Link Farm and Open Thread #7
| January 23rd, 2006What I’ve been reading lately. As always, you are invited to post whatever you want here, including links to your own posts.
In Defense of Sex Positive Feminism
Bitch | Lab defends “sex positive feminism” from a variety of blogger critiques. I have a lot of sympathy for this article - especially the frustration at people who criticize alleged statements of sex positive feminists without actually providing quotes or links. At the same time, I will never like the term “sex positive,” because of the implication that feminists who don’t share those views are “sex negative.”
Jill Fisks an Interview With Anti-Feminist Kate O’Bierne
Changing Jobs from Writer to Janitor
A true-life redemptive tale. As Amber says, it’s very long, “but well-written, so it’s a quick read.”
GenderGeek Discusses Her Past Life As A Christian Fundimentalist
More on The Myth of The Opt-Out Revolution
Showtime Wants To Pick Up Arrested Development
But only if series creator Mitch Hurwitz comes along, and Hurwitz may want to get off this roller-coaster.
On Governor Tim Kaine’s “Discomfort” With The Anti-Gay Legislation He Plans To Sign Anyway
Atrios Gets It Right On Choice For Men
It’s a Big Fat Revolution
If you haven’t yet read Nomy Lamm’s stunningly good, multifacited essay on fat acceptance, you should.
A Sane Position on Iran
At Body and Soul, of course.
Women Are Not Baby-Machines
Redneck Mother relates her own painful reproductive history to her committment to abortion rights.
New Blog To Watch: Feminist Law Professors
Teen Oral Sex Isn’t As One-Sided As We’ve Been Told
There’s been a lot of concern about an “epidemic” of teen girls giving - but not receiving - oral sex. But the research shows that girls are actually a bit more likely to recieve than to give, for whatever that’s worth.
This Is The Title Of The Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times In The Story Itself
This classic recursive short story (very short!) is well worth your time, if you haven’t already read it.
Giving Up On Abortion Rights: All Costs, Few Benefits
Scott at Lawyers, Guns and Money questions the current strategy among many (usually male) liberals.
Shorter Peter Morris
Who knew that if you become a father, there’s a chance that one of those icky girls would be born? And that’s just for starters.
Analysis of the Ayotte Decision
Over at ACSBlog, Jennifer Brown of Legal Momentum nutshells the Ayotte decision. Things definitely didn’t go as bad as they might have - I’m grateful this was decided before O’Connor departs.
Medical Innovations Reported In The Canadian Medical Association Journal
“We describe the off-label use of a recreational device (the Super Soaker Max-D 5000) in the alleviation of a socially emergent ear condition…” Via Sisyphus Shrugged.
Groundbreaking Research From The British Medical Journal
Be sure to scroll to the bottom and read the response letters. Via Riba Rambles, who has many more links along these lines.
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:22 pm
If I provided any more direct quotes and links showing exactly where I think so-called “sex positive feminists” have abondoned women in pursuit of capitalist profit and male-approved popularity there will be a e-lynch mob gunning for me. Who isn’t tired of my meticulously evidenced criticisms of prostitution at Alas? I’m tired of them myself, tired of linking to websites with years worth of data collected on them proving the ‘duh’ statement that women don’t want to be whores, tired of reminding people that Nina Hartley is against mandatory condom use in pornography filming, Susie Bright admits to masturbating herself to the court-given testimony of women rape victims, and “sex worker rights” proponents Robyn Few and Norma Jean Almodovar have been convicted on pimping charges.
I’ve written about these things and linked to the books, research, websites, newspapers and journals plenty of times as the Prostitution, Porn and Sex Work archives here attest. I’m tired of repeating myself to mostly deaf ears, because before the week is out someone somewhere is going to say to me, “Why do you hate sex/men/freedom/America?” and I’m going to have to resist the urge to scream. Another book on “Sex Tips From Escorts” just got released to follow up the last one that was a bestseller at my local women’s bookstore a few months ago, and I’m tired of trying to explain how women learning how to please men by mimicking prostituted sexuality isn’t women-focused or “pro-sex feminism” but raw patriarchal capitalism. I’m tired of linking links and quoting quotes it seems very few people read.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 23rd, 2006 at 5:32 pm
“At the same time, I will never like the term “sex positive,” because of the implication that feminists who don’t share those views are “sex negative.”"
Exactly. It’s the hip version of “family values”.
This comment was written by Sheena.Report this comment to the moderators
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Hee. Good links.
This comment was written by sarah.Report this comment to the moderators
January 23rd, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Hear Hear Samantha. That’s all I can say being one who’s being ripped apart for not being “sex positive enough” (at that blog and at my own)
This comment was written by Burrow.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 12:29 am
Sam, I was by no means criticizing ALL critics of sex positive feminism. I was saying that the specific criticism that “when people criticize a view, they should link to a example of someone actually expressing the view they’re criticizing” is something that I agree with.
As long as you quote or link specific examples of the “sex positive” feminists you critique, when you write such criticisms, then I’m not in any way criticizing you.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 7:43 am
Loved the teaspoon article. I have always wondered where the spoons go….
This comment was written by Lee.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 8:05 am
Samantha: I know your frustration. I get the exactly the same shit. It’s beyond demoralising (which is, I’m sure, the point).
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 10:13 am
Samantha,
This comment was written by Jimmy Ho.for what it’s worth, I value your viewpoint on so-called sex work quite highly. your posts on the issue have always been well-informed with solid links that gave me much of the evidence I lacked when discussing such issues (I then had to rely on principles only, which is very unsatisfying). I am thankful to your writing on this topic, because it helped me shape a much clearer idea of the problems involved. Your links and quotes were definitely not lost on me, and I am probably not the only one.
Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 11:30 am
I posted on the teen girls receiving oral sex issue back in September 2005, in case anyone is interested.
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Here is an important article about measures that Ghana is taking to correct iodine deficiency in that country.
