Gail Dines’/Stop Porn Culture’s Latest Poop Fest: Throttling Routledge Press’ Porn Studies Journal Because Sexual McCarthyism…errrrrrr, “Academic Bias”

Posted on May 16, 2013 by Anthony

You know…I figured that since her vaunted government in Iceland who was pushing her antiporn ban legislation got whacked in recent elections, you’d think that Gail Dines would see fit to take a chill pill and rest herself for a spell.

Unfortunately…or fortunately, for those of us who chronicle her continued batshittery…it didn’t take long for her to reemerge from her Wheelock college Batcave to fight the good fight for sexual McCarthyism…ahhhhh, I mean, for women’s sexuality against those evil corporate pornographers.

The latest impetus for her most recient outburst was the announcement by the powerful British academic publishing house Routledge Press that they would be sponsoring a brand new “Porn Studies Journal”, which would serve as a foundation for research and analysis of the impact of modern pornography on the culture. Here’s a description of what the program/journal would ensue, from an article in the adult industry journal site, XBiz.com:

The research work is described as “the first dedicated, international, peer-reviewed journal to critically explore those cultural products and services designated as pornographic and their cultural, economic, historical, institutional, legal and social contexts,” with particular attention to “the intersection of sexuality, gender, race, class, age and ability.”

Two British academics, Feona Attwood and Clarissa Smith, are editing the work that according to an official statement has already got university type eggheads exited.

“We have waited a long time for an academic journal that treats the subject of the representation of human sexuality with the seriousness it deserves,” Julie Peakman, a historian at the University of London and the author of ‘Mighty Lewd Books: The Development of Pornography in 18th-Century England,’” said. “I look forward to a lively and disciplined debate across different disciplines.”

And according to the Routledge announcement, the study won’t be watered-down or skittish about tacking hardcore porn.

The publishers said because they feel the field of porn research is still in its “infancy,” it would deliver “innovative work examining specifically sexual and explicit media forms, their connections to wider media landscapes and their links to the broader spheres of (sex) work across historical periods and national context.”

Routledge is looking to create a forum that focuses on theoretical approaches, methodology and research ethics. “Alongside articles, the journal includes a forum devoted to shorter observations, developments, debates or issues in porn studies, designed to encourage exchange and debate.”

A related development in the United States is the progressive work of scholars like Dr. Chauntelle Tibbals (whose blog PPVOnline.com is worthy of a read) in researching the impact of porn on modern law and culture here across the Big Pond. Her work, though, is independent of what is happening with Routledge…at least for now. YNot.com has an interview with Dr. Chauntelle on her latest project here.

Now…nowhere in the Routledge announcement did they say that this new journal would be restricted to only views favoring pornography, or that they would ignore or neglect the prevailing views and “research” of antiporn activists or radical antipornography “feminists”. Basically, it sounds much more like they will be opening the doors to ALL opinions of research.

Nevertheless, merely the threat of views not of the militant antiporn hivemind invading academia and contaminating the “pure space” of “feminist activism” is enough for Gail Dines and her associated sexual creationists over at Stop Porn Culture to sound the klaxons and man the battle stations for outright WAR to defend their monopoly on the terms of porn debate and “research”.

And, like the earlier McCarthyites before them used “Communism” and “left-wing bias” as their wedge of right-wing censorship and control, the New Sexual McCarthyites at Stop Porn Culture lock in on “academic bias” and “pro-porn bias” as their means of throttling Routledge and forcing them to either come back to the flock and restrict themselves to the dominant antiporn paradigm or simply stamp their jornal with the scarlet letter label of “pro porn” and provide equal free space to the antiporn…ahhhh, I mean, the “Critical Porn Studies”…POV.

The vehicle they used for vent their spleen was a petition drive through the iPetitions.com site titled “Petition Routledge Pro-Porn Studies Bias”. I’ll just repost the petition transcript in its entirity for you to simply bathe you in all its glory.

We understand that Routledge is scheduled to publish a new journal, Porn Studies. While we agree that pornography and porn culture demand and deserve more critical attention, as a group of academics, activists, anti-violence experts, health professionals, and educators, we are deeply concerned about the journal’s intention and focus and about its editorial board, which is uniformly pro-porn.

Routledge is in a position of authority, and framing the editorial “experts” on porn as pro-porn under the auspices of neutrality (which is what the journal title does) further fosters the normalization of porn and misrepresents the academic, political and ideological debates about the issue. The composition of the editorial board (at least thus far) risks marginalizing any critical or anti porn position.

Given this, we have three questions: 1) In what ways and to what extent, if any, will this journal feature essays which represent an array of perspectives on the complex and vexed issues concerning pornography and porn culture?; 2) How likely is it that diverse perspectives will be represented, given that the editorial board has a pro-porn academic record?’ and 3) What might Routledge do to address this bias?

In the interest of academic integrity and thorough critical inquiry, it is imperative that a journal titled Porn Studies creates space for critical analyses of porn from diverse and divergent perspectives. Our hope is that you will change the composition of the editorial board, confirm the journal’s commitment to a heterogeneous interrogation of the issues embedded in porn and porn culture, and ensure that diverse perspectives are represented – on the board and also in the essays published in the journal. Failing that, we ask that you change the name to reflect and make evident the bias of its editors (Pro-Porn Studies) and create another journal which will represent the position of anti-porn scholars and activists and the voices of mental health professionals, porn industry survivors, and feminist scholars whose analyses examine the replication and reification of misogyny, child abuse, and sexual exploitation in mainstream pornography (for instance, Critical Porn Studies).

Ahhhh….yeah. Change some verbiage here, and you’d think this was Reed Irvine of Accuracy In Media or Patrick Trueman of Pornography Harms writing a letter to CBS or ABC or CNN protesting the broadcast of a documentary or program for not being sufficiently anti-porn or “pro-Christian”, and not promoting the proper right-wing ideological dominance by allowing the “homosexual agenda”/”Planned Parenthood”/”liberal news media” to run rampant without the proper “correction” by conservative “common sense” authority.

But you see, those are evil RIGHT-WINGERS, while Gail Dines, SPC, and those 650+ folks who signed on to this petition are really “progressive”, even strongly left-of-center folks who really, really care about academic freedom and “balance” and intellectual rigor, see?? We can’t have BIASED academic studies paid for by the evil pornography industry (not really) when TRUE research (meaning research tainted by and built on antiporn “feminist” and right-wing absexual ideology), shows the CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER of allowing pornography to destroy women’s bodies, women’s lives, and the culture in general!!!

And…don’t we want ALL sides to be represented on such a critical debate and discussion on such a touchy subject?? Why should only the “pro-porn” side be allowed to hog all of the debate and discussion…there should be BALANCE!!! (Not so thinly veiled assumption: Especially when WE on the antiporn side get to control the discussion everywhere and dictate the degree of “balance” there should be. Self-determination is a wonderful thing..as long as you determine OUR WAY.)

And…how nice and “progressive” of them to offer Routledge the option of keeping their study as long as they are willing to stamp a nice big red Scarlet Letter (“P” for “PORN”, perhaps??) on the cover; and then provide free unadulterated counterspace for the contrarian antiporn viewpoint. Never mind the fact that the antiporn “feminist” viewpoint HAS BEEN the DOMINANT academic word view on porn for only the past 40 years, only recently challenging the traditional conservative religious “obscenity/filth/threat to Western Civilization” meme. And also forget about the basic collusion between antiporn feminists and certain right-wing ruling governments in their zeal in using the power of government to impose their theories on the masses (see Iceland or the recently defeated (for now) European Parliament porn ban). For them, it’s all about controlling “hate speech” and “corporate behavior”…except that only certain forms of speech and behavior are targeted here. Mostly, the sexual kind that rankles folks like Dines.

The signatory list includes, in addition to Dines and her “Mini-Me” self-groomed ultimate successor at Wheelock, Dana Blaler, some of the usual antiporn “feminist” regular zealots like: Sam Berg of the GenderBorg…..ahhhhhhhhh, I mean, Genderberg Forums; Rebecca Whisnant of Women Against Pornography; radfem gadfly and anti-transsexual hatemonger Meghan Murphy; long time “male feminist” activist John Stoltenberg; and life-long rightwinger Judith “Playboy is pedophilia because of their cartoons” Reisman. (They also include a couple of prog bloggers that I really do respect, but I’ll save my disappointment in them for another venue.)

Keep in mind, of course, that this petition is non-binding and strictly an expression of opposition; Routledge can take it into consideration or simply throw it into the trash and go on as if it didn’t exist. Indeed, as of this momemt, Routledge has not even seen fit to commment on the petition from SPC, basically dismissing it as trolling. Indeed, one of the directors of the upcoming journal, Professor Lynn Comella from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, has tweeted that the best advice is to simply ignore Dines and SPC and not give them more publicity to spill their bile of nothingness.

I respect Dr. Comella highly, but I profoundly disagree, because it’s far more important to expose the biases and errors of the antiporn “feminist” theology, and because Dines and SPC do have disproportionate influence on both Feminst Studies academia and the overall academic Left…and to allow them to continue to monopolize the platform and deny access to voices in opposition to their agenda is not only corrosive and potentially deadly to progressive political discourse, but also to the fundamental concept of academic freedom and integrity of academic research. McCarthyism, whether it be political or sexual, needs to be exposed and opposed publically anywhere it rises up.

And…some of us can do counterpetitions to fight back, too.

Also….leave it to my man Jordan Owen to give Dines and Stop Porn Culture the usual treatment, too.

Jordan Owen rips Gail Dines and Stop Porn Culture new ones on their recent petition against Routledge Press’ “Porn Studies Journal” (via YouTube, see also my mirror of that vid here)

Finally, there is this reaction from Constance Penley, professor at the Univ. of California at Santa Barbara, whom has been a long-time researcher of porn (via this followup article on XBiz.com):

Constance Penley, professor of film and media studies at UCSB and co-editor of “The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleasure,” criticized Stop Porn Culture for their decision to rally antagonism against the journal.

“[The petition] reveals a total lack of understanding about academic freedom, academic integrity and the nature of scholarship,” Penley told XBIZ. “The petition and the comments by the signers reveal how desperate the antiporn people are to prevent any research being done that might not support their ideological position.”

