problems. By examining our own sexual oppression we can identify the focus that suits our particular situation. If you feel oppressed by the sex industry, then taking issue with it makes perfect sense, and I think you’ll find most decent people will do their best to accommodate your objections.

Understandably, the idea of campaigning against sex work on behalf of those who are employed in the sector, use porn, or are victimised by its consumers carries little credibility. Unless you yourself feel genuinely oppressed by porn, it is unlikely you’ll be able to construct an effective argument as to why it is so oppressive, certainly not one capable of defeating the counter position put by those who enjoy it or take an income from it.

I would go as far to suggest that the top cause of sexual oppression (or any oppression for that matter) is the economic insecurity of the oppressed. Economic dependency on the capitalist system of forced labour offers up a plentiful supply of “victims” ready to be consumed in exchange for their own consumption. Alleviating working class economic insecurity is the most effective way of combating oppression.

Regards

Chris

i don't feel oppressed by the sex industry, particularly (not, at any rate, more oppressed than by other industry).

doesn't seem like you've been reading my previous posts.

or perhaps i am being much less clear than i thought i was being.

that would be funny/sad.

funny.

well i can't think of any other way to address "it" except in a contextual and community based way for the reasons you give. listening to people, working with people. i don't have much time for huge, sweeping, largescale, change the world type scenerios. largely because its useless in practice and often based on taken as given pre-conceptions which too easily become yet another example of talking down to people. but really given that i don't actually do anything (unless challenging crap when i'm listening to people talking shit counts and discussing these issues with my daughters), i can't think of anything useful to say. so i'll shut up.

Riser I think you're mixing dot up with liberation, Wendal + their gang...

dot,

I think we disagree less than you think. And my post is not much longer than yours.

My point is NOT that porn workers are more exploited. More exploited would likely be waitresses, home care workers, etc. In other words, people who make even less of a wage compared to the surplus value they produce.

Nor is porn the only industry which specifically targets women, which is also part of my point re: the general development of post-60's capital. My point comes down to the fact that porn is the extreme end of this hyper-sexualization, which obviously in no way precludes gay men either.

As for prostitution, as with strippers, the individual balance of power can in fact vary widely. Part of post-60's sexuality has been predicated upon men having less power in the old patriarchal sense, but that too has not been a movement of simple progress, but of recuperation along the lines I tried to sketch out.

Btw, moving sideways, the zine you helped produce is really excellent. I am forwarding it to a friend of mine in chicago in the hopes that it gives her some ideas for creating some of the same kind of discussion and practical coming together.

chris

ps - refinement after the fact: not ALL porn is more exploitative because some of it pays very, very well, just as stripping and prostitution are not necessarily more exploitative but can also be a major economic windfall compared to some other work. Obviously some really is, esp amateur porn where women participating may not even be getting paid for stuff released for pay on the Internet, much less the young men adn women and children in the worst end of the porn industry.

pps - I will believe that the porn industry is not basically predicated upon th hyper-sexualization of women's bodies as a commodity when they start showing normal looking people have sex in the mainstream (not just as "fatty fetish"), instead of bombshells with breast implants. Note that the guys, as long as they have a big dick, can seemingly be ugly as hell (John Holmes and Ron jeremy come to mind as the most famous examples, but lots of male porn stars are pretty unappealing, with exceptions, which I think plays to the male audience wh are themselves prolly not super-hunks either, playing (preying) on male insecurities about relations with actual women in RL.)

on the lighter side... TMI! I am so glad I don't know what any of the people talking about their personal sex lives look like because I am an extremely visual thinker and it would really fuck up my day (for better or worse.)

chris

Dealing with sexual oppression for most people has little to do with porn. In fact, it has little to do with reading Maxim, even though i think Maxim is effectively as if not more noxious than porn in shaping men's attitudes (and also in pushing a very yuppie, hyper-consumerism too, which is common to all of these types of magazines.)

I agree with you and Lucy on daily issues. there is no way to simply "apply" an analysis. what may be broadly true and necessary for helping people to make their own opposition to this society more systematic and coherent is not necessarily what is feasible at any given moment in a given situation. Sometimes being radical means knowing when to allow your understanding of the world to inform how you act towards people without requiring that you have a radical study group with them or use specific terms, or even in simply allowing you to gauge what is possible and what is not.