Really, one important thing that needs to be done to help Africa is to correct trace mineral deficiencies, which have a large negative impact on the health of the people there.
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 1:17 pm
Well, Samantha, what Sheena, CrysT (CRYS LIVES !!), and Jimmy said.
If you don’t mind hearing it from the “liberal…” :D
I’m still trying to figure out how to explain to the rah-rah porn faction that I don’t regard depiction of sexual acts as being exactly the same as commodification of humans, mostly women and kids. The trouble is that it’s obvious to me that treating sex as an industry does inevitably lead to commodification for all but a select few. Yet, we’re expected to treat the select few as the norm, when they are anything but…
And if the supposed sex-positive reader isn’t going to buy my stance, which is very much in the gray area between someone like Dworkin and someone like Bright, they’re sure as blazes not going to go for Samantha’s…
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Exactly what Jimmy Ho said. Samantha has definitely provided arguments & info that I hadn’t seen before which have strongly influenced my thoughts on the matter.
This comment was written by Jake Squid.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
Thanks Burrow, Crys T and Jimmy Ho; I didn’t intend for such comments but they’re always nice to read. The absence of radical feminist voices, myself included, from the recent prostitution thread is conspicuous and that’s part of what was lingering on my mind as I wrote. While I’m here, thanks to all who took the time and energy on that.
Amp said: I was saying that the specific criticism that “when people criticize a view, they should link to a example of someone actually expressing the view they’re criticizing” is something that I agree with. As long as you quote or link specific examples of the “sex positive” feminists you critique, when you write such criticisms, then I’m not in any way criticizing you.
Reading this practically begs the question, “Critics of sex positive feminism who don’t privide quotes and links like who, exactly? Can you be more specific about who you’re referring to and what they didn’t back up?”
But here’s where you trip over the same double-edged sword that trips up radical feminists who are critical of pro-sex industry feminism. If we don’t name names, dates and lines we’re criticized for not being specific enough, but if we name names, dates and lines then we’re “picking on feminists” or “enforcing feminist purity” or “holding a grudge” when what we want is some accountability for what pro-sex feminists are saying, doing and promoting.
It’s considered unfair or goading to remind people of a certain feminist’s stated belief that men go to prostitutes for emotionally tender and sensitive sex like they can’t get with their wives, but her mocking of a certain conservative young woman with the overdone repetition of a certain phrase is considered par for the feminist course. I’m not saying thoughtless ideas shouldn’t be pointed out or even ridiculed when the time is right, I’m saying the mainstream liberal Othering of conservatives and radical feminists makes criticisms of them acceptable, nay required, in a way basic criticisms of pro-sex industry feminists are not deemed acceptable. What would an article on Gloria Steinem’s continuing babeness be without a gratuitous kick to Andrea Dworkin’s ugliness thrown in?
That’s what I’m talking about, and Crys T is right, the point is to be intentionally demoralising and dismissive to anyone critical of pornography, prostitution, and the sex capitalists slave trade that supplies men’s demands.
From time spent lobbying politicians and working on campaigns I know the most effective political campaigns are those that have a concise, clear message that’s repeated over and over again, but there’s only so many times having this discussion on pornstitution where someone ignores what I’ve said about the Swedish model and asks why I want women arrested before I wonder why I bother. Again, I’m thinking of a particular person who posts here who did this but it would be considered rude or too aggressive of me to name the name and quote the quote that’s supposed to lend credibility to what I’m saying.
In the end I know why I bother, because I love women and want them to be as happy and healthy as possible, but several radfem activists I know have burned out and I see it happening to the social workers, health officers and others around me who work with prostituted women. The struggle to get mainstream feminists, women-focused activists, to see that men are not made of Teflon and the extreme amount of harm they do to prostituted women & children should stick to them is a particularly heavy straw breaking our radfem backs.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 3:01 pm
I wasn’t the one making the criticism - Bitch Lab was. And she does provide specific links and examples; for example, F-Words described “sex positive feminists” as “those who believe that women naturally want to be having sex constantly,” but did not link to or quote a single person expressing such a belief. (As Bitch Lab correctly points out, F Words also doesn’t provide a single link or quote to support the view that the “prudes” exist, either.)
Bitch Lab provides at least one other example, but I don’t think I should need to replicate her whole post here.
I’m pretty much a fence-sitter in this particular debate. I’m actually in favor of some censorship; in particular, as I’ve argued on “Alas” in the past, I don’t see any reason why rape porn - either simulated or actual - should be legal. On the other hand, I didn’t agree with the MacKinnon & Dworkin proposed ordinance.
One of the things that has driven me crazy for years when reading anti-feminist stuff is “feminists say X” and “feminists say Y” statements, are unsupported by any actual examples of feminists saying X or Y. It’s largely because of my frustration with that, that I have a lot of sympathy for the point of view which says that people must give a source for what you’re criticizing. Otherwise you end up with intellectually dishonest summaries like “those who believe that women naturally want to be having sex constantly.” Or, for that matter, about ten thousand people who have falsely accused MacKinnon of saying “all sex is rape” without including an attribution to MacKinnon saying that.
That’s a good point, and one I hadn’t considered.
All I can say is, for myself, I don’t consider the quoting of something you want to refute to be in and of itself “enforcing feminist purity.” It seems to me obviosly impossible to have dialog if people can’t even quote or cite the things they’re referring to.
Frankly, radical feminists will always be accused of “picking on other feminists” and “attempting to enforce purity,” regardless of whether or not the accusation makes sense, and regardless of whether or not the radical feminists in question have made specific citations. Since you’re doomed to that criticism regardless, I think that you might as well include the specifics.
Finally, I want to say that I really appreciate you posting on “Alas,” and hope you keep on doing so.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Samantha wrote:
Some of this is surely internalized sexism. We get the message early on that if men cheat, we are to blame. We are not sexy enough. We don’t diet. We’re too pushy. We won’t pass out enough blowjobs, etc etc… It thus logically follows that if men harm other women in the course of cheating on us, the harm prostituted women suffer must also be our fault. >: :(
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
I agree there’s got to be that element at work in some way, alsis (& thanks for your words too).