But then again, what else can you expect from a woman who still believes and publically states that James Earl Jones took the lead voiceover role for The Lion King because all Black actors are so hard up for work they take “racist” roles? Props to Jordan for catching that bit of Dinesplaining bullshittery, too.

Right, Gail…and porn causes women to wax their pubes, too.

Memo, Professor Dines: When trapped in a ditch…STOP. DIGGING.

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An Open Letter To The Pro-Sex/Anticensorship Left: Time To Arise From Your Slumber

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Anthony

In my nearly 10 years as a blogger on sexuality issues, I’ve been very much taken aback by the means in which the Left has been so schzophrenic on sex.

Just as the Right still has their battles between the Religious Right and the Libertarians over just how much personal sexuality should be regulated, there has always been constant debate on the Left regarding the parameters and limits of sexual freedom and sexual expression.

You would think that the tradition of antiestablishmentarianism and direct experience of being the main targets of state censorship would lead most on the Left to oppose active censorship or state-led attempts to “control” personal behavior or speech that threatens no one.

Unfortunately, you would think very wrong. There has always been an authoritarian fetish for using the power of the State for “social engineering” amongst some Leftists, and the results have been well documented. The drive to push people out of automobiles and force everyone into the “New Urbanist” paradigm of rail-based transit, using the all too real threats of global warming/climate change and “peak oil” scarcity is one example of authoritarianism using liberal/”progressive” rhetoric. The recent rise of “radical feminist” legal campaigns against sexual media and sexual expression is another…and that’s my focus for this open letter.

Most of you know about the state of Iceland’s attempt to “regulate” pornography out of existence through legislation which would, among other things: enable the government to force ISP’s to block access to sites which would be deemed as “violent” or “degrading to women”; enable credit card processing companies to refuse under threat of sanctions or even prison time to process transactions involving the sale or distribution of “pornographic” material; and even allow women to file lawsuits against producers or users of adult sexual media on the grounds that such behavior in and of itself encompasses “a violation of women’s civil rights” in their “sexualization” of “violence against women”.

Such legislation is hardly news, since it has been proposed numerous times by religious conservatives and activists of the Right, albeit they use more classical conservative arguments of “morality” and “decency” and cleansing the society of the “filth” that the sexual acts depicted in porn are claimed to represent.

What is new about this latest attempt, however, is the way in which putative progressive rhetoric about the positive power of affirmative government in public policy is now being appropriated to promote and sell state-backed censorship and make it somehow acceptable to “leftists” under the whim of “protecting women and children” from an alleged toxic threat of “antiwoman” sexual speech and expression.

To use one example of this distortion of traditional Left praxis: there is this open letter that was released in mid-March giving support to the Iceland antiporn legislation, which was signed by a long list of antipornography/anti-sex work activists, propagandists, and associated celebrity supporters. (While the actual writer of the letter is unknown, it was also posted at Gail Dines’ webpage, so we can assume that she, if not the originator, played a major role in its creation.)

I’ve countlessly discussed and rebutted the claims that the proposed Iceland legislation would only cover “violent” and “degrading” pornography (which overlooks the means to which antiporn “feminist” activists play games with their definitions of what constitutes “violent” and “degrading” so that even girl/girl sex scenes with no men involved become caught up in the censorship dragnet); so I won’t go there for this essay. Rather, the focus will be on the assertions of the last paragraph of the letter, in which the author attempts to play to Iceland’s “progressive” reputation as a means of justifying such censorship as benevolent.

[...] As your efforts continue to develop, we would urge you not to be dissuaded

by dark invocations of totalitarianism or of an unregulated black market in pornography. The pornography industry could hardly be any less regulated than it is currently, nor could the motivations and methods of the Icelandic initiative differ more starkly from those of authoritarian governments. [paragraph break] From adopting the so-called “Nordic” approach to prostitution in 2009 to banning strip clubs in 2010, and having stood virtually alone among nations in holding banks to account in the wake of the global financial crisis, Iceland is a global leader both in gender equality and in confronting corporate power. We are inspired by your boldness and innovation in protecting children, honoring women’s rights to safety and equality, and maintaining the integrity of Icelandic culture against the onslaught of an unrestrained industry of sexual exploitation. [paragraph break] As a group of similarly committed scholars, activists, and professionals across the globe, we stand with you and look forward to seeing the final result of your efforts.

Notice the implication that since it is a “progressive” Left government that is using direct state censorship to “protect women and children”, and that such censorship of what is otherwise consensual and private speech and behavior is done in the name of “women’s rights” and “sexual exploitation”, then that makes it not “authoritarian” or even bad…and that anyone who dares to raise any issues of such are simply just either right-wing libertarians who don’t care about the welfare of women and children…or just basement dwelling men who can’t give up jerking off in their mother’s basements. Or, simply, the pimps, rapists, and “pornographers” getting paid off the “degradation and abuse of women and children.”

Notice also the nod to Iceland’s economic policies regarding financial reform; of which the government does deserve legitimate credit for its resistance to the prevailing IMF/ECU austerity regimes. How that legitimizes their attempt at censorship of sexual speech and expression, though, is highly debatable.

Then again, there has always been amongst the more elitist stains of the European Left a fetish of using affirmative state action for imposing their ideas of “social engineering” and eschewing more class-based approaches to resolving issues of inequality. It’s much easier to blame “gender stereotyping” and “sexualization of girls” for the lack of women in high economic and social positions than it is to mount a campaign against the current neoliberal system of readjusting downward social welfare to the whims of capital. It’s easier to rant and rave about the evil of automobiles and freeways and the gospel of light rail and high-speed rail as the total solution to all our global climate change issues; it’s a bit harder to actually confront the roots of capitalism in the private control of production and the maldistribution of resources.

But, that lies at the heart of how postmodernism and cultural politics have so weakened and fractured the Left into racial and gender cliques fighting over a much smaller piece of the economic pie, rather than supporting more collectively based class action. It shows also just how too easy it is for Left governments who do get power within the broader neoliberal regime to divert their efforts into side show issues that not only do not get to the root of the problem, but end up rationalizing and strengthening the very polarization and inequalities they pretend to be against.

It is not too surprising that some Left celebrities (such as former Green Party POTUS candidate Roseanne Barr or writer Derrick Jensen) have offered their support to the Iceland porn ban proposals as a means of dealing with sexism in general…but in doing so, they ignore or render completely invisible the antiauthoritarian history of the Left in opposing similar censorship laws introduced by the Right. Is is even possible that they can’t see the total hypocrisy of supporting expanding marriage equality to include same-sex relationships, but calling for broad censorship of speech and behavior of those same adults engaging in consensual acts that define that relationship??

It’s also not surprising that many of the same antiporn activists who signed this letter are also very much part of the antisexwork abolitionist movement that would even deny active sex workers any say in controlling their workplaces. This is very much consistent with the general practice of “cultural feminism”, which basically seeks a “female culture” to supplant the supposedly misogynistic “male culture” by regulating and criminalizing not only men’s actions, but even men’s thoughts. You would think that the experiences of China and Russia would convince these folk of the folly of such intimate regulation of thought….but power tends to corrupt people pretty quick.

The most discouraging aspect of this, however, is that there has always been an antiauthoritarian, pro-liberationist, sexually open minded segment of the Left who understands from experience the folly of aping the Right’s methods of group outrage….but they don’t have anywhere near the clout or the will of the antiporn feminists when it comes to influencing Left opinion. The fact remains that iconic Left luminaries like Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Dan Hazen, and most of the well known Left journals (such as CounterPunch and AlterNet) have essentially allowed the likes of Gail Dines, Julie Birchell, and Melissa Farley free reign to promote their newly fashioned “Feminist Left” antiporn ideology while openly suppressing or silencing voices from the Left who oppose such actions. The idea that there may even be left of center people who are more than capable of watching or making porn without resorting to “hate sex” or reducing women performers to “cumdumpsters”, or even acknowledging the right of sex workers and porn performers/models to transform their workplace and their medium in more progressive forms, is simply incapable of being groked by our modern “protectors” of the impressionable.

It’s not a small issue, because it directly leads to the full and total alienation of people who could be some of the Left’s most dedicated allies and supporters…but instead are driven by the blind sex-hate and hyperbolic rhetoric into the arms of the libertarian Right, who seems right now to be the only political group that is willing to invite sex workers/porn performers in with open arms….and palms outstretched. Considering how libertarianism in its current form is regressing back towards the most reactionary stances on social issues (and it’s rabid defense of economic serfdom), that is not a positive development for the Left at all.

A more open-minded sex-positive Left praxis that opposes such fascism as is being proposed in Iceland is sorely needed to counter the Dines-Farley-Birchell party line. And, it’s past time that those of us who are on the political Left — whether liberals, socialists, or Marxists — need to rise up with our voices to oppose sexual censorship whenever and where ever it arises. And especially when it is sold under a “leftist” patina of “protecting women and children….for as history is so abundantly clear in showing, the protectors, once given the absolute power, can easily turn on those who are supposedly being protected and crush them. “benevolent authoritarianism” is still authoritarianism; and sex is still not the enemy.

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Meet Meghan Murphy…The Latest And Greatest Town Crier Of The GenderBorg RadFem Hive Of Crazaa

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Anthony

From the collective that gave us Kathleen Barry, Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon, Cheryl Lynn “Heart” Seelhoff, Luckynikl, Mary Sunshine, Witchy-Woo, Maggie Hays, Nine Deuce, Gail Dines, Shelia Jefferys, “Stella Marr”, Donna Hughes, Melissa Farley, and far too many other wingnut crazies to give proper credit, comes a new and even more wacked out representative to make the case against sex work and sex workers.

Meghan Murphy is a particularly active radical feminist who works out of Vancover, British Columbia, Canada. She blogs out of a radfem collective site called “Feminist Current”, and bows to no one on her opinion that porn is simply the mass template of men raping and abusing women, that sex work is simply the application of men “selling women’s bodies” for their own pleasure, and that the “Nordic Model” (aka the “Swedish Model”) of abolishing sex work through criminalizing the users and jailing the men is the most perfect “progressive” means of fighting “sex slavery” and “sex trafficking”.

Like most of the radfem antiporn/antisexwork activists, Murphy pretty much dismisses any criticism of her cherished beliefs about prostitution and porn as the work of either the “pimps” and “pornographers” who make money off the “abuse” and “degradation” of women, or simply the addicted basement-dwelling wankers unaware or unwilling to acknowledge their role in enabling “rape culture”.

