Catherine MacKinnon on porn in Guardian

Grant Denkinson, 13 Apr 2006 13:07:38

Catherine MacKinnon in the Guardian on pornography:


Grant


Graham Marsden, 26 Apr 2006 05:19:42

Hi there,

grantdenkinson@hushmail.com wrote:

> Catherine MacKinnon in the Guardian on pornography:

Ah, someone with a balanced personality: She has a chip on *both* shoulders!

I could do a lengthy deconstruction of that article, but frankly I can't
be bothered to waste my time on addressing all of her deranged rantings,
so let's just pick a few high (low?) lights...

When she makes claims like "the law of rape was created when women
weren't even allowed to vote. So that means not that all the people who
wrote it were rapists, but that they are a member of the group who do
[rape] and who do for reasons that they share in common even with those
who don't" she is implying that old Dworkinite Feminazi chestnut that
"all men are potential rapists and all women potential victims".

(Even though the interview took place in London she's obviously also not
heard of the UK Sexual Offences Act 2003 which makes rape a non-gender
specific act.)

She goes on about the way women have been treated in the past, but as
the article points out "One gets little sense from reading the book that
the lot of women has improved in recent decades." it seems that she
wants to harbour the old grudges and use them to "guilt trip" the rest
of us into accepting her idea of "equality" which is more "I'm right,
you're wrong, so you have to do it my way".

Other examples of nonsense include:

"MacKinnon thinks consent in rape cases should be irrelevant."

- Interesting. If there is consent, there isn't rape. So what she seems
to be saying is that if a woman makes an accusation of rape, the man
should be presumed guilty *unless* he can prove his innocence!

'Pornography promotes these rape myths and desensitises people to
violence against women so that you need more violence to become sexually
aroused if you're a pornography consumer. This is very well documented"

- Yes, but only by those who have axes to grind and points to prove,
whereas independant research has shown this to be BS.

"They were asked to testify at a hearing to decide in which part of
Minneapolis pornography could be sold. "They were asking, 'Are we going
to put it over here or over there?' and we said, 'Women and children are
going to be harmed wherever you put it'." So the two women instead drew
up an anti-pornography law for the city whereby, as she says, "the
people who are hurt should be able to hold the people who are hurting
them responsible for that harm". The law defined pornography as a civil
rights violation against women, and allowed women who claimed harm from
pornography to sue the producers and distributors in civil court for
damages."

- So we start off from the assumption that "porn hurts women" (oh, and
children, of course, let's imply that anyone who uses porn is a
potential paedophile as well!) and then open the door to ambulance
chasing lawyers to get involved!

"she was asked to represent raped Bosnian and Croat women in a lawsuit
against Radovan Karadzic. The result has been Kadic v Karadzic, and she
is very proud of it. "We have an injunction against this man ever
engaging in genocide again and people he's in contact with ever doing it
again."

- Oh well *that's* a great step forward! I'm sure he's quaking in his
boots that he's got an injunction against him...!!

MacKinnon is especially exercised by attacks from fellow feminists.
"It's particularly hard to take being stabbed in the back close to home.
There's always a feeling of betrayal when people of your own group
oppose you. It's mainly a few elite women who benefit greatly from
standing with the forces that keep women down."

- Or maybe it's a group of women who don't want to be associated with a
rabid extremist who is actually undermining *their* cause and who is
effective *blaming* them for trying to have a reasonable view on the issue!

"There's a good book by Christopher Kendal which studies the real
content of gay male pornography and the children who are violated to
make it as well as the men who are used in the industry. I recommend it."

- The "real content"? Or a very limited extreme subset of the content
that is not representative of the majority of it and which the majority
of gays would never want to watch? And again, of course, we have the
implication that it's "to protect the children" even though the vast
majority of gay porn only features consenting adults and the rest is
accepted by everyone as illegal.

There's more of this, but I'm losing the will to live at the moment.

Frankly I think this woman should be encouraged because whilst there may
be a few who read her extremist rantings and agree with them, the
majority will realise that she's living in some deranged fantasy world
where everything she likes is "good" and everything she dislikes is
"bad" and the world would be a much better place if only everyone else
wasn't out of step with her...!