There’s the confusing idea floating around that the worst thing prostituted people face isn’t really murder, rapes, slashings, beatings, burnings and other physical abuse but social stigma. I think that’s entirely false, but it’s a primary belief of pro-sex industry feminists that if enough people call it “sex work” and try to respect prostitution as “sacred whoring” careers then the men who murder, rape, slash, beat, burn and brutalize prostitutes will somehow be inclined to stop. I saw a woman wearing a “Be Nice to Sex Workers” shirt at the March for Women’s Lives and it bothered me because she was wearing that shirt in a crowd of feminists to say something to feminists about how feminists need to be nice to prostituted women so that men won’t brutalize them so much .
For all the times I’ve been called a Victorian-era prude, the pro-sex industry feminist notion that it’s up to feminists to change how we perceive prostitution so we can then influence men who abuse and enslave prostituted women seems a lot more in the Victorian camp of “women are the moral guardians of men” than anything radical feminism posits. How about men stop the massively profitable global industry of systematic rape and slavery of poverty-stricken women and children such that it influences me to change my feminist opinion on the inherent violence of prostitution? Why isn’t it prostitute-using men’s job to change how they treat and view prostituted women enough to convince feminists the Swedish solution of criminalizing tricks is not necessary?
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 5:04 pm
There’s the confusing idea floating around that the worst thing prostituted people face isn’t really murder, rapes, slashings, beatings, burnings and other physical abuse but social stigma.
I was under the impression that the general idea was that the social stigma is what prevents society from dealing with murder, rapes, slashings, etc. of prostitutes.
Put another way, the social stigma produces an attitude of “she had it coming” when a prostitute gets raped, murdered, etc. So if victim-laming does ncrease the incidence of rape in our society, it makes sense that social stigma against prostitution would increase the rape of prostitutes.
This comment was written by Glaivester.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Interesting topic and comments. I do not have much to add on this issue. But if anyone is interested in politics, please visit my blog at www.politicsdaily.blogspot.com. I welcome all people from all political persuasions and I encourage visitors to please leave a comment, whether you agree with me or not. Thanks.
This comment was written by Ryan.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
Glaivester wrote:
But who created the social stigma ? Who does the most to perpetuate it ? Who has the most power to stop it ?
It’s already illegal in this country to brutalize and kill women, regardless of whether or not they sell their bodies. The women in Samantha’s camp argue that the “sex positive” camp’s attempts to gussy up the image of women selling their bodies and attempting to organize women who sell their bodies is pointless. It’s pointless in part because the majority of prostituted women do not want to stay in the trade, and in part because the relationship of john to prostitute is inherently, irrevocably hierarchical– and not in favor of the prostitute– because it is a cornerstone of a sexist society that requires such hierarchies in order to reinforce the status quo.
See my questions above. Respond if you care to.
I also have to say that trying to get through the Bitch/Lab’s response to Samantha made my teeth hurt. And I say this as someone whose argued with Samantha before over how she sometimes comes across online to other feminists. (Yes, I know– Pot. Kettle, but I hope that she forgives me.) The points Samantha tried to make over there were completely disregarded, even if the usual name-calling didn’t happen.
Though hearing Nina Hartley, called acurately by another radfem that I know “The Dick Cheney of Porno” for her indefensable bullshit rejection of a mandatory condom policy in adult films, be touted as a Socialist just about had me doubled over with laughter. Individualism is Socialism. War is Peace. Etc… :/
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
Lab defends “sex positive feminism” from a variety of blogger critiques. I have a lot of sympathy for this article - especially the frustration at […] Continue reading at Alas, a blog … posted5:51 pm at Alas, a blog
This comment was written by feminist blogs.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
alsis, didn’t that AVN reviewer who kept touting his bullshit on the Ms boards years back claim to be some kind of socialist? (as well as a NOW member)
This comment was written by Sheena.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 7:02 pm
Yeah, Sheena. And he was Hartley’s Biggest Fan, too. Nice to know that there are constants in the universe, eh ?
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 7:28 pm
Actually, she “admitted” to masturbating to testimony given during the Meese commission hearings in 1986, and she was being sarcastic. Victimized women certainly gave testimony during those hearings. I do not think, however, that Bright was saying that she finds rape sexy. The point she was making was about the prurient mindset and cynical, self-aggrandizing use of those women by people like Edwin Meese.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
January 24th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
Samantha, I appreciate your point of view and value your voice.
On the recent prostitution thread, I soon left because the thread was open to anti-feminists who quickly dragged the discussion down into misogynistic pronouncements. It’s very difficult to have a substantive debate under those circumstances.
This comment was written by Violet Socks.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 10:47 am
BTW, another suggested topic for discussion might be the new study on sexual harrassment on campus, particularly pointing out to MWA Hugo Schwyzer’s posts 1 and 2.
For all the reporting that men and women are equally likely to be victims of harrassment, the study points out: “the impact of sexual harassment is markedly differently for young women. Female students are more likely than their male peers to have negative behavioral and emotional responses to sexual harassment.”
Inneresting stuff…
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 10:56 am
piny, I’m not so sure she was being sarcastic. People can decide for themselves.
Pornography and prostitution survivor Christine Stark quotes from pro-sex industry Carol Queen’s book Real Live Nude Girl. in her essay “Girls to boyz: Sex radical women promoting protitution, pornography, and sadomasochism”:
“Self-proclaimed ’sexpert’ Susie Bright ‘has said that the best jerk-off book she ever found was the compiled evidence of the Meese Commission’, which ‘focused on the most hard to obtain stuff…the extra kinky’ (Queen 1997). In other words, Susie Bright masturbates to women’s testimony about the degradation and harm they suffered in pornography and prostitution.”