What seperates Murphy from most other antis, though, is her paranoia about her critics “stalking” and “harassing” her, even as she calls her peeps and radfem associates to do pretty much the same thing. One example of her madness: this YouTube video by sex worker advocate “FeministWhore” discounting a heated Twitter exchange between FemWho and Murphy:

And another example is this Facebook rumble Murphy had with current sex worker Christina Page, who writes at her Legalize to Protect blog. Sceencaps follow (click on each thumbnail for a better view):

But even that bit of paranoia and myopia pales to her core ideology when it comes to abolition of sex work and banishment of porn, especially when she attempts, like Gail Dines has perfected, to cloak it in modern “progressive” syntax.

Which brings us to her latest Feminist Current post, where she attempts a defense of the nation of Iceland and their proposed legislation to clamp down on porn use in that country.

Buclke up, gang..it’s another fisking doozy.

Yesterday, The Nation and Tom Dispatch published an epic, historical look at the successes of the feminist movement over the past fifty-odd years and the long road ahead.

In the article, Ruth Rosen points to various male “behaviours” like rape that, while once were viewed simply as “custom” were redefined, thanks to the feminist movement, as crimes.

Not so long ago, you may or may not recall that there was no such thing as rape in marriage. Husbands were entitled to sex, with or without the consent of their wives. Not so long ago, date rape was common, unnamed, and completely acceptable. There were no conversations about consent when it came to sex. It simply wasn’t relevant.

Rape still happens far more than most would like to acknowledge or imagine and we still have a long way to go towards ending violence against women, but things have changed and things must continue to change.

So far, so good. Noncontroversial, stated fact about how feminism has changed both the laws and the behavior to make things better for not only women, but also humanity. Only fundamentalist montebanks or extreme MRA’s would disagree.

Sadly, that’s only the hook to the bait-and-switch tactic that Meghan is known for. Next paragragh is where she pulls back the curtain to the real agenda.

Lately the issue of banning pornography has been a hot(ter) topic of debate due to the fact that Iceland is considering banning online pornography. Tracy McVeigh noted, in her article for The Observer, that Iceland, one of the most progressive countries in the world, ranking in first place in Global Gender Gap Report 2012, that the ban is widely supported among police, health professionals, educators and lawyers.

Before we move on to the main point of the Iceland porn ban, allow me to note how Murphy attempts to conflate her favored brand of antiporn/antisexwork radicalfeminism as “progressive” by glomming Iceland’s “progressive feminist” government…as if the latter’s social/political Left policy is justification enough for its promotion of sexual fascism. It’s as if Murphy is saying that because Iceland is to the Left of most countries, it’s perfectly legitimate for it to support the kinds of controls on sexual behavior and content normally considered the realm of the Right….simply because they are “progressive feminists”.

And, let us also note that using the ranking of Iceland as “most progressive country” when it comes to women’s rights does not automatically give it justification to pass off reactionary legislation as “progressive”; nor does it omit the fact that Iceland doesn’t have the population, the class stratification, the racial diversity, nor the economic burdens of, say, the United States, and probably isn’t necessarily the best model for comparison when it comes to treatment of women. But, I guess that in the enclosed hive world of Meghan Murphy, people of color or poor/working class women who don’t fuse into the antiporn/antisexwork idelogy simply don’t exist, right??

In anticipation of the typically silly and ignorant responses from libertarians and pro-sex industry types claiming critics of sexualized violence against women are simply prudish, conservative, freedom-haters, McVeigh quotes Halla Gunnarsdóttir, adviser to the interior minister Ögmundur Jónasson, who says, about the prospective ban:

We are a progressive, liberal society when it comes to nudity, to sexual relations, so our approach is not anti-sex but anti-violence. This is about children and gender equality, not about limiting free speech.

In other words, this is a feminist initiative.

Right…because only “libertarians” and “pro-sex industry types” are “ignorant” and “stupid” enough to insist that laws that aim to restrict access to and banish consenual sexual behaviors and nonviolent adult content should be labelled properly as censorship….or that just because Iceland tends to be more “liberal” towards some policies doesn’t justify this kind of legislation. Also…doesn’t the Right also justify their laws of regulating people’s behaviors out of site through “Think of the women and children”??

Of course, it’s SOP for antis like Murphy to claim that their opponents unfairly bash them as “prudes” and “conservatives” who “hate sex”. That’s particularly funny, considering the well known collusion of radfems and conservatives to pass laws like what Iceland is proposing. (Remember Gail Dines and Shelley Lubben and Dawn Hawkins?? Or, Kathleen Barry and Donna M. Hughes?? Or….Catherine MacKinnon and Clarence Thomas??)

Now, talk of bans or of criminalization of things like pornography often lead to people to say things like: “FREE SPEECH!” “RIGHTS!” “CENSORSHIP!” But these people are stupid.

We live in what is commonly known as “a society”. Within said “society” we tend to rely on things we call “laws” in order to help us function in a way that is conducive to living in said “society”. This isn’t to say that all laws are necessarily good laws and, often, criminalization targets the marginalized in disgusting and oppressive ways.

Of course, nobody would claim otherwise, or that there is no need for laws to protect people from undue bodily harm and violent assault. Not even the “stupid” ones.

This is not the case for feminist laws that prevent men from abusing women.

Much of the work the feminist movement has done in terms of making the world a more equitable one, has been with regard to legislation. Without changes to legislation, women would still be owned by their husbands and wouldn’t be able to do things like vote or have jobs or get a university education or say no to sex. Laws aren’t bad. Criminalizing certain behaviours is also not (necessarily) bad.

Let’s reflect on some of the behaviours we’ve criminalized in our society: murder, rape, domestic abuse, animal cruelty, advocating genocide, and creating, buying, or selling child pornography. There are other behaviours we’ve criminalized that are silly, like doing certain kinds of drugs, but that’s a whole other political can of worms.

The point is that, as a society, we support the censorship of things we believe are deeply harmful to individuals and to society as a whole. Many of us, particularly feminists and other progressive types, support the criminalization of behaviours that are violent and abusive. Whether we like it or not, laws do shape our behaviour and agitating for changes to legislation and been hugely successful for feminists (though there is much, much more work to do).

Problem is, Meghan….there is a world of difference between society establishing laws for enforcing protections against abusive and violent acts and behaviors…and society passing laws that ban access to certain materials or punish certain modes of speech and expression simply based on just-so theories and junk pseudoscience.

There is no need to share “information” that encourages and perpetuates and supports the oppression of women. In fact, I’m pretty sure that would count as some kind of hate speech. Pornography encourages and perpetuates and supports both rape culture (so, violence against women) and the oppression of women.

True freedom and true freedom of speech would exist in a society without systemic oppression. In a world wherein male violence against women is an epidemic, it is not reasonable to say that we live in a free society. It is also not reasonable to defend behaviours that perpetuate oppression and violence on account of “freedom” and “freedom of speech”. Those who argue this are stupid, narrow-minded jerks who’ve spent too long eating American freedom fries and only care about “rights” in as much as those “rights” provide them with access to the sex/money/power they believe they were born entitled to.

You see, gangsters and gangstrices….only Meghan Murphy and her GenderBorg allies, who now apparently have the arms, ears, and other body parts of the ruling Iceland government, can decide for the rest of humankind which modes of speech and expression is legitimate and which becomes by their fiat “hate speech” worthy of censorship. And, only antiporn “feminists” like Murphy and Dines are capable of thinking and deciding for the rest of us which forms of sexual speech and expression “perpetuate oppression and violence” by their mere existence, rather by the intent and degree of coercion and abuse. Everyone else is simply an abetter of the “rape culture”…if not a full blown rapist/murderer. Or..simply a man with an erection. Or…a mindless amoral slut “cumdumpster” paid by the “patriarchy’ to lie about her true “abuse”.

And remember, Clones…all this in the name of “progressive feminism”.

To those who argue that it’s impossible to ban pornography because it’s so popular, universal, or “normal”, well, so was marital rape at one time. So was smoking in hospitals. So was owning slaves.

What’s “normal” and acceptable today likely won’t be in 20 or 50 or 100 years. Banning pornography won’t lead to an immediate disappearance of all pornography, just like the illegality of murder hasn’t stopped murders from happening. But it does set a standard and it does teach us what is acceptable behaviour in society. The fact that we’ve criminalized rape has led us to understand that sex should not happen without consent (lest it become “rape” and not “sex”).

Only someone like Meghan Murphy would dare to compare the watching of people engaged in mutually pleasurable consensual sexual activity with tobacco smoking or slavery or even marital rape. Does she know that there are plenty of pro-porn people who don’t smoke, oppose slavery, and don’t support forced sex of any kind??

And, tell me how anyone who calls him/herself a legitimate progressive would ever claim that something should be banned merely because someone considers it “unacceptable to society”?? To use Meghan’s own apt analogy, that would basically justify banning even heterosexual interracial marriage…which in some local “societies” is still considered “unacceptable” enough to illicit lynch mobs. Or, for that matter, young Black men wearing hoodies in the wrong neighborhood.

(Feminist) changes to legislation won’t solve everything, but are necessary.

Now, pornography is not “good” for society and it isn’t “good” for women (it isn’t even “good” for men!). Because of the Internet, it’s readily available to children which means that this generation and all those that follow learn that women are to be fucked and to be humiliated and to be degraded from the beginning. Pornography shapes and will shape their worldview.

How nice of Meghan to make that judgement for us that porn should be banned because children will be tainted by it to rape and degrade women. If the actual evidence truly justified that charge, it might actually have a shred of truth. The rest of us in the reality world, however, know better.

If you think change isn’t possible then you have no place in any progressive movement, conversation about equality, or, really, in a democratic society. If you think your “freedom” should come at the expense of half the population, then you’re the problem and your protests will fall on deaf ears, your cries of “censorship” growing ever more quiet as the rest of us move towards emancipation.

Well….I do think that change is not only possible, but necessary for the achievement of equality and justice in a fair and democratic society. And, I don’t think that “freedom” should come at the expense of anyone, let alone “half the population”.

What I also think, however, is that people who do no harm should not be harmed themselves by the government or by anyone else…and that any legitimate progressive government should not waste precious time and resources attacking scapegoats and endorsing crackpot theories that have been proven to be not only false, but very much lethal to progressive policy.