Cheers,
Graham.


fobix, 04 May 2006 22:16:42

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On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 13:01:40 +0100
graham wrote:

> "MacKinnon thinks consent in rape cases should be irrelevant."
>
> - Interesting. If there is consent, there isn't rape. So what she seems
> to be saying is that if a woman makes an accusation of rape, the man
> should be presumed guilty *unless* he can prove his innocence!

Even weirder implications: the situation of a woman not making an accusation of rape and a case still being brought, perhaps being argued by friends/family or the state. Its happened in cases of consent being ignored for the purposes of GBH...

It's important (for me at least) not to dismiss all criticism of the porn industry as it exists right now, but the "porn is hate speech against women" stuff is generally lacking by way of reasoned argument and is therefore pretty useless as a critique. It's also had some degree of a polarising effect on feminists between "pro-sex" and "anti-porn" camps creating a false dichotomy thanks to the "you're either with us or your a misogynist" attitude some feminists hold on the subject.

Phoebe
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zak, 05 May 2006 19:32:35

Original Message:
-----------------
Phoebe Tunstall foibey@gmail.com, 05 May 2006 19:32:35

It's important (for me at least) not to dismiss all criticism of the porn
industry as it exists right now, but the "porn is hate speech against
women" stuff is generally lacking by way of reasoned argument and is
therefore pretty useless as a critique. It's also had some degree of a
polarising effect on feminists between "pro-sex" and "anti-porn" camps
creating a false dichotomy thanks to the "you're either with us or your a
misogynist" attitude some feminists hold on the subject.

Phoebe


Indeed. The porn industry has its faults - some of the product is sexist,
some of it moronic, some of it badly produced, and some of its workers are
underpaid and abused in various other ways. But can you name any type of
media (film, music, 'news', magazines of any kind) that does not show up
some sexism? Can you name any industry where ALL workers are properly paid
and never abused, sexually or otherwise, by those who have power over them?

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fobix, 05 May 2006 20:01:10

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On Fri, 5 May 2006 14:27:12 -0400
"zak@missdemeanour.idps.co.uk" wrote:

> Indeed. The porn industry has its faults - some of the product is sexist,
> some of it moronic, some of it badly produced, and some of its workers are
> underpaid and abused in various other ways. But can you name any type of
> media (film, music, 'news', magazines of any kind) that does not show up
> some sexism? Can you name any industry where ALL workers are properly paid
> and never abused, sexually or otherwise, by those who have power over them?

You're preaching to the converted here. My point was more that the pro/anti-porn divide polarises feminists into 2 equally ridiculous positions, one being the total rejection of a genre largely on grounds of taste (covered up with doctored research "proving" a correlation to rape etc), and the other often tending towards a reactionary lack of criticism of porn (at least amongst some people.

I'm an anarcho-communist anyway. As far as I see it, all workers are abused by their employers in some way or another (although I don't think that's particularly worth defending that point here because it's totally irrelevant to the issue of censorship, I'm just saying that I'm not of the impression that sex work is anything other than a job with all the problems that occur in other forms of work, perhaps in different quantities).

Phoebe
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Paul C. Dickie, 15 May 2006 13:39:26

In message <44477824.3000709@affordable-leather.co.uk>, graham
wrote:
>grantdenkinson@hushmail.com wrote:
>
>> Catherine MacKinnon in the Guardian on pornography:
>Ah, someone with a balanced personality: She has a chip on *both* shoulders!

Careful! Mentioning that she even has shoulders could be construed as
sexist, whilst the mention of chips could be sizist...

>Other examples of nonsense include:
>"MacKinnon thinks consent in rape cases should be irrelevant."
>
>- Interesting. If there is consent, there isn't rape. So what she seems
>to be saying is that if a woman makes an accusation of rape, the man
>should be presumed guilty *unless* he can prove his innocence!

Not quite, for the logical (?) meaning of that piece of patent idiocy is
that should a woman (or whatever Dworkinesque term is to be used to
identify a non-male person) make an accusation of rape, the man should
be deemed guilty even if he *can* prove his innocence!

>"she was asked to represent raped Bosnian and Croat women in a lawsuit
>against Radovan Karadzic. The result has been Kadic v Karadzic, and she
>is very proud of it. "We have an injunction against this man ever
>engaging in genocide again and people he's in contact with ever doing it
>again."

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>- Oh well *that's* a great step forward! I'm sure he's quaking in his
>boots that he's got an injunction against him...!!