There’s nothing to forgive. I need, and I think everyone would do well with, a respected person’s challenges and criticisms to keep me on the path to self-improvement. I admire persons like you who have the questioning, provoking spirit that is both the source of head-butting and the catalyst for reflection and modification.
Being at the far lefty fringe of American politics and feminism, I’m well accustomed to people disagreeing with me, but as long as the person can take me through how they got from step A to step E I can respect them on some level. It’s when I see people jumping from A to E and not being able to account for the journey through B, C and D that I find hard to respect. Dennis Kucinich adopting a pro-life stance on abortion based on his overall politics about valuing life I can sensibly understand from his point of view while disagreeing, and eventually he changed his stance to pro-choice because people he respected challenged and criticized him.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
No, they can’t. Not when you provide them with an extremely ungenerous, context-free gloss on what was said, rather than a direct quote or anything remotely like it. That doesn’t give people any interpretative leeway at all, and it doesn’t give the impression that there are any other readings besides yours. “Susie Bright admits to masturbating herself to the court-given testimony of women rape victims,” is a slanted reading, and it’s unfair to her and misleading to your audience.
She was reacting, ironically enough, to the demoinzation of her and women like her by certain anti-porn activists. Her comment should be taken in the same spirit as Amanda Marcotte’s cracks about throwing abortion parties to celebrate the Alito confirmation. (And I’m sure that some anti-choice activist somewhere will take Amanda literally, and use her as proof that feminist women really do get abortions when there’s nothing good on TV.)
You’re not proving your point by providing someone else who quotes someone else who’s also not Susie Bright. If I wanted to argue that Andrea Dworkin said, “All het sex is rape,” I could link to hundreds if not thousands of anti-feminist websites saying the same thing. Some of them might even have out-of-context quotes from other feminists–or even from Dworkin herself! That still wouldn’t make the allegation true.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Samantha wrote:
Actually, what I’ve read, Bright claims to have been masturbating to the porn the Meese Commission used as examples, NOT other women’s testimony. Not trusting my own memory, I just searched for direct quotes.
From a 1999 interview, Bright herself said:
That doesn’t sound like she’s talking about “women’s testimony about the degradation and harm they suffered.”
Actually, here’s the better quote, from a mailing list last year Bright directly addressed those rumors:
Those are Susie Bright’s own words, denying the accusation.
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Thank you, Lis. That last is the quote I’m familiar with.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 1:45 pm
I’m not as interested in Bright’s self-defending explanation for such an insensitive and dismissive remark, I care much more about how the many women (and a few men) who braved getting up in front of the government and pornographers to go on record telling in graphic detail how pornography contributed to their rapes felt when learning of Bright’s pornofying of their sexual abuse. She can say she didn’t mean the rape victim’s testimony part os the report, only the S&M rape porn and other “extra kinky” stuff reported by police, but to the extraordinary rape survivors who publicly named their abusers what Bright says she meant the true intent of the remark came through loud and clear:
“as part of the ongoing public satire of the Meese Commission.”
You can claim she didn’t mean to disrespect all of the testimony in the Meese report, just certain parts of it, but nothing she has said makes the distinction until the self-defense wrought from being confronted with this reasonable interpretation of it by pornography’s victims (like Chris Stark.) That comment is callous dismissal of testimony-giving rape victims as the most generous reading, and getting off on the pornographized sexual violence of women as the worst reading. Based on other things Bright has said in defense of pornography and against the feminists who oppose the commodification and exploitation of women, she doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt I gave her when I first read her anymore.
I’m reminded of Bright’s entirely inadequate response to Aura Bogado that was one massive defense of racist, sexist pornography and of herself but that didn’t address the questions about racism and class privilege Bogado raised and accused her of similar misinterpretations. I don’t think Bogado missed the mark when she wrote, “Rather than aligning herself with the real struggles of working women, Bright has chosen to align herself to millionaire Larry Flynt.”
I don’t think Bright is evil incarnate, and I recognize the value of openly talking about sex as a value in itself, but in talking about feminism and the quest for women’s equality I do think she’s all too happy to have sexual freedom, narrowly determined by the sex capitalists that butter her bread, be considered the most prominent goal of women’s freedom. Examples of American feminism shifting to be about individual sexiness first and social justice for all women afterwards are too numerous to name but I’ve brought examples up before and can again if you need me to. Bright has been a key figure and has built her career on this consumerist free-marketism shift that says pornography and prostitution are pro-women because individual women consumers say it makes them feel sexy even while pornstitution is directly enslaving and killing millions of women & children and the demand for prostituted bodies has expanded exponentially in the past fifteen years. This is a real problem, and it is a problem exacerbated by pro-sex industry advocates who are not human rights defenders so much as laissez-faire capitalism defenders.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
Lis, thanks for supplying the quote and the context.
You see, THIS is the problem I’m having: IRL, my point of view is probably much closer to Samantha’s than it is to someone like Susie Bright’s. But, just like Samantha, I read the criticism of Bright with the taken-out-of-context quote and was lead to the same erroneous conclusion. Now, it’s totally impossible for each of us to track down the original source every time something like this crops up–if we did, we’d never do anything else. So, what happens? Because people like Queen can’t get it together (what was her problem? either determined to read Bright as an Ultra-Villain or dense or what?), people like Samantha & me come away with some fucking innacurate ideas. How does that help?
I do have to add, though, I have actually gone to Bright’s site and read her own stuff direct from the source, and I STILL think she’s way off-base. Often, IMO, dangerously so. So, given that her stuff is actually quite easy to contest, why bother trying to make her into some sort of monster?
There are dirty tactics being used on both sides, apparently, and the crap thing is that it’s just making US suffer.
(Oh, and hi there, Alsis! Yeah, I’m still alive–and glad to see you again!)
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
And btw, I posted the above without seeing Samantha’s latest.
I agree with her: I’m sick of seeing feminism being turned into some sort of hyper-individualistic consumer-based theory about doing what feels good to you and fuck everything (and everybody) else. As if our individual actions had no consequences for any other people.