Radical antipornography feminists like Meghan Murphy substitute unproven, overcooked, oversimplified, and thoroughly debunked pseudoscience for actual research; and recast old, tired, reactionary and sexually repressive policy as “progressive”…all for the sake of their own personal power and privilege. That they can get away with recasting this brand of corrosion as “progressive feminism” is one of the absolute tragedies of the downfall of the Left….and their actions need to be fully exposed and opposed by principled people who actually give a fuck about real people being abused and degraded.

Criminalization of consensual sexual behavior/speech indeed does work….for the Right. I’d rather leave the censorship to them, if you don’t mind…and have the Left tackle REAL issues.

Fuck you very much, Meghan Murphy….and your GenderBorg whackjob pseudofeminist fascist associates.

See also Christina Page’s excellent smackdown of Murphy’s madness here.

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WOW. Just…WOW. Gail Just Can’t Help Herself. Jumping The Porn Censorship Shark In Iceland

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Anthony

No woman can be so fully clothed, and yet so damn naked in lies.

In case you have missed world news events, the nation of Iceland is set to propose passing some of the strictest antipornography legislation ever, primed on the most extreme antipornography “feminist” logic that porn is the essential threat to women’s “civil rights”. Basically, ths is the MacKinnon-Dworkin approach to censorship, yet jacked up on steroids and Red Bull.

And naturally, guess who happens to be a fan of this?

Quoting from the British site The Telegraph:

Iceland considers pornography ban

Iceland could become the first Western democracy to attempt censorship of the internet under radical proposals to block online pornography.

The government is considering introducing internet filters, such as those used to block China off form the worldwide web, in order to stop Icelanders downloading or viewing pornography on the internet.

The unprecedented censorship is justified by fears about damaging effects of the internet on children and women.

Ogmundur Jonasson, Iceland’s interior minister, is drafting legislation to stop the access of online pornographic images and videos by young people through computers, games consoles and smartphones.

“We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime,” he said.

Methods under consideration include blocking access to pornographic website addresses and making it illegal to use Icelandic credit cards to access pay-per-view pornography.

A law forbidding the printing and distribution of pornography is already in force in Iceland but it has yet to be updated to cover the internet.

The proposals are expected to become law this year despite a general election in April.

“There is a strong consensus building in Iceland. We have so many experts from educationalists to the police and those who work with children behind this, that this has become much broader than party politics,” Halla Gunnarsdottir, a political adviser to Mr Jonasson told the Daily Mail.

“At the moment, we are looking at the best technical ways to achieve this. But surely if we can send a man to the moon, we must be able to tackle porn on the internet.”

The proposed control over online access, that mirrors attempt in dictatorships such as China to restrict the internet, is justified as a defence of vulnerable women and children.

“Iceland is taking a very progressive approach that no other democratic country has tried,” said Professor Gail Dines, an expert on pornography and speaker at a recent conference at Reykjavik University. “It is looking a pornography from a new position – from the perspective of the harm it does to the women who appear in it and as a violation of their civil rights.”

Yeah…I’d say that using the full power of the state to censor speech and behavior one doesn’t like is certainly “progressive”, don’t you think??

But the real kicker is that when confronted with the charge that she’s backing censorship, Dines simply goes Dawn Hawkins and freaks out.

As she just did on her Facebook page. Here’s the proof, in the form of a screencap:

This is just too low hanging a fruit not to fisk. Time to break it down, Hammer style….again.

Number One, Gail: Banning anything is CENSORSHIP. Just because it’s porn doesn’t make what Iceland is trying to do any less censorship. Your wordsmithery bullshittery does not make it any more “progressive” or even acceptable.

Number Two: You can’t say that you don’t believe in government telling us what we can “read/view/masturbate too” while openly backing a series of bills which do exactly THAT. I’d say that banning credit card purchases of certain material, forcing ISP’s to place blocking filters on their services, and otherwise blocking access to legal consensual sexual material, would definitely count as directly restricting what people can view or read. Can’t have it both ways, Gail.

Three: “Harmful corporate speech”??? Really, Gail?? You mean, that you will be supporting then legislation to banish and control right-wing legislators who fund efforts to abolish the minimum wage, or other forms of conventional business propaganda?? Yeah, right, Gail…as if you have ever been anywhere near concerned about “corporate speech” other than the XXX kind. Just because the people backing your new censorship happen to be on the Left doesn’t make their censorship any less fascistic and WRONG.

Most people of the Left whom I know and respect are far more interested in corporate ACTION and POLICY, not necessarily their speech or propaganda. That Iceland has done some pretty damn good things regarding economic policy that the US Left could learn plenty from, does not make them any more immune from legitimate criticism when they endorse this brand of foolishness.

Also, Gail….most of us on the sensible Independent Left believe in a strong government that counterbalances corporate power (I’m talking the REAL corporate power, not just the figment of your imagination that Larry Flynt runs Walll Street through the Porn Illuminati)…but also believes that such government should be held accountable to the people with basic fundamental individual rights and responsibilites. One such responsibility happens to be the right of maximum free choice and autonomy over one’s own body, and the right to choose to engage in safe, sane, and consensual sexual activity with other adults.

It’s one thing to call for safeguards against children getting unwanted access to sexually explicit media and to provide parents education and safeguards to protect their children and themselves from unwanted and unsolicited sexual speech. It’s quite another to simply wipe sexual speech and expression off the face of the planet by simply declaring it “a violation of civil rights”. The first is legitimate because of the same reason the latter is fascist: Democracy relies on freedom of expression and choice. Socialism unbridled from that precondition of respect for the individual simply morphs into Stalinism and authoritarianism…and the mirror image of right-wing totalitarianism.

And finally for that rantage….if you really think that Iceland is that superior to the US, Gail, then when will we read about you resigning your professorship at Wheelock College and renouncing your US citizenship?? Oh, wait, then she would lose out on all that honoraria and copyright and residuals from the sales of all her books!! Ahh….never mind.

Of course, telling this to Gail is like spitting into the northeast quadrant of Winter Storm Nemo…especially when she has people like this covering her backside:

The irony of an American going to another country and dissing opponents of their favored legislation to “love it or leave it”, all the while moaning about “global capitalism”, really puts things into perspective…doesn’t it?? And yeah…sexual speech is as much a “pollutant”, if not more, than smog or high fructose corn syrup or payday loans, which is why Gail Dines and Kristie McKiernan have spent years of their activism calling for enforcement of the Clean Air Act or taxing Coca-Cola or capping interest rates on loans….oh, wait, hold up, they haven’t?? Not in their entire careers??

I say it again, and will continue to do so as long as I have the ability to type: Why the hell is Gail Dines still considered a “leftist”?? Or…a feminist?? Or, even…a sentinent human being??

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Maggie Mayhem. Game. Set. Match. World Championship. Sit Down, Gail, And Read How It’s Supposed To Be Done.

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Anthony

Y’all…I’m not even going to snip highlights from Maggie Mayhem’s just published post where she unleashes the full barrel on Kink.com not only for their recent “guns and cocaine” debacle, but for their general gentrifiation and mistreatment of workers and employees. That would be totally disrespectable to the depth of the quality of her words.

All I am going to say is that while she may not get the honoraria or the publicity that Gail Dines gets, and she may still be treated as only an “apologist for the slaveowners”, as antiporn/radfem whack Taslima Nasreen dismissed her once; in my opinion there is not a better critique of the business end of porn and sex work from the sex positive Left than what Maggie just posted just now. Small wonder that she’s on Dines’ “avoid at all costs” list.

But don’t take my word for it…..just go there and read every damn word. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Tales of Kink.com — Maggie Mayhem Speaks (missmaggiemayhem.com)

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Memo To Kink.com: Gun Play Is NOT A Kink Fetish…..It Is A Crime!!

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Anthony

It always seems to happen….defend someone from being falsely maligned, and then watch them go and do something really stooopid and give the maligners fresh meat.

I’ve been defending Kink.com these last few posts from the ridiculous rantings of Gail Dines and Dawn Hawkins….but that doesn’t mean that they are immume from criticism when they do something totally lame and create problems.

In this case, it’s not “torture porn”, but something a bit less sexy: guns. And…drugs.

The website Gawker put out a story last night about how the owner/founder of Kink.com, Peter Acworth, recently got himself into a not so wee bit of trouble with the law. Apparently, Acworth decided to use the assets of the San Francisco Armory, the old fort in which Kink.com is presently housed, just a bit too literally. Here’s Gawker’s tale:

Acworth, 42, was arrested at 8:24 p.m. on February 1st and charged with one count of cocaine possession and one count of delaying arrest, according to Albie Esparaza, a San Francisco Police Department Public-Information Officer. Police were initially sent to Kink.com’s massive, $14.5 million studio/dungeon in the old San Francisco Armory at 1800 Mission St. after a concerned citizen reported seeing a video online of men firing guns inside the premises, Esparaza said. Joshua Carlberg, 40, was also arrested and charged with delaying arrest.

The claim is that Acworth and his friends were using what used to be the Armory shooting range for a little gun practice. Which would be OK, except for the cocaine they were apparently going to snort up after they finished….and the fact that mixing guns, drugs, and kinky sex together would blow up in their faces and give plenty of fresh ammo (figuratively speaking) to the antiporn activists already hyped up by the regular offerings of Kink.com as “torture porn”.

It’s how San Francisco police officials were tipped to the private shooting show that is most fascinating:

“Basically it stemmed from social media,” Esparaza said. “Someone posted a video online and this person reported it to the police, and they located an indoor shooting range, sort of a makeshift.” Esparaza said police did not find enough evidence for fire-arms-related charges, though the investigation is still open. It’s unclear what video spurred the investigation, or what fetish it might have spoken to. One Kink performer I talked to said that for all the weird stuff Kink puts out, he’d never heard of videos involving live firearms. Acworth is typically fastidious about keeping his torture porn this side of the law, the performer said.

Notice of course how Gawker gets in the “torture porn” smack at the end.