In this instance, I would say that the big difference is that you see sexual repression as important to sexual oppresion. I don't really, at least capital has shown great flexibility in using "sexual liberation" and "free sexuality" as one means of promoting itself, of accumulating more wealth, of re-instantiating the capital-labor relation by promoting the increased commodification of sex (now you have to buy movies, sex toys, lotions, creams, clothes, etc to maximize your sexuality.) Women, in turn, seem to in some respects effectively detourn that into something that is about them, but capital ultimately doesn't care whether you do it for yourself or for someone else, as long as you buy the commodities, and if it requires that you build your self-image around it, all the better because it is no longer a conscious or rational choice even, but a need, as real as food, clothing and shelter for social life and social acceptance.

In the short term, activism can't even begin to breach this beyond maybe one's personal milieu, and even there it is tough unless we restrict ourselves to a milieu of people like us. I can't possibly have the same conversation with any five people I know because I don't have a scene, which is both challenging and terribly lonely at times. I don't hang around with leftists, for a variety of reasons, but my two best friends and intellectual and emotional confidants are both communists.

I haven't been friends with anyone in the sex trade for some years now, but in chicago i was close with a stripper/prostitute, a dominatrix and a trans-gender prostitute, and most of the time it was more a question of simply talking and being there. On eof them was emotionally damaged beyond repair, one was totally into the trade and the other did it out of the fact that it was easier to make decent money than anything else when you're a trans-gender person, even in Chicago.

I wouldn't say that with any of them i had an explicitly political relationship because I had no activity "towards" them and they were explicitly not interested in "politics", though they were fascinatingly political nonetheless.

For other friends, I found myself more than once in the "support of an abused friend" role, usually with someone really nasty and violent, and usually very few people in their milieu wanted to even deal with it, much less get involved in creating a conscious group to intervene. But the stuff you laid out in the zine I think gives me a lot more to think with than I had being trapped in very isolated situations of support for a long time.

Otherwise, what do you do? In the abscence of an actual social movement , which will have to develop on its own terms, not the ones we would choose, it is not merely complicated (which it would be even in a movement), but at times nearly impossible.

Wow, maybe that sounds too pessimistic, but between chicago and Baltimore, i don't see much reason for hope yet, esp not from the left which is just as nasty as the rest fo the society (almost all my female friends have been driven from groups by sexual harassment, but kicked out always by a female member in the leadership.)

chris

Hi Dot.

I think your last question is an excellent one, and could get some useful conversation going.

I cannot prioritize confronting capitalism over patriarchy in my activist work for the simple reason that the oppression of women precedes and exceeds any traditional economic system, though of course the particulars of the harm to women, within any economic system (capitalist or socialist, industrial or primal), varies and is determined, to some degree, by the economic system and cultural values and habits that are unique to each society. But as someone once said, socialist patriarchy is, at best, a liberal reform for women as a class.

So I support activism that exposes the sexist, and in many cases racist, harms of patriarchies, of whatever economic stripe. And I go after the harms directly. That's my choice. That means I work to expose sexism and racism where they most blatantly display themselves but are not popularly called sexism or racism (porn is popularly called fantasy, cathartic, liberating, free speech), and to challenge the institutions and cultural habits which foster and maintain these socio-political hierarchies. There are enough pro-patriarchal (or unconsciously patriarchal) socialist and anarchist activists blatantly confronting capitalism and Empire. Do the authors of "Empire" detail how patriarchal values and practices create and maintain Empire? No. The authors remain largely unconscious of patriarchy as a global determining system of dehumanisation, which is, in my view, how someone can show up on this discussion board and say "porn is fine". What levels of unconsciousness does such a comment require, and whose interests are served by such a level of unconsciousness? And please don't accues me of saying anyone's consciousness is "false". I actually do not like or use that term. But I have seen plenty of white people who are completely unconscious of how racism is institutionalised, and that doesn't make their perspectives on things "false" but it does make them grossly limited in scope and makes their hearts less likely to register certain kinds of harm as harm. The same is true with regard to sexism and patriarchy, in my view.