Which is my main criticism of most of the “sex-positive” stuff I’ve come across, and the attitudes of most of the self-described “sex-positive” people I’ve had contact with. Most of them seem to have the incredible idea that feminism is about “women doing whatever they want”. WTF? Where did they get that from? That sounds like the sort of left-over hippie philosophy that pissed women off to the point where 70s feminism rose up in the first place.
I always thought that feminism was supposed to be about learning how to understand society so you could then analyse your actions and desires, understand why you want certain things and not others, and then, to the best of your ability, do the thing that you honestly believe is RIGHT…whether or not you necessarily “want” to.
But I guess taking how our actions affect others into account and even thinking that a “right” or “wrong” could exist is just laughably old hat.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
In other words, you’re not really interested in hearing what her views are, or what she meant by a quote that you weren’t even able to find in its first incarnation.
And yes, she mocked the Meese Report. Not because it gave voice to rape survivors, but because she considered it to be, “highly puritanical and prejudiced…inadvertently hilarious…salacious and hysterical.” As she says, she was editing On Our Backs at the time, which means that she was one of the Meese Commission’s direct targets. She did not say that she dismissed people who testified about being raped or abused. She mocked the FBI agents, their tactics, their motives, and their mores. There’s a difference.
Finally, you’re doing it again. She didn’t say anything about “S&M rape porn,” either. And “extra kinky.”
But you know what? She still didn’t say she jacked off to the testimony of rape victims.
Actually, Carol Queen didn’t say anything about Susie Bright finding rape sexy, either. She’s another sex-positive feminist. She probably just wrote without thinking that people would use her words as ammunition against Bright. I don’t think this is an excuse at all. Again, I could do the same thing with “Andrea Dworkin says all sex is rape,” and I would expect people here to stomp me for the lazy-ass self-serving anti-feminist idiot I’d be. This is bad research. The partial quotes and the lack of context for the topic Queen was originally writing on (Puritanism? The public reaction to the Meese Report? Censorship?) are a dead giveaway.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Ah but I did hear/read what her, I just don’t find her post-confrontation excuse convincing and I don’t consider her backtracking on the statement as important as the reactions of the victims of pornography who were brave enough to speak about their sexual abuse in public amidst a media virulently against rape victims in general and pornography rape victims in particular.
No she didn’t, she mocked the Meese Commission itself without once specifying who she intended, so it stands that she mocked the report in its entirety without regard to the large chunks of it devoted to the testimony of pornography’s victims.
She still didn’t say she jacked off to the testimony of rape victims.
I’m going to go through this step by step.
1. Bright wrote in a lesbian pornography magazine, “I masturbated to the Meese Report until I nearly passed out.”
2. The Meese report includes hundreds of pages of testimony by dozens of rape and sexual abuse victims, mostly women, decribing in detail what happened to them and how pornography played a part in their abuse.
3. After being called out by victims of pornography who have given public testimony to their rapes, Bright says she didn’t mean the enormous part of the Meese report loaded with graphic sexual details similar to those she regularly publishes, she only meant to laugh at the people compiling the data and not the people whose stories ARE the data.
Sorry, I’m not buying it. Too little too late, and when put together with her other strenuous defenses of every sort of pornography even more so.
I don’t agree with your assertion that Bright’s dismissively totalizing comment about the Meese report isn’t the real problem, my repeating of that comment is the real problem. There were a lot of ways she could have respected all those brave rape victims while still criticizing the government and it’s workers, and she chose to ignore that for a sexy media soundbite creating the picture of super sexy Susie sexually playing with herself until the sun came up. As she says, “I was widely quoted,” and that’s Bright’s whole reason for existence, not to raise awareness of give respect to pornography’s many victims, or even acknowledge they exist.
You’re not going to convince me Bright had a single thought in her head for all those rape victims when she said that.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
Bright may not have masturbated to testimonies of rape porn survivors, but her insensitivity to (some) women’s reports of having been raped is undisputed. Within a day or two of Andrea Dworkin’s death, in her (opportunistic and self-serving) “memorial”, as she had in the past when it happened, publicly, she called Dworkin’s report of having been raped while in a hotel abroad a lie and referred to Dworkin’s report of having been raped as evidence of Dworkin having had a “mental breakdown.” If the report of having been raped comes from a woman who opposes, or has been harmed by, the porn Bright makes, which sells her magazines and puts food on her table, then I think the evidence is that Bright could care less about that rape or that woman. To the point that she’s willing to straight up and publicly call her a liar. Masturbating is only one way people get off on the grief and subjugation and oppression of women.
Heart
This comment was written by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 4:22 pm
I went to Bright’s blog to get links to support what I posted there, and lo, the link to Bright’s reference to Andrea’s “nervous” (not “mental” as I posted) breakdown doesn’t work. And in order to read what she wrote about Andrea’s rape when it happened, guess what. You have to BUY the little publication Bright put together containing everything Bright ever wrote about Dworkin.
Well, I have much better things to do with my money than support the work of Susie Bright. But with the goddess on high as my witness, that’s what Bright posted. That reference in her “Andrea Dworkin has died,” blog entry, that link, previously took you to Andrea’s report of having been raped while in a hotel, and after having been drugged. Andrea’s husband, John Stoltenberg, wrote in one of his speeches or articles after Andrea’s death, that Andrea was never the same after that rape, that rape being the one Susie Bright wrote never happened.
Heart
This comment was written by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Okay, then! Glad we agree!
Here’s the memorial post I remember:
http://susiebright.blogs.com/susie_brights_journal_/2005/04/andrea_dworkin_.html
…Which contains a dead link to her post about the rape, which I remember.
Here’s a link that should work:
http://marx.econ.utah.edu/archives/m-fem/2000m08/msg00082.htm
She wasn’t the only one who doubted Dworkin’s account, apparently. So did John Stoltenberg.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Never mind, I found the article, cached on google here.