Turns out, though, that the alleged “video” evidence of “gun play” was in fact some snippage of Acworth and his friends shooting off some steam at their underground range, taken from that James Franco documentary film Kink, which, if you will remember, debuted to rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival. An opponent of Kink (or a Gail Dines/Dawn Hawkins fan) posted the clip to Facebook, which was the trigger to spark the SFPD to action which led to the arrest. The SFWeekly journal did their own followup of the story, and posted screencaps from the snippage which tend to confirm that this was only for gun play, not sex.

Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure that this will create a publicity headache for not only Kink.com, but also the San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair, which is scheduled to use the Armory to host its book fair later this month. I’m thinking that the likes of Dines and Hawkins and Ben Barker and all the other antiporn crusaders are more than itching to fire up the usual sheeple to rave and rant against Kink as not only torturers, but potential MURDERERS of women…because why in the hell should a porn site have a shooting range in the first place?

But…even aside their myopia, there are some legitimate issues concerning having guns so intimately involved in the workplace…and performer/sex blogger Maggie Mayhem, who is the polar opposite of Gail Dines and Dawn Hawkins when it comes to sex positivity and kinky sex, is also not so pleased at the actions ongoing at Kink.com, either. Here’s some tweetage from her today, via her Twitter account (@MsMaggieMayhem):

Whether or not you think that what Peter Acworth got busted for doesn’t deserve the hype or amounts to the smoking gun (literally), I’d take Maggie’s words to heart anyways. This isn’t a “kinky sex leads to murder” issue; this is a “do we care enough about our employees not to do such dumbassery and give our opponents this easy a target for pinata practice” issue. Plus, mixing guns and blow is always a dangerous thing.

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Why CounterPunch Could Seriously Use Some Sex-Positive Education: More Kink.com Bashing From The “Anarchist” Wing

Posted on February 9, 2013 by Anthony

You would think that the lefty website CounterPunch would know better.

The site that was founded and ran so well by the twin duo of Jeffery St. Clair and (until his unfortunate passing last year) Alexander Cockburn has been a must-go-to portal for strong antiestablishment thinking and critique, on many subjects from foreign and economic policy to the social issues of today. It has reflected an eccelectic style of progressive populism which has done its best to challenge to prevailing wisdoms and expand the terms of the possible.

Except, it seems, on the subject of sexuality.

There, it seems that CounterPunch just can’t make up its mind or maintain a consistent philosophy without falling all over itself.

On the one hand, CP has some decent and brilliant regular columnists that are actually pretty sex positive….the most notable example being Dr. Susan Block, the LA sexologist whose “Speakeasy” and Bloggamy programs have been promoting the message of combining politically liberal thought and sexually liberal practice for the past 10 years. There’s also the work of David Rosen, whom has been brilliant in exposing the hypocrisy of the social/Religious Right in their attempt to contain and repress sexuality.

On the other hand, though….they also give the likes of Gail Dines and Robert Jensen full bore to rant and rave about the innate evils of porn and sexual media, making all the usual claims about how porn is nothing less than the greatest capitalist conspiracy to abuse and degrade and even potentially rape women.

And…because CP usually allows Dines or Jensen or other antiporn “leftist” feminist activists free reign without considering allowing for a response or rebuttal in defense from the porn performers or consumers or fans that are slammed (the exception being Nina Hartley’s riposte to Chyng Sun back in 2005 when the latter riffed on that year’s Adult Entertainment Expo), it leads to the impression that most if not all Lefties are fervently antiporn or similarly supportive of antiporn “feminist” theory, and that there should be no room for anyone on the Left to even defend porn as anything other than “hate sex”…heaven forbid support it as free and consensual speech or expression.

The crusade against the porn portal Kink.com as “torture porn” is simply the most recent example of how segments of the Left simply aren’t willing to get educated on the facts.

Gail Dines’ role in this is well known and documented…see the two previous posts here. But today, someone over at CounterPunch must have decided that not even Gail’s academic weight was enough to carry the day against the evil plot of Kink.com to abuse all women, one chain at a time….because they decided to publish a post by someone named Ben Barker of an anarchist list called “riseup.net” which extended the “torture porn” argument beyond even Gail’s limits.

The issue apparently is that the San Francisco Armory, the historic landmark in The City by the Bay where Kink.com is currently domiciled, is also hosting an anarchist book fair this weekend. And, for a radical antiporn feminist supporter like Barker, that’s not good news, or so he says.

Radicals and the sexual exploitation industry become more and more intertwined by the day. I wish I was surprised when I learned just today that the 2013 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair is being held in a venue owned by the torture porn website, Kink.com.

Now, Barker cites no sources or even attempts to get the side of the sponsors of the book fair to defend themselves as to why they would allow their bookfair to be forever tainted by the lash of “torture porn”. I, however, did do a Google and found the official webpage of the festival, which doesn’t even mention Kink.com at all. It is being held at the Armory Commuity Center, mind you, and it’s sponsored by the Bound Together Bookstore, which is NOT a repository for bondage but a radical anarchist place where folk can view and purchase local radical literature and art. Actually, there’s not even a single mention of PORN anywhere in the literature supporting the festival….so I’m seriously guessing that Kink.com probably won’t be using it to prop any of their infamous kinks.

Naturally, Barker quotes Dines verbatum in venting his outrage at this anarchist betrayal of women:

Kink.com is infamous for its images of women “stretched out on racks, hogtied, urine squirting in their mouths, and suspended from the ceiling while attached to electrodes, including ones inserted into their vaginas,” explains feminist activist Gail Dines, who argues that the pornography website is in stark violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture.

If you don’t want to listen to some feminist, I’ll let Kink.com speak for itself. On the website, we learn that the project began when the founder decided to “devote his life to subjecting beautiful, willing women to strict bondage.”

Of course feminists sounded the alarm right away and demanded answers and changes from the Bookfair’s organizers. Of course they were only ignored or attacked.

The idea that bondage could actually be a consensual ritualized activity pursued safely and sanely by actual adults seeking sexual pleasure seems to be as beyond the reaches of Ben Barker’s synapses as they are of his apparent mentor.

And as for the “sounding the alarm” part… I’m going to give a guess that Barker’s restricting his information queue to the usual antipornradfem propaganda mills.

But, some folk must have made some noise about the Anarchist Book Fair moving to the Armory, because the sponsors did release a statement justifying the move on apolitical and financial grounds. In other words, the Armory was cheaper and more accessible. Barker does quote them in his rant:

To be fair, a statement addressing concerns about the venue choice was almost immediately posted on the Bookfair website. Not surprisingly, it attempted to justify the decision, with the bulk of the text being about the tight budget they were working with. With the handful of lines the statement devoted to feminist concerns, they deflected responsibility by claiming that “there is a valid political criticism of every venue that is potentially available,” because “we live in a capitalist society, and until we have created an explicitly anarchist infrastructure that can support this type of event, such contradictions and compromises are inevitable.”

It would seem that the organizers of the 2013 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair have little or no ties with Kink.com or their venue, and are indeed making somewhat of a comprise in hosting their event there, because there’s just nowhere else to go. But, yet, their statement goes on to show how aware of the issues they really are. They write: “We acknowledge that pornography and sex work have been divisive issues in the anarchist community. The choice of the Armory Community Center is not a political statement, and the Book Fair Committee is taking no political position on pornography. We accept that members of the community (and even members of this committee) have differing opinions on this issue. We will be organizing a discussion on anarchist perspectives on pornography during the book fair, and if this topic interests you, we hope that you will attend.”

OK….that seems fair enough. Acknowledge that there is some controversy in having the event so near a kinky sex club (virtually), and invite critics to have a discussion on porn, since it seems to elicit such raw emotions in everyone.

Problem is, though, Barker, like his mentor Dines, just isn’t interested in discussion; unless it’s dominated or exclusively owned by his side. And to prove his point, he reached for what appeares to be the dumbest analogy ever:

This situation—a big political event hosted at a controversial location leading to public outcry—is familiar. It’s not unlike another incident of just last month, when a bunch of House Republicans booked their annual winter conference at a former slave plantation in Williamsburg (where, to add insult to injury, they planned to discuss “successful communication with minorities and women”).

But here’s the difference between the two events: When the Republicans announced the site of their gathering the Left was out in force to decry them as racist and insensitive to the historical reality of slavery. When the anarchists announced the site of their gathering the Left was out in force to decry feminist objectors as puritanical, moralist, and anti-sex.

Now…we could begin to refute this inanity by saying that unlike the San Francisco anarchists meeting at the Armory, the GOTP activists meeting at that plantation in Virginia actually believe in their fascism and racism, and didn’t have the disadvantage of seeking a cheaper venue…and that they were wholy aware of the racist significance of hosting their gettogether at a plantation, while simultaneously attempting to pretend like they wanted to win over Blacks and Latinos (Herman Cain and Ted Cruz/Mario Rubio excepted, of course). In that case, it wasn’t just the Left who bashed them, but also the Center and even some conservatives…in other words, any sensible thinking human being. Of course, it may simply be that the GOTP knew exactly what they were doing, and didn’t give a flying fuck about anyone else’s opinion.

What’s so typical of the antiporn feminist myopia, though, is how Dines….errrrrrrr, Barker slips in the old “Why do the Left always bash us ‘feminists’ as antisex prudes when we attack pornography”?? card to justify his prejudices. Well, Gail…ahhhh, I mean, Ben…if the shoe fits, and antiporn “feminists” are that lame that they can’t tell the difference between consensual sex acts and violent torture, and that they feel the need to punish a group merely for using a venue for no other reason other than guilt of association…then perhaps, maybe, you might want to look in the mirror before firing off your guns.

Imagine if the House Republicans had put out a statement similar to that of the organizers of the 2013 Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. They might write: “We acknowledge that white supremacy and slavery have been divisive issues in the Republican community. The choice of the former slave plantation is not a political statement, and the House Committee is taking no political position on white supremacy. We accept that members of the community (and even members of this committee) have differing opinions on this issue. We will be organizing a discussion on Republican perspectives on white supremacy during the conference, and if this topic interests you, we hope that you will attend.” That should be sufficient to ease the worries of the Left, no?

Fortunately, or unfortunately for Mr. Barker, we don’t have to imagine his scenario, because no such statement was put out by the Republican leadership, and more than likely, the Left would probably not let them get away with their innate racism even if they had moved their shindig away from that plantation. After all, it’s about the racism here, not the venue for spreading their racism.