I do hope it isn't *too* sexist to suggest that it is idiots like
MacKinnon who make the words "silly" and "woman" a perfect match.

>"There's a good book by Christopher Kendal which studies the real
>content of gay male pornography and the children who are violated to
>make it as well as the men who are used in the industry. I recommend it."

Eh? Exactly *how* many children are "violated" in homosexualistic
pornography?

If one glances at the various and sundry "beefcake" magazines, be they
in a newsagent or a more specialised outlet, one tends to see bulging
muscles -- if not also other bulges, etc. If the persons in such
pictures are indeed *children*, then the age at which someone becomes an
adult would appear to have been raised to 25 or beyond.

caput suum in ano est.

>- The "real content"? Or a very limited extreme subset of the content
>that is not representative of the majority of it and which the majority
>of gays would never want to watch? And again, of course, we have the
>implication that it's "to protect the children" even though the vast
>majority of gay porn only features consenting adults and the rest is
>accepted by everyone as illegal.

Exactly.

The publishers of Zipper and similar magazines should sue that yachneh
for libel.

>Frankly I think this woman should be encouraged because whilst there may
>be a few who read her extremist rantings and agree with them, the
>majority will realise that she's living in some deranged fantasy world
>where everything she likes is "good" and everything she dislikes is
>"bad" and the world would be a much better place if only everyone else
>wasn't out of step with her...!

Or the world would be a far better place if she and her troublesome
tribe of twerps could be persuaded to take up residence on the planet
Venus? After all, the reports of adverse weather conditions there were
*all* written by *men*, so they obviously cannot be trusted and they are
all part of a male-centred conspiracy to prevent wimmin having a planet
that they can truly call their home...

--
< Paul >


doulos, 15 May 2006 16:25:57

My reply to this would be simply: thank you for your theory, do you
have any evidence?

Because as it is she is just consuming unreconstructed sociology and
churning out prejudice.

I wonder if we should resurrect the blog idea and actually put some
critiques of these ideas when they come up in the media back into a
casual audience friendly form.

On 5/4/06, Phoebe Tunstall wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Thu, 20 Apr 2006 13:01:40 +0100
> graham wrote:
>
> > "MacKinnon thinks consent in rape cases should be irrelevant."
> >
> > - Interesting. If there is consent, there isn't rape. So what she seems
> > to be saying is that if a woman makes an accusation of rape, the man
> > should be presumed guilty *unless* he can prove his innocence!
>
> Even weirder implications: the situation of a woman not making an accusation of rape and a case still being brought, perhaps being argued by friends/family or the state. Its happened in cases of consent being ignored for the purposes of GBH...
>
> It's important (for me at least) not to dismiss all criticism of the porn industry as it exists right now, but the "porn is hate speech against women" stuff is generally lacking by way of reasoned argument and is therefore pretty useless as a critique. It's also had some degree of a polarising effect on feminists between "pro-sex" and "anti-porn" camps creating a false dichotomy thanks to the "you're either with us or your a misogynist" attitude some feminists hold on the subject.
>
> Phoebe
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>
>
>
> --
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> visit http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/Backlash
>
> To leave the Group, email: Backlash-unsubscribe@smartgroups.com
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>


Paul C. Dickie, 21 May 2006 11:21:09

In message , on 4th May,
Paul C. Dickie wrote:
>In message <44477824.3000709@affordable-leather.co.uk>, graham
> wrote:
>>grantdenkinson@hushmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> Catherine MacKinnon in the Guardian on pornography:
>>Ah, someone with a balanced personality: She has a chip on *both* shoulders!
>
>Careful! Mentioning that she even has shoulders could be construed as
>sexist, whilst the mention of chips could be sizist...

... etc.

This (and a few other emails posted on 4th and 5th May) has only just
arrived. It took over a fortnight to be delivered and not even
ParcelFarce is quite *that* slow!

What the buggery happened to it? Was it routed via Jupiter?

--
< Paul >


SnowdropExplodes, 23 May 2006 02:40:19

For the record, when I get my meeting with my MP, I intend to quote Catherine MacKinnon to support our campaign.