To wit:
The Baffling Case of Andrea Dworkin
by Susie Bright
A couple of weeks ago, Andrea Dworkin published the most extraordinary story in The Guardian (UK) in which she says she was raped last year in a Parisian hotel. She gives a delirious account of the events that followed— her devoted partner John Stoltenberg disbelieving her, her father dying, a hospital stay that cost the use of her legs, physical disfigurement, and more.
Her description opens in a hotel garden, at age 52, where she sat drinking Kir Royales and reading a text on French Fascism. The next thing she knew, the bartender and his serving boy had drugged her champagne, and brutally, brutally raped her.
By the time you finish reading it, you know she has finally completely lost her mind.
[snip paragraph after paragraph of Dworkin-bashing]
While I am fascinated by the details of her story’s setting, I find Dworkin’s description of her rape incredible. It would be too cruel to tear it apart point by point, but suffice it to say there are too many odd bits and contradictions to fit any rape pattern I’ve ever known. Andrea Dworkin has made so many aware of how rape happens, and what its detailed circumstances are, that now when she cries “wolf”, all her students such as myself are bound to look askance at her account.
This comment was written by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff.Heart
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January 25th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Thank you, piny. I had a similar reaction.
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
Whoops, posted too fast and other commenters got between us. I was referring to:
This comment was written by Lis Riba.January 25th, 2006 at 2:11 pm
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January 25th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
So what if Dworkin wasn’t believed, including if she wasn’t believed by John (which isn’t the case). So the hell what. Lots of times men don’t want to be believe that their wives or daughters or mothers were raped. Lots of times men blame the raped women, say they made it up, say they lied. So what. Nothing new there. Feminist women expect something a little bit different from feminist women. Raped women expect more from raped women or women who know raped women. Ya know.
I’m saying that Susie Bright not only called Andrea Dworkin a liar when she reported her rape, she got a whole lot of mileage out of calling her a liar publicly. Just as she got some mileage out of Andrea’s death by selling what she wrote about Andrea, including that Andrea lied about being raped. I am saying, I am not impressed at all by this insistence that Bright is sympathetic to the testimonies of raped women, and oh, no, no, she never masturbated over the testimony of porn rape survivors during the Meese commission, perish the thought. In Andrea’s case, she certainly was not at all sympathetic. Like Andrea, the Meese Report rape survivors opposed pornography. There’s no reason to believe Bright cared about them, and many more reasons to believe she (1) didn’t care, (2) didn’t believe them.
In response to this article, Susie Bright wrote on her blog, “By the time you finish reading it, you know she has finally completely lost her mind.” Bright was no friend of Dworkin’s…they had clashed over the years on various issues (porn, stripping, fisting)…but she wasn’t the only one who found Dworkin’s account hard to accept. “John looked for any other explanation than rape,” Dworkin wrote in the Guardian. “He abandoned me emotionally.”
“I thought they were gonna split up over that,” says Nikki Craft, a close friend of Dworkin’s who managed her Website.
Stoltenberg, for his part, says, “It wasn’t that I didn’t believe her, it was that I didn’t want it to be true. I didn’t want that to have happened. I completely concede that she may have understood that as not believing her, but I was trying to find possibilities that would have exempted her from this. She’d been raped enough.”
http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11907/index4.html
Heart
This comment was written by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
I’m trying to follow the logic of Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff’s first comment and having trouble. There are a number of concepts all intertwined with loaded language, so I’m trying to break them down into syllogisms:
• We have no evidence that Bright masturbated to testimonies of rape porn survivors.
• But Bright has been insensitive to Andrea Dworkin’s report of rape.
Therefore, what?
• because she was insensitive to one woman, she could care less about other rapes?
• Because Bright’s livelihood depends upon porn
• Therefore she doesn’t care about rapes of women harmed by porn
• Because Bright joked about masturbating to one aspect of the Meese Report
• Therefore, she gets off on the grief and subjugation and oppression of women
None of those conclusions seem supported by the evidence provided. Even in the link to her essay on Dworkin. It seems more like guilt-by-insinuation.
I have sometimes experienced communication-problems on feminist forums and would like to avoid those, so could you please explain in more detail what you were trying to say about Bright, or what I might be missing in your logic?
——————–
[BTW, a tip: If you find a link has died, one of the quicker/easier ways to find it is to enter the URL in the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. Here’s the Dworkin essay you referenced.]
====================
Meanwhile, I find myself wondering how this thread got onto the topic of Susie Bright anyway.
Samantha wrote a criticism of “so-called sex-positive feminists” (she added the perjorative “so-called”), mentioning several by name, including “Susie Bright admits to masturbating herself to the court-given testimony of women rape victims”
Now it turns out that Susie Bright did no such thing, but why should the truth get in the way? She’s done other things just as bad. What those things are is unspecified. Samantha doesn’t substantiate those, beyond the most general unattributed claims.
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
The more I think about it, the more I figure it would be better if Bright really did masturbate herself after getting hot & bothered reading the Meese report instead of making up a sensationally sexy blurb intimating as much for the media.
A private act of masturbation, even masturbation to the tellings of rape victims, would be less detrimental on the whole than what happened with the so-called sexpert putting such an atrocious statement dismissing the recountings of rape victims out there for the malestream media to circle jerk with.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:07 pm
Susie Bright is a sex merchant, a self-promoter, and a vampire. Why some people hero-worship this self-proclaimed “sexologist” is beyond me, but they do.
This comment was written by Violet Socks.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Maybe it’s just me, but I find it incredibly disingenuous that everything the Meese commission encompassed can be boiled down and described merely as the testimony of women rape victims.
According to Wikipedia (which acknowledges their article is incomplete), “the report is divided into five parts and thirty-five chapters.” Looking at a site which claims to have the full text, witness testimony forms only a small portion.