That, I’d say, is a far cry from what the San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair was thinking about when they chose to move to the San Francisco Armory and become temporary neighbors to Kink.com. I’m guessing that the venue for the book fair will be far removed from the Kink studios, so that no unnecessary exposure to whips and/or chains and/or St. Andrews crosses will occur, nor will anarchist folk be subjected to mandatory viewings of Kink models being “hogtied” or spanked. Hell, I don’t even think Kink will have any of their videos there for sale. Now, I’m guessing that visitors who might be interested in kink might do a tour of the studios…but that would be the extent of exposure.

Oh..and also notice how Barker has now juxtaposited “pornography” and “White supremacy” to subtly expand the reach of porn to include not only the alleged “torture porn” of Kink.com, but ALL porn in general. I guess that if PuckerUp.com had sponsored thei book fair, then that wouldn’t have been enough for him or Dines, either..especially considering the latter’s known hatred of “feminist porn”, too.

Seems to me like there’s only one side in this that’s howling in pain…and it isn’t the howls of the Kink models.

Barker concludes his rant in typical Dinesian gory glory:

I beg the organizers of the Bookfair, and anarchists in general, to answer me this one question: is pain different when felt by a woman?

To which I would counter with my own question for Ben Barker and his antiporn “feminist” associates, as well as the editors over at CounterPunch:

Is censorship and sexual fascism different when done by people calling themselves “leftists” and “feminists”??

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Because When Life Deals You Lemons, Whine And Bully The One Who Has The Scoreboard On You: Gail Dines, Jordan Owen, and “Squish Muffins”

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Anthony

Updated…..scroll to bottom.

It has not been a good week for Gail Dines, me thinks.

There was that survey that came out that concluded that there was a genuine correlation between regularly watching porn and supporting marriage equality between gay and straight people. That put a serious dent into her attempts to slam porn as the epitome of inequality.

Then, James Franco had to go and make an evenhanded documentary praising the art of kinky porn portal Kink.com, and it made a decent splash at the Sundance Film Festival two weeks ago. That kinda stuck in Gail’s craw plenty…enough for her to fire off this essay to CounterPunch.

But then, this weekend, as if all that wasn’t enough, Dines had to endure her greatest nemesis. No, not Tristian Taormino or Nina Hartley, whom she generally avoids like the plague because either one of the latter ladies would make the Wheelock College tenured professor look like a Tea Party troll.

No, this time it was Jordan Owen — musician, author, and libertarian YouTube icon – who decided to singe her one more time for her antiporn lunacy with a video response to her CounterPunch article on Kink.com (as well as a video done by Pornography Harms’ chief moll/porn slayer Dawn Hawkins).

You would think that a high falutin’ tenured professor would act above the fray and actually engage the arguments of her ideas. Until today with Gail, you’d think right…but apparently the pressure just got way too much and she inevitably had to vent her spleen.

Which she did in spades today at her personal Facebook page. (I won’t provide a link since I don’t want to provide her any more bandwidth than she deserves, but since it is public record and her page is still open to all, it’s open season for reading.)

Gail’s often hinted in her work that she’s seen plenty of Jordan’s series of YouTube videos counterposting her antiporn beliefs and theories and data, but before today she’s basically flipped him off without recognition. Today, however, she got pissed off enough to lift the veil and give Jordan his full credit for getting into her head.

First text, posted this morning (click on thumbnail for better viewing):

Notice how all of the bases of typical antiporn stereotyping of “porny men” are touched by Gail. Obviously, Jordan, who happens to be a Berklee grad, who is the lead guitarist for a band called Leaving Babylon, and who has written and published a book (Eros Empire) detailing his basic libertarian defense of adult sexual media and free choice for consenting adults, is reduced to nothing more than a Cheetos eating wanker who jerks off 10 times a day watching gangbangs and BDSM. And, of course, his detailed and fact-supported arguments against Dines and other antiporn fundamentalists are simply “inarticulate” one-handed rants, since his other hand is apparently too sprained from jerking off alone.

His actual refuting of her ideas, on the other hand?? Cue the Cricket Symphony.

It’s so tickling that a woman who promotes herself as a scholar, a feminist, a tenured professor who relies on evidence and data to support her well crafted philosophies, becomes so reduced to ad hominens and middle-school grade insults when confronted with actual facts and data that prove her arguments to be intellectual Ponzi schemes.

But, then again, it’s par for the course for Gail. It all depends on who you are. Are you a man who challenges her “facts”?? You’re just a mindless porn addict wanker..or a rapist. A woman who works in porn?? You’re a “fucking sellout”, or even “a pimp”. Someone of the Left who doesn’t march in perfect step with the Book of St. Andrea (Dworkin)?? You be a “neoliberal” capitalist using women to make money!!!

Oh….but Gail was just warming up. Later, she posted this:

Right, Gail….because only antipornography “feminists” are the ones who are absolutely persecuted endlessly by “porny men” who dare to defend their humanity against your catcalls of smearing them as “capitalists” and purveyors of “hate sex” and wielders of killer penises. Therefore, only antiporn “feminists” get to properly vent their rage and anger through insulting their targets (and silencing and making invisible the women in porn whose experiences don’t exactly match the Template of eternal rape and degradation) and seeking legislation to banish the sources of their anger from the face of the earth.

And this is really hilarious: “This means building a good life and finding joy where you can.” You mean, Professor Dines, that those women who build a good life and make a nice bunch of pennies performing sex they already like without any damage to them or their consumers don’t have the same right to find joy where they can, too??

But of all the venality of Dines’ tantrum against Jordan Owen, this quote takes the win for most venial of all:

Remember….Gail Dines just essentially objectified Jordan Owen by reducing him to his penis…and then has the gall to accuse him of reducing a woman to a pet phrase for her vagina. And, not even a particularly insulting pet phrase, either…I’ve seen and heard quite worse. How does she know that that particular endearment wasn’t created by a woman describing herself?? Oh, wait….women aren’t supposed to have such ideas and thoughts in their brains, that’s imposed on them by the evol patriarchy through the capitalist porn conspiracy!!!

Such is the state of antiporn “feminism” these days. Nice going, Gail.

Jordan, BTW, is planning his rebuttal even as I type this….stay tuned.

Update (2-13-13): From planning to reality……I give you Jordan Owen’s rebuttal to Gail:

And, major props to Jordan for citing and reading out this post, too.

Also….Aspasia over at LaLibertine’s Salon decides to bring her paddle of truth (and her knowledge of religious art history) to whack Gail for her “crusaders killed my people” smack. Please, by all means, go there.

Rating: 10.0/10 (7 votes cast)

Rating: +3 (from 3 votes)

The Latest Gail Dines Whackadoodle: Kink.com = “Torture Porn”…Send In The United Nations!!!

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Anthony

Updated…..scroll to bottom.

Like sand pouring in an hourglass…like sunshine off the eastern horizon…like a bad hair day…you can expect Gail Dines to find new ways of showing her ignorant ass off.

But this one…THIS ONE…takes the Grand Prize for whackadoodlery.

Most of you are aware about Gail’s continuing obsession with Kink.com, the fetish/BDSM website based in the San Francisco Armory. She was originally a “consultant” to the antiporn agitprop documentary The Price of Pleasure, which started the smearing of Kink.com as “torture porn” and unrequited rape. And, you will also remember that Dines threw out the “torture porn” smack at Ira Levine (aka Ernest Greene), the hubby of porn legend/sex liberationist/sex-positive feminist Nina Hartley, in the midst of smearing “feminist porn” with the same slander of “neoliberalism”.

That was then…but yesterday Gail decided to kick her myopia up to full blast…and the folks at CounterPunch, as always, were more than willing to publish her tomfoolery.

The trigger for this latest Dinesgasm was a documentary featuring Kink.com titled, appropriately enough, Kink, produced and directed by celebrated Hollywood mainstream actor/director James Franco, which was released to rave reviews last week at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Now, this year’s Sundance was particularly obsessed with sex; since the bulk of the publicity went to two other films dealing with porn and sex: Don Jon’s Addiction, a film about a young Catholic man attempting to deal with his own “porn addiction”; and Lovelace, the biopic depicting the life and brief and notorious porn career of Linda Lovelace, the star of the original 70′s classic Deep Throat.

You would think that a radical feminist like Gail Dines would be more concerned about porn addiction or the treatment of porn performers to write at least a paragraph or two about those movies. (Or..in the case of the latter, she simply let sister radfem Naomi Wolf speak for her, perhaps?)

But, no, no, no, no….not a peep from Gail on that.

But, anything that casts BDSM or consensual adult kinky sex as anything other than “making hate” or “hate sex” or “body punishing degrading dehumanizing misogyny”?? To the laptop, Girl Wonder!!!

And, what better way to kick off this agitprop but a comparison to another film making controversy (yes, this is yet another fisking alert incoming):

Celebrities have been speaking out against the movie Zero Dark Thirty because of its favorable portrayal of torture used in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden. Some have even risked their membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I wish these celebrities were equally outraged by a documentary that just premiered at Sundance that celebrates the actual—not simulated—torture of women. Past experience tells me not to hold my breath.

Of course, Dines ignores the defense of that particular movie from such esteemed liberals as Michael Moore…but I guess since Moore is still under the Radical Feminist Blacklist for defending Wikileaks’ Julian Assange from charges of rape, I can see how she could simply ignore his take.

When Acme Andersson wrote in XBIZ in 2009 (the porn business online website) that small porn companies need a lot of “good luck” to mainstream their products, he couldn’t have imagined just what good luck was coming the way of Kink.com, a somewhat niche company that specializes in the type of porn that would be right at home in Abu Ghraib. That good luck came in the form of A-list actor James Franco, a 2010 Oscar nominee for the movie 127 Hours. It seems Franco has a somewhat robust interest in porn, because he is a producer of a new documentary called Kink that premiered at Sundance just last week. According to the promotional copy on the Sundance website, “Kink tells the true story of sex, submission, and big business as seen through the eyes of the unlikely pornographers whose nine-to-five workdays are spent within the confines of the San Francisco Armory building, home to the sprawling production facilities of Kink.com.” To reassure the potentially squeamish among us, the copy declares that this “feel good” documentary features a “charming band of outsiders full of humor and insight working in a fantasyland of graphic sexual imagery.”