Before you wonder if I've gone completely off my rocker, I only intend to quote very selectively, and the particular argument of hers I intend to quote is this:

"Current censorship laws are based on a patriarchal view of obscenity, and are not appropriate in this day and age"

MacKinnon may go on to use that as a brick in her argument against pornography, but it could equally form the basis for a feminist argument against censorship of pornography, and that is how I would use it.

(I may attempt to write an article of some sort on the theme, because the philosophical ideas are quite exciting to me.)

Ta,
SnowdropExplodes

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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zak, 26 May 2006 06:39:25

Original Message:
-----------------
-OJT- snowdrop-explodes@talk21.com, 26 May 2006 06:39:25



MacKinnon may go on to use that as a brick in her argument against
pornography, but it could equally form the basis for a feminist argument
against censorship of pornography, and that is how I would use it.

(I may attempt to write an article of some sort on the theme, because the
philosophical ideas are quite exciting to me.)

Ta,
SnowdropExplodes


Tread carefully. Few things have a higher make-arse-of-oneself potential
than men constructing feminist arguments.


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SnowdropExplodes, 26 May 2006 18:35:00

Author wrote:

> Tread carefully. Few things have a higher make-arse-of-oneself potential
> than men constructing feminist arguments.

Now, that is a challenge I just can't ignore, purely on intellectual grounds.

1/. It should be a simple matter of comprehension: the necessary ideas have all been expressed before by female writers. If they have written in a manner which can be understood, I should be able to thread together the pieces for an argument.

2/. It raises a very interesting question, namely, "What is the definition of feminism?" I consider myself to be a feminist (as well as a Dominant and a sadist and a male), but there are some who believe only women can be feminists. I could spend ages writing about the various ins and outs of the debates on the matter, from the point of view of political philosophy.

3/. I guess you haven't read my blogs on gender identity on Informed Consent...

As it happens, I'm not going to ignore the challenge, but I doubt I'll get around to writing that piece - since I have my meeting with my MP, however, I may put the argument into note form.

Ta,
SnowdropExplodes


Paul C. Dickie, 31 May 2006 04:26:07

In message <380-22006542521921296@M2W015.mail2web.com>,
zak@missdemeanour.idps.co.uk wrote:
>Tread carefully. Few things have a higher make-arse-of-oneself potential
>than men constructing feminist arguments.

Does that imply that feminism is inherently anal?

(Or is that just my inference?)

--
< Paul >


zak, 01 Jun 2006 04:30:53

Original Message:
-----------------
snowdrop-explodes@talk21.com, 01 Jun 2006 04:30:53




Author wrote:

> Tread carefully. Few things have a higher make-arse-of-oneself potential
> than men constructing feminist arguments.

Now, that is a challenge I just can't ignore, purely on intellectual
grounds.

1/. It should be a simple matter of comprehension: the necessary ideas have
all been expressed before by female writers. If they have written in a
manner which can be understood, I should be able to thread together the
pieces for an argument.

Well, you *might*. Anyone *might*. But given that female writers who call
themselves feminists often disagree ferociously on any and all aspect of
what feminism *is*, you might be able to make an argument, but it won't be
the definitive argument.


2/. It raises a very interesting question, namely, "What is the definition
of feminism?" I consider myself to be a feminist (as well as a Dominant
and a sadist and a male), but there are some who believe only women can be
feminists. I could spend ages writing about the various ins and outs of
the debates on the matter, from the point of view of political philosophy.

Of course, your biological gender does not preclude you from sharing
feminist ideals (they are, after all, *human* ideals). THe
make-arse-of-self potential mainly arises with 'feminist' men when they
encounter a woman who doesn't agree with them and there arises the charming
spectacle of a man telling a woman who to be a 'proper' feminist and seeing
no irony about it.

3/. I guess you haven't read my blogs on gender identity on Informed
Consent...

Do I really look like a person with no life?



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zak, 04 Jun 2006 21:14:58

Original Message:
-----------------
Paul C. Dickie pcd-sm@bozzie.demon.co.uk, 04 Jun 2006 21:14:58


In message <380-22006542521921296@M2W015.mail2web.com>,
zak@missdemeanour.idps.co.uk wrote:
>Tread carefully. Few things have a higher make-arse-of-oneself potential
>than men constructing feminist arguments.

Does that imply that feminism is inherently anal?

(Or is that just my inference?)

--
< Paul >

It's a cunt thing.

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