Furthermore, I may have only been a highschool student at that time, but I was an active feminist back then and remember following the news during high school. I remember the complaints of bias in whom they chose to speak. I remember authors and scientists complaining that their writings and research were distorted. It was clear from the get-go that Reagan & Meese had a particular conclusion in mind when they created the commission, and shaped all the evidence they gathered in order to reach that conclusion.
I sympathize with and respect rape victims, whether or not they appeared before the commission. But that doesn’t obligate me to respect the Meese Report as a whole.
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Wow, she’s a vampire???
So now we’re not even bothering with facts or justifications, but just calling her outright inhuman.
There doesn’t seem to be any interest in discussion or debate, merely insults.
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Cheryl, I get out of bed each morning with many goals in mind, but impressing you isn’t one of them.
Susie Bright “got a lot of mileage” out of criticizing Dworkin the same way Dworkin “got a lot of mileage” out of criticizing Bright and women like her. They were both writers, activists, and public figures. They talked, and tried to get other people to listen. And she sells her writing just like every other writer; the collection of essays she marketed online represented a hefty body of work for the asking price. Dworkin published and sold books herself; that didn’t make her any less of a feminist activist, or any less worthy a person.
Oy. Let’s recap, shall we? Samantha said Susie Bright said something she didn’t actually say about doing something absolutely horrible, apparently because she saw Carol Queen’s paraphrase, which was quoted out of context by yet another person. I’ve seen the quote in its original context, and seen Susie’s explanation of it, so I complained. Now both of you are admitting that she never said any such thing, and that she probably never did any such thing. Except she’s still a horrible person because of these other things she said about someone completely different.
Plus, you’d have been telling the truth.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
piny, I’d like you to find me something, anything, that Andrea Dworkin wrote about Susie Bright. And especially, I’d like you to show me where Andrea Dworkin compiled her insults about Susie Bright and sold them for a fee, not after Bright’s death, of course, because unlike Dworkin, Bright is still alive. And then tell me exactly what “mileage” Dworkin got at Bright’s expense. Dworkin died hated and trashed and lied about by the likes of Bright. Bright prattles on to enthusiastic male throngs in her own porn magazine and in Playboy and wherever she can make a buck doing what she does and has forevermore amen. Dworkin never did anything remotely like that. She spoke out on behalf of exploited, oppressed, marginalized, vicitimized, raped women, the world’s most vulnerable women. Women like her. She got NO mileage out of that. She got relentlessly vilified, she was hounded, she was hated. She was NOT popular and sought-after, as Bright is popular and sought-after for suggesting, for example, that all of those marginalized, victimized, raped women Dworkin so deeply cared about really weren’t, golly gee whiz, they actually find it all so gosh-durn *empowering*.
I don’t know what Carol Queen did or didn’t say. What I do know is that the fact that Susie Bright didn’t say what Sam thought she said doesn’t really mean much, in light of all that Susie Bright *has* said, continues to say. That’s the point I was making.
And I’m ignoring your gratuitous and irrelevant dig there. You’re welcome.
Heart
This comment was written by Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Vampire in the sense of a rather ghoulish parasite, which was how I saw her writing about Dworkin’s rape and the subsequent uproar, as well as her gleeful mockery of the Meese Commission. It’s just my opinion, of course.
Look, it’s possible that I actually agree with Susie Bright on many issues. I’m just recording my very negative impressions of her as an individual. Whenever I look her up or do a search or encounter one of her books, she’s pushing sex, pushing herself (”America’s favorite sexpert”! “America’s sexiest intellectual!”), dramatizing her Galileo-like martyrdom at the hands of the close-minded prudish feminist establishment, and weeping crocodile tears over poor Andrea’s disintegration. And of course — telling people that her “mission” is to help feminists “relax” and finally “enjoy sex” — as if we weren’t already enjoying sex.
Yes, of course all of that is simply my opinion, my impression of Bright. Others read her and…I don’t know. Whatever she’s saying really makes sense to them.
This comment was written by Violet Socks.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Samantha said Susie Bright said something she didn’t actually say
Not true, piny. She admits she said, “I masturbated to the Meese Report until I nearly passed out.”, even says she’s got a picture of the quote on her desk. What’s being discussed isn’t the fact of the quote said but your interpretation of it, my interpretation of it, Chris Stark’s interpretation of it. You and I don’t know whether she was telling the truth or making up a sensational lie for media attention (and I don’t think intent matters much after the media gets ahold of it), but that doesn’t translate into her not saying she masturbated to the Meese Commission report.
And yes, other things Bright has said about other women who have said they were raped certainly affects any intepretation of that one statement.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:44 pm
You remember the last thread we interacted on, don’t you? Don’t even try to pretend you’re above gratuitous and irrelevant digs. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten around to calling me out for threatening you yet.
Andrea Dworkin was a published writer who made her career out of criticizing people who make porn–and, later, sex-positive feminists. That includes Susie Bright. According to Bright, they also had some very acrimonious personal interactions, all of which resulted in publicity for both of them. That doesn’t make Andrea Dworkin a publicity-seeker, or a cynical manipulator, or a devotee of Mannon. It makes her a writer and an activist.
Exactly. The point I’m making is that it does, too, matter that what Sam said wasn’t fucking true.
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:48 pm
“Seansational lie for media attention”? Yes, I’m sure she wanted the media to demonize her even more than they already were. She was being sarcastic, participating in satire. As she explains, the report read like a Dragnet voiceover set in a burlesque hall. That’s not masturbatory material. That’s absurdity. Oh, and you didn’t mention the Meese report at all. This was what you said: “Susie Bright admits to masturbating herself to the court-given testimony of women rape victims.” What does that sound like to you?
This comment was written by piny.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
Samantha, what you originally wrote was:
Now, unless you’re willing to state that the Meese Report is nothing more and nothing less than court-given testimony of women rape victims, then your original statement was factually incorrect.
Because I tend to think in logic, here’s the equations.
“masturbated to the Meese Report” == “masturbating … to the court-given testimony of women rape victims”
only if (factoring out the verb “to masturbate”)
Meese Report == court-given testimony of women rape victims
BTW, the most testimony in the Meese Report was given before the commission, not before a court.