For those of you who might have missed out, the prison compound of Abu Ghraib in Iraq was where political prisoners of the Great War in Iraq against Saddam Hussein were incarcerated, beaten, tortured, and made to endure various involuntary sexual acts in direct violation of their religious faith…all in the name of “liberation” and controlling the Iraqi oil supply. And all of this was crafted by the very high-up officials of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld administration…the same administration, BTW, which also gave us antiporn rabids like Patrick Trueman, whom the putative “leftist” Dines had absolutely no problem sharing the dais with in 2009, when Trueman’s latest antiporn group Porn Harms held a luncheon for members of Congress to promote their shared antiporn campaign.

But, that’s just an inconvenient fact that gets in the way of today’s story….and besides, how can you not sympathize with Gail’s attempt to smear a male producer who obviously suffers from deep porn addiction…errrrrrrrrrr, “has a robust interest in porn”??

Also….I’d bet that a genuine scientist and researcher like Gail Dines would at the very least attempt to get her hands on the full documentary and pass her comments on that, rather than just going off the press release and the trailer. Then again, Gail’s special….she doesn’t need to actually watch a film in its entirity to flesh out its innate sexism and sexual misogyny and “hatred of women”. They simply leap out of the projector screens and write their own reviews for her, right??

A bit of fantasy never hurt anyone, because fantasy happens in the head, not the real world, right? Tell this to the women (and a few men) on the Kink.com website whose bodies are displayed in agonizing contortions that would not be out of place in the Spanish Inquisition: stretched out on racks, hogtied, urine squirting in their mouths, and suspended from the ceiling while attached to electrodes, including ones inserted into their vaginas. Finally, taking a cue from Dick Cheney’s playbook, women are submerged into a tank of water until they start to cough and choke. As I watched the scenes, the term “feel good” couldn’t have been further from my mind.

Ohmigod….women stretched out on racks?? Hogtied?? Suspended on the ceiling with electrodes attached to them?? You know…like, being tasered with 500 volts of electricity?? URINIATING IN THEIR MOUTHS!?!?! WATERBOARDED!?!?!? Oh, noez….WE MUST SAVE THESE POOR WOMENS!!!!!1111ONEHUNDREDELEVEN111!!! BAAAAAAAAD KINK.COM!!!!

It would be an astonishing story….if it were true.

As it would be if a corpse really did come to life and pull a live person under in its grave. Or, if teleportation from one universe to another really did exist. Or….if there really was a Terminator that went out to seek and destroy real human beings. Problem is, nobody would pretend that any of those scenes are anything but fantasy themes depicted in fictional movies that only seemed real due to expensive special effects and damn good consistent acting by professional performers.

Because, as we all know, porn performers can’t act. Therefore, what they do on screen or online must be taken as the literal truth about how they engage in real life private sex, not to mention the prototype of how everyone else should enage in sex in their own private lives. Never mind that most people can and do reserve the right to reject the portrayals of sex they see on screen or online as impossible to enact in their real lives, or just plain wack or silly, or even too contorted for them, and continue to engage in real consensual sex with their lovers as they damn well please in the way they damn well feel like. And heaven forbid that real live human beings are capable of watching the more….shall we say, eccentric types of kinky sex without necessarily distorting their own personal likes and preferences. You don’t have to be a gay man to be turned on to scenes of gay sex or to get your pants tight or panties wet at the sign of a guy sucking another man’s dick; and you don’t have to run out and buy a St. Andrew’s Cross and tie your lover to it and force multiple orgasms on her through a violet lamp just because you saw your favorite porn girl do the same on Kink.com.

But, hey…don’t take my word for it…..especially when AVN.com’s Mark Kernes says it better:

Wow! Pretty serious stuff, right? Those “women (and a few men)” must be filing lawsuits all over the place over the rotten treatment they received from Kink.com’s other employees!

That’s right: “other employees”… because all those women (and a few men) who get tied up, suspended, waterboarded and “suffer” through all the other stuff that’s done to them are also Kink.com employees, acting out scenarios that they themselves or someone else writes for them, and for which they are paid to act out—and often paid to make those scenarios seem as horrific and/or terrifying and/or painful as possible. Hence Dines’ inability to comprehend the press release on Kink that states that the movie depicts a “charming band of outsiders full of humor and insight working in a fantasyland of graphic sexual imagery.”

Yeah; “fantasyland.” Like in “fantasy.” Like in “fictional characters acting out a script.”

That’s right, folks….a lot of what you see in porn that appears to be so shocking just might be just plain acting. Playing to the audience. Faking horror deliberately just to portray themselves as being “abused”. Oh…and there is the distinct possibility that even the “urine” being “squirted” on is really apple juice. Or…genuine female ejaculate. All of which are still competely harmless. And, last time I checked, perfectly legal when done among consenting adults. At least, in San Francisco….I don’t think the condom mandate has made it up there yet. (Kink.com is condom mandated, anyway.)

Now, this isn’t to say that there hasn’t been some controversy with Kink.com on the way their models and performers have been treated. In 2008, there was an unconfirmed, and later denied, report that a model at Kink.com made an accusation that she had been “raped” on set during a scene there; and it got picked up and spread among antiporn activist blogs. And last year, performer Maxine Holloway led a protest calling for organizing and unionizing Kink.com models, claiming that they were not physically abused, but simply overworked and undercompensated. See sex blogger Maggie Mayhem’s supporting story here.

Once again, you’d think that a putative “leftist” and staunch critic of “neoliberalism” as Gail Dines pretends to be would actually support the efforts of Maggie Mayhem and Maxine Holloway to push Kink.com to share some of their profits with their employees. Naaaah…far better for Gail to just blow them off as enablers of “torture”.

And, apparently, sic the United Nations on them, as Dines’ final descent into Abyss Crazza indicates:

Kink.com is in violation of the United Nations Convention Against Torture. The International Council for Rehabilitation for Torture Victims states: “Some of the most common methods of physical torture include beating, electric shocks, stretching, submersion, suffocation, burns, rape and sexual assault.” These are the very acts showcased on the Kink.com website. They are not mere simulations: the women are clearly bound and in contorted positions, and many are grimacing. This is not a fun, fantasy place run by a charming band of outsiders, but a group of savvy businessmen who missed their calling at Abu Ghraib.

Really. And for true. I mean, it’s not as if the models who participate in those acts of “torture” at Kink aren’t really paid for their time and effort, or that the use of electricity, or bondage, or air play, or even brief suffocation, can be justified as extreme consensual sex play for the sake of heightening pleasure and orgasm….as opposed to the acts of Abu Ghraib, which were deliberately intended to shame, punish, injure, and even kill those prisoners unfortunate enough to be forced there. And of course, I need not mention that men are as much the subject for submission by fem dommes as women are. But, I guess that someone like Dr. Gloria Brame would be just a bit too much woman for Gail Dines to handle, correct??

The usual defense of Kink.com is that the women signed a contract and hence agreed to the acts. But as attorney Wendy Murphy of the New England School of Law argues, “torture doctrine is not hampered by concerns about consent because, as a matter of law and policy, one cannot consent to torture.” And anyway, what does meaningful and informed consent mean to the women subjected to these degrading and painful tortures, which are designed to break the body and the spirit? Even the intelligence services acknowledge that information gained from coercive methods is unreliable. The women, like others who enter porn, are young and often don’t know the full extent of what will happen on the set, and cannot anticipate the lasting psychological and emotional effects. The ultimate lie of Kink.com is that it claims to do candid interviews with the women at the end of the scene so they can show how much they enjoyed the “sex.” This is like asking sweatshop laborers to talk about how happy they are to be working for some multinational corporation as the CEO films the interview.

Wait, Gail…you mean that the “torture” imposed on women at Kink.com is intended to ilicit information, like the torture inflicted at Abu Gharib?? You mean that those poor Arab Muslim men who were forced to masturbate in front of female American guards, endured attacks from dogs, and electroshock (and far worse), were paid as much as the models depected at Kink.com? Seriously, Gail…if you can’t tell the difference between getting paid to depict or fake violence and “degradation” in a fictional scene (or getting paid to show off your eccentric sexual taste) and being physically abused and assaulted, then your really do need to turn in your tenured retirement…because you are now one step removed from Orly Taitz territory.

And, oh, by the way, Gail….some sweatshop workers may in fact agree with their employers and actually like their work, mostly because they see no alternative down the line. Maybe instead of attempting to banish their chosen field and force them into the streets for far worse exploitation, if you would work with them to improve their workplace and get them fairer compensation, then perhaps you’d be seen as more of a legitimate activist for social change….and less of a Puritan crank using Left verbiage as a hook and a crutch for your ultraprudish squicks and myopia. You know…a REAL Leftist rather than faux one??

If Sundance were premiering a film about Iraqis, African Americans, Jews, or any group other than women being tortured, would they be able to call it a “feel good” documentary? If you want to understand how the pornographers, and in this case Sundance and James Franco, get away with this travesty, then you need to look no further than Andrew Edmond, himself a pornographer, but one who tells the truth. In a 2000 interview with Brandweek, Edmond, President and CEO of Flying Crocodile, a $20-million Internet pornography business, stated that those outside the industry don’t understand how porn works because “a lot of people get distracted … by [the sex]. To that he could add that they also get distracted from the pain and anguish on the women’s faces as they are being debased, abused, and dehumanized. Where are the celebrities speaking out against this?

It always seems to come back to the old “women are the n****rs of the world” thing with Gail, doesn’t it?? Because obviously, only women are the one true victims whose claims of victimhood by the evil collective erect male penises of the world are ignored and their degradation and abuse of their lady parts by The Great Satanic Porn Using Collective are glossed over by the Equally Great Male Capitalist Neoliberal Fun Sex Conspiracy to simply fuck women into submission. Because, women grimacing in porn can’t be from pleasure or from orgasm or from simply acting the part…it must be because they are being RAPED and BRUTALIZED and TORTURED by “body punishing HATE SEX!!!”

I’ll just let Mark Kernes conclude this bit of whackery, because he has Dines read so well.

It’s true that many performers are none too happy with their directors and producers after having been on set for 12 to 14 hours straight—not a common occurrence!—but what Dines refuses to understand, no matter how many people say it, is that bondage and domination and submission and whipping and electrical stimulation and, yes, nearly being drowned are sex games that some real people play and enjoy, sometimes in the comfort of their own homes and sometimes at parties in full view of the guests… and sometimes on websites. And no matter how much she wants to make a connection between consensual BDSM porn and what CIA officers, on directions from the vice president of the United States, did to ordinary non-consenting Iraqi and Afghani citizens, the two are just not comparable.