And the point of my earlier post about "what choices I have" cannot be politically responsibly responded to with some liberal, libertine, condescension. My point is not "what I can do". My point is: some things are institutionalised and systematised and some things are not. Injustice is, sexism is, racism is, classism is; justice, freedom, and nonpatriarchal sex are not. This isn't about "how I get through my life while having some good sex". In my view and experience, and those of many people I know, "good sex" is not available to me or to anyone who values what does not currently exist (but could): culturally encoded, socially valued, institutionalised, systematically expressed, politically condoned nonpatriarchal, humanising sex. The sex that is available, habituated, condoned, institutionalised, and enforced systematically is this (i.e., it contains one or more of the following key characteristics): objectifying, fetishizing, exploitative, degrading, humiliating, violating, sadistic, masochistic, dangerous, or lethal. I am quite aware that most people find a home in this sort of sex, and don't really consider there to be any other kinds. Forgive me if I don't celebrate the fact that patriarchal sex and sexxx are ubiquitous in the Industrial West. That doesn't make it ethically or politically good, in my view; that makes it standard and dull, and patriarchally "politically correct".

Someone asked: "can I sexually objectify someone and later go home and wank off to a fantasy about them". Well, in patriarchy, I'd argue, that's one of your very few options! What else are you to do? What else is there to do besides engage in objectification and the fetishization of body parts, or to violate or be violated, to be preyed upon or be the prey, to be degraded or to degrade, or to get off on people-as-things, while with them or while looking at 2D versions of them, or while remembering them as people-as-things? What else is there, besides boring sex made exciting through the forces of dehumanisation? Non-objectifiying, non-exploitative sex is simply not marketed, nor institutionalised, and is therefore not available, in a socio-politically meaningful way. I'm not advocating for it to be marketed, btw; I am advocating for dehumanisation to not be marketed and institutionalised. I realise this will sound utterly absurd to many progressives, liberals, and conservatives, who think patriarchal sex is either "God-given" or "natural".

To anyone who is making assumptions about my race, gender, and sexual orientation: you are all incorrect, and any of your guesses would be incorrect. So please refrain from stereotyping me. Some of us strive to exist outside the paradigm, outside the hierarchies, outside the cultural norms, and outside of society's expectations. This renders us either invisible or freaks. I'd rather be either of those than be seen as a fetishised thing, interpersonally or intrapsychically catering to the institutions and systems, practices and habits which seek and generally succeed in the dehumanisation of all of us.

As a 25 year old male from Sweden said:

[I want to, with this message show my respect for a great thinker who showed us some horrible truths that we would rather hide from but by making us aware of them she helped the world to make it possible to deal with them. Andrea Dworkin was to Patriarchy what Karl Marx was to Capitalism.]

I look forward to more good (emotionally and intellectually reasonable and sensible) political discussion.

Hi

I see what you mean, let me apologise for my unnecessarily confrontational tone.

Please insert “we”/”our” for “you”/”your” there, that was shoddy posting on my part. dot, I wasn’t neccesarily assuming we were in conflict on this.

It’s all this talk of porn and sex workers, it’s getting me excited. Anyone see Michelle Thorne crying in the X-Factor?

Same argument that national liberationists use to justify rightist nationalists.

Regards

Chris

liberation I would like you to tell us what non dehumanising sex is like?

This all sounds llike essentialist shit, whereby after we get rid of patriarchy we will all have sex, but it will be so different we can't even imagine it now cos we are so dehumainsed and twisted by patriarchy and sexxx( that word makes me laugh btw). Could you perhaps point point out some tendencies which we could seek to examine and expand? Do you think it would ever be possible to have representations of sex that are non dehumanising? What puts you in a position to define "dehumanising sex" and "revolutionary sex"? or is that just something you tell people in order to sleep with them?

"Hey, you sexy (in a non objectified, humanist, and egalitarian way) person, how'd you like to come back to mine and have some "revolutionary sex"?"

excuse me whilst i snigger into my pint, but perhaps you could give all us unenligthened genderised bots some idea as to what this "revolutionary sex" is like, no?