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Crys T wrote:
“If it feels good, do it.” :p I used to know a particularly sleazy acid casualty-bornagain-Xtian hippie who had gone from this philosophy straight to the idea that he could do whatever he wanted because God said it was okay. It pays to be wary of anyone who believes that whatever works for their immediate gratification is “naturally” the right thing to do;Be wary whether they site Jesus, Leary, or any combo thereof. :D I learned that in an ugly way from my dealings with that particular scum-bucket, let me tell you… >:
I suspect more feminists than we know about have grave reservations regarding at least some officially “sex positive” thought. Nobody wants to be thought of as a shill for the far Right, though, so we keep quiet. You thus end up with a Catch 22: As long as secular feminist thinkers whose reservations about swallowing in their entirety the teachings of Bright, Califia, Block, et al. keep quiet, we make it a sad fact that just about the only potential allies radical anti-porn feminists will find will indeed be the sorry and hypocritical likes of the lovely Mr. Meese and his successors.
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
Violet wrote:
What did me in was the constant clueless assertion that prostitution is a “victimless” crime. [rolleyes]
This comment was written by alsis39.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 8:56 pm
Yes, I’m sure she wanted the media to demonize her even more than they already were.
???
The porn-lovin’, man-made media doesn’t adore and give much exposure to Susie Bright?
Lis Riba, I’ve already explained my interpretation of what Bright said as including the testimonies of rape victims that are a part of the Meese report. You can believe she didn’t intend to include the testimonies of women raped by and through pornography included in the Meese report in her masturbation statement if you want, but I believe otherwise.
piny and Lis Riba: I do not believe Bright’s post-criticism excuses for that comment. You do. That’s the way it will stay, and I’m okay with that. You should try to be okay with that too, because I just don’t believe her convoluted explanation and I have good reasons to believe she’s not given much thought or respect to the victims of pornography.
This comment was written by Samantha.Report this comment to the moderators
January 25th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
Something about this phrase is rubbing me the wrong way and I’m trying to figure out why.
I think it comes back to a comment a friend recently made, complaining about debates in which “someone … presumes that because I haven’t come to the same conclusion they have means I haven’t thought about it”
Given the amount Susie Bright has written about porn and how much she’s engaged in discussion, I find it hard to believe that she’s as… stupid/ignorant/blind/callous… as you’re making her out to be.
Elsewhere in this thread, Bright is being condemned for questioning another woman’s personal account.
This comment was written by Lis Riba.Yet aren’t you doing something similar by refusing to accept Ms. Bright’s description of her own actions?
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January 25th, 2006 at 10:48 pm
alsis writes:
I don’t think it’s “clueless”, like “You really don’t know what you’re talking about” so much as not-fully-informed. Ignorant, perhaps.
I think that many people who fall into the “really should know better” crowd — the left-leaning intelligensia (because the right-leaning seem to think G-d is going to hurl a lightning bolt at all of us any moment now) — aren’t familiar with the seedier side of life. They’ve never had a conversation with a woman who’d just sold her body an hour ago so she could by a rock of crack cocaine which she smoked 30 minutes ago because tomorrow is going to suck worse than anything they’ve ever imagined.
To them, “sex work” is sex-show types who make money by finding interesting combinations of a speculum, a flashlight, and a camera. Or perhaps dancers who make $1,000 a day in a “gentleman’s club” that has real security, because they’d never go to a strip club where the women don’t earn shit and the one bouncer they’ve got turns a blind eye if a patron does something to a woman he shouldn’t.
For every “sex worker” who’s making $1,000 a day, there are hundreds who can’t get more than $5 for a blowjob because that’s all a blowjob is worth in their neighborhood. And it takes a lot of $5 blowjobs before someone can make rent or groceries or bus fare. Or support the drug addiction they’ve got going which allows then to escape a pretty miserable existence for an hour or so at a stretch.
To understand prostitution one really has to start by listening to the almost insane ramblings of a “crack whore” who’s wound up on crack during the conversation. This is so far removed from — and yet intimately connected to — the 20-something grad student blond bombshell with breast implants paying off her undergrad student loans one lap dance at a time. And yet unless one is willing to associate with people on the dark underbelly of American society, all one is likely to encounter are “sex workers” who enjoy the same protections they take for granted.
It’s a pyramid from the regularly raped and beaten women turning tricks in impoverished neighborhoods so they can make rent money, to the street walkers who can turn tricks in hotels with closed circuit television to protect them, to the high-dollar surgically altered “escorts” who make more in a day than me.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
January 26th, 2006 at 3:04 am
Who said it? Who’s the author? Anyone know?
“As Andrea has always said, virtually every woman has been overwhelmed and intimidated by non-consensual sex at some time in her life…not always brutal, but always damaging.”
It’s Susie Bright, in the very article Cheryl is denouncing. Honestly — and believe wonder why I want actual quotes — and now it looks like I’ll have to demand full texts before I can take others seriously?
This is hardly a way to treat ourselves or our allies. We are all in this together and we deserve nothing less than a willingness to present our interlocutor’s arguments in the best light possible. We must argue with them on their own terms, via sympathetic critique. Without that commitment on our part, we fail to respect ourselves and one another and we fail to honor the long line of women who’ve forged the way for us to have these discussions in the first place.
This comment was written by Bitch | Lab.Report this comment to the moderators
January 26th, 2006 at 3:06 am
believe should be people
bitch, who can’t type for shit late at night or early in the morning, whatever you want to call it, it’s called no enough sleep!
This comment was written by Bitch | Lab.Report this comment to the moderators
January 26th, 2006 at 3:50 am
Cheryl: FWIW, I clearly remember reading such statements just after Dworkin’s death. I have to admit, I didn’t remember specifically that they were written by Bright, but I definitely remember them.
This comment was written by Crys T.Report this comment to the moderators