What a pile of essentialist wank!

well good for you, I bet you don't even tidy your bedroom and have bikini kill posters all over your walls. What an elitist lil shit you are, everyone else is a mindless drone but you and your oh so (un) radical mates know whats right, you know "good sex" and how to live outside the "system". Well perhaps you'd do the rest of the world a favour and let us know what this alternative sexuality looks like? And even better why is it better? Whats the harm in wanking over 2d images, fuck human sexuality is that complex that i've been turned on by the fucking caramel bunny. Human sexuality includes visuals. what about those people who wish to be aroused yet don't have a partner, for whatever reason? should they be excluded?

I really can't believe the arrogance of this position.

Now if you don't mind the rest of us are quite happy having shit dehumanising sex.

how is justice, freedom etc not institutionalised and systematised ? and nonpatriarchal sex in whatever form in the brave new world would be institutionalised and systematised. your talking lots of impressive sounding words which make no sense.

what fundamentally is wrong with fetishizing or objectifying body parts? isn't that human desire? what you gonna do when you see someone you fancy? shut your eyes and never, ever think he/shes got a nice arse again? what do you think about when you wank just out of interest? thats a serious question, i'm fascinated. how does the new sexuality operate in practice?

my dearest liberation,

How do i anwser that? Its like you've been pumping so non-phalus and gushed forth such non-sensical jism that the patriarchical logocentrism of my unconciousness has wiped clean, as if by some crusty old klenex. And believe me, i've got a raging boner as i sit here and type, thinking of what herculean force of will you muster to leap so gracefully the cultural norms of gender/race/sexuality, that no lesser mortal has ever achived. Your a one wo/man paradox, and for that your beautiful to me. My back arched, I'm ozing pre-cum, i want to form your sense of superiority in to a dildo and violate my arse. Realising that any form of sexual attraction is objectification, i want to be punished, tied up in your arguement and whipped. And as a silver dots fill my vision and every extremety of my body comes alive I want to take your 2-D vision of human sexuality and cut a whole in it as gaping as those in your arguement and fuck it like the bitch it is. And then- in one final moment of esctacy as i shoot me load, finally objectified in the fuckfest of essentialist feminist discourse, i want you to roll over and tell me you love me.

seriosuly, where the fuck did you find Foucaults love letters?

Liberation you do realise that your a walking caricature, the human embodiment of the neurosis that has reduced much of feminism to smug self rigtheous psycho babble and alienated millions and millions of women. To be honest if you didn't exist patriarchy would have to invent you.

in response to Dot, my involvement in stuff arround sex and sexuality has been in 'radical' queer alternatives to commercial gay scene. Though i'm mostly quite dissillusioned with them- either being to activisty, cliquey or dependent onn other subcultures- squatter punk or hipster. so in answer to you question- i dunno

captainmission, you are fucked up. how do you figure that it is okay to write that? you think youre so clever, deliberately using words like rape. if this is what youre like on an internet board i dont want to think what you must be like in real life.

there is no word to describe just how fucking low you are.

fuck this. this is fucking bullshit. i cant believe just how fucking bullshit this is.

random where did captainmission use the word rape?

Also just get a fucking sense of humour you cock!

well, s/he did use the word violate... a word that is only a hair away from "rape"

but random - while it's predictable that this would enrage you, it's also true that it is (only) an example of exactly the differences that have already been discussed in other words on this thread.

the idea that some people call other people "bitch" with full love and affection and respect, the idea that sex can be rough and dirty and harsh...

the idea that language is more complicated than just automatically abusive or supportive (or that it can't be both of those things at the same time)...

this is just a more dramatic way to put things that people have already said.

and people already know that you don't agree with those ideas (or if you do under some circumstances, you might want to discuss that).

me, this isn't a kind of porn that i like, but i don't have to like it all. me not liking it isn't the same as it being counter-revolutionary.

yes, but saying you want to violate youself with a set of abstract ideas isn't rape thou is it, and you can hardly rape yourself with a dildo.

That is the surrealist sentence I've ever written.