In other words, regardless of how Gail Dines might think or attempt to persuade otherwise, Peter Acworth is NOT Dick Cheney. And, never will come close to being such.

The question originally put forth by my libertarian Right pal Jordan Owen remains as valid as when he proposed it: Why is Gail Dines still employed at Wheelock College?? Or, anywhere else, for that matter?

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Update (2-5-2013):

Oh, nice….apparently, we’re getting into Gail Dines’ head, because she’s now using her personal Facebook page to snap back at her critics.

Like this crackback at Mark Kernes, posted on Friday:

I am so grateful to the pornographers for helping me understand that torture is just fantasy and sex play. And here was me, thinking that when you dunk someone in water they could drown! Or when you beat them, they could get hurt. And when you hogtie them, you are doing damage to their body. Silly me and thanks to creepy porn-userl Mark Kernes for explaining to us anti-porn feminists why we have it so wrong.

Except, Gail, there’s a fundamental difference of INTENT between merely dousing someone in water and holding them down until they drown (ask anyone who’s been to a baptismal); between a mere slap on the ass to expose nerves to be gently rubbed down for pleasure and paddling for corporate punishment to elicit maximum pain, not to mention a full-scale beating for the purpose of assault and battery; and between tying someone up with masking tape to render him powerless for the purpose of eliciting maximum pleasure and doing the same for the purpose of robbing his/her damn house.

The qualifiers here are INTENT and CONSENT. The models over at Kink.com are still paid to do their scenes, and they know fully well due to the open experiences of previous models what they are getting into…and they have to choice before and during to pull out if they get even remotely squicky. Prisoners of Abu Ghraib, women victims of Puritan-era dunking booths, and victims of violent abuse simply…DON’T.

And of course, whenever Gail can’t dominate an argument, she goes straight to the “creepy porn user” card to dismiss getting her ass kicked intellectually. Color me surprised.

Later that day, Dines posted this, in response to a debate that was posted by the British newssite The Independent, where Gail was positioned against Make Love Not Porn rebel Cindy Gallop (the Dines piece is from 2010; Gallop’s counter was posted last Thursday):

Just read the so called debate on the Independent Website. Go and vote against porn!!! I am so fucking sick of the mainstream media being the cheerleaders of the porn industry.

Yeah….because allowing a WOMAN to speak for reforming porn to make it more appealing to women and to directly challenge the very “innate” misogyny of traditional hetero porn by creating alternatives is, according to Gail Dines, mere “cheerleading”. Censorship and abolition is far preferable, I suppose.

And in case you didn’t get the point, Gail comes back with this barb:

Forgot to add that I am even more sick of women fronting for the porn industry. Men make porn, men get rich from porn, men jerk off from porn, but they get sell-out women (many of whom are themselves making a profit from pimping other women) to do their public bidding because they are such fucking cowards.

Yup….anyone, especially any woman, who doesn’t immediately report to the Radical Anti-Pornography Retraining Institute and adopt Gail Dines’ philosophy of porn as the template of rape and degradation and death, is permanently branded with the letter “S” on their backsides (for “Sellout”). And, I guess that means that Melissa Harris-Perry is also a “pimp” as well, right??

Remember, also, women don’t jill off to porn, or use porn, or even make a decent living making porn. Naaah, they’re just men pretending to be women….or simply brainwashed sellouts who accept their daily rape and self-abuse just to get paid.

All this, coming from the brain of a supposed “leftist”. Seriously.

Jordan Owen, BTW, has now produced another YT video debunking Gail’s latest whackery; and that of her distinguished “colleague”, Porn Harms spokeswingnut Dawn “Get That Asian Bondage Porn Off Of My Plane!!!” Hawkins. It’s long, but it’s strong. (No pun.) Be forwarned, though, the end of the video does contain some potentially triggering clips of a man engaged in self-mutilation.

Jordan Owen: Gail and Dawn Sink to Sickening New Low… (YouTube)

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Responding To A Fundamentalist Anti-Gay Troll (To [No]S0lution Via Julie Meadows’ Blog Re: Marriage Equality)

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Anthony

You know…it’s been a while since I have been able to deliver a nce, through pwnage takedown of ignroance and bigotry. Thanks to Lydia Lee (via her “Julie Meadows” blog), I now have that opportunity.

Julie/Lydia did a post last week wheras she compared the tactics of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in their support of a proposed ordinance in Los Angeles County which would mandate the use of condoms for all porn production shoots, with the campaign against gay marriage/gay civil unions. She pointed out the direct similarities between the two campaigns, both in the stark tone of absolute fear of the sky falling if gay people are allowed to “destroy” traditional marriage” or porn performers aren’t forced to wear condoms and other forms of “barrier protection” for the good of society and their own “protection” from STI’s.

Well…a reader named “s0lution” didn’t take to well with Lydia’s comparison, and wrote this comment:

s0lution
August 4, 2012 at 5:05 am

I didn’t see any stereotypes or fear tactics in the little video? Adults CAN do what they want. But why do they want to redefine an institution that has existed for most of recorded history, is central in the 3 biggest world religions, and not to mention is natural? The institution of marriage is between one man and one woman. It’s the basis of the family unit. The ones who are on the attack are those who want to redefine this institution, and the defenders of the institution are not trying to put any group in its place or make homosexuality a crime – they are simply defending a pillar of society. By the way, the vote in California to ban gay marriage was the will of the people, not some trickery by the Mormons (but that’s pretty funny to think about). Those who are attacking the institution will stop at nothing, including using the courts to circumvent the will of the people. Albeit, civil rights should never be up for a vote, but forcing an existing institution apply to something completely different is not a right and was never a “right”.

You cannot legislate morality. But you actually CAN legislate human behavior – the behavior of assaulting someone is illegal – many behaviors are legislated, as they should be for the sake of society. Behaving in a way which violates the rights of others is legislated against.

I completely agree about decriminalization and dropping useless laws. America is becoming a police state.

I find it interesting that s0lution drops the concern about a “police state” at the end, even as he openly advocates that preventing gay folk from marrying (and by inferrence, even existing) by enforcing sodomy laws and denying them any protections taken for granted by “traditional couples” is perfectly OK as “legislating behavior”.

Just as sophistrous and duplicitious, though, is his (I will assume the masculine here) assertion that those who supported Proposition 8 to outlaw gay marriage and gay civil unions in California are just concerned conservative civilians who don’t want to “make homosexuality a crime”…as if the stated and not-so-thinly veiled tactics and words of groups like the National Organization for Marriage, the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and other groups which have openly boosted Prop 8 simply are just flippant words.

Julie attempted to respond to his comment by sticking to her main points about the comparison between the Prop 8 and AHF condom mandate campaigns:

Lydia Lee
August 7, 2012 at 10:00 am

The problem is that now tax incentives are wrapped up in this purely religious institution, so it becomes an equal rights issue.

I just had a pretty good discussion about it in an interview. If the government had opted to give tax breaks to people with children–regardless of marital status–it would have made more sense. Instead, they decided to give tax incentives to only married people–regardless of whether or not they have children–and there is a population of our society now that have families and care for dependents yet cannot get the same tax breaks as “married” couples.

Not only that, but very proactive steps have been taken to ban gay marriage where it was once legal. Accommodating gay couples with the same tax breaks man/woman marriages get, gay marriage was legal in California, until Mormons from Utah started scaring people through commercials with the idea that gays will make our children gay, etc, etc. The video above is a passive-aggressive proactive step towards stealing human rights. Gay couples love no more or less than straight couples, and as citizens of our society, are entitled to the same tax breaks as every other couple. That is my opinion because it makes sense. There wouldn’t even be an issue if our government hadn’t granted rights to one section of our great society while ignoring another. It’s not a question of religion, because I have no personal interest in disproving what another human being believes. It has everything to do with equal rights.

That in and of itself is worthy, but I felt that it didn’t address the core belief that s0lution was attempting to unleash on the thread that it was pefectly acceptible for “the majority” of Christians to impose their beliefs on others. So, therefore, I decided to intervene with this comment:

Anthony Kennerson
August 9, 2012 at 12:01 pm

Sorry, s0lution, but you are simply wrong about the attack on gay marriage, as well as the motives of supporters of “marriage”. At least, in my opinion.

First off, merely because a majority of the voters voted for Proposition 8 did not make it any less unconstitutional or any less a grievous act of discrimination against gays or lesbians wanting to have legitimate civil or social recognition for their loving relationships, or to have some of the same financial and social protections that heterosexuals have taken for granted. The California Supreme Court and various federal courts have already ruled Prop 8 as unconstitutional, so the point of “the will of the people” is simply moot. Besides, basic human equality should never be subjected to a plebiscite.

Secondly…you ignore the basic fact that the most fervent proponents of Prop 8 do indeed fundamentally and feverently oppose not only the recognition of same-sex marriage, but even the legitimacy and legality of consensual same-sex acts amongst adults. In short, they use their preexisting social and political power to impose THEIR assumptions about sexual behavior and morality on those who aren’t their kind of fundamentalists…and yet you say that it’s the gay marriage proponents who are the aggressors, and those defending the “institution” of hetero marriage their “victims”. An IMAX screen couldn’t do better projection than that.

And for the record, no one is saying to traditional churches that they must be forced to accept same-sex marriages if they don’t want; but that civil law must be adoptable to balance their religious beliefs with those who don’t choose to abide by them. Like it or not, non-traditional sexual lifestyles do exist, and real, live, law-abiding human beings engage in them regularly. As long as they do not violate any other laws and do not coerce others, it should be none of my or your business how they choose to celebrate their adult consenting relationships….and they have as much a right to civil equality in recognition of their relationships and kinship groups as any other American.

Only gross antisexual ignorance and fear of loss of assumed power justifies opposition to marriage equality…and no bit of self-serving sophistry about regulating “human behavior” will change that.

Apparently, that wasn’t the answer that s0lution wanted to hear…and like most right-wing fascists who don’t like other people calling them out on their bullshit arguments, he responded in the usual way: with a screed personally attacking me and resetting all the usual Tea Party/Religious Right talking points, albeit with the usual one-trick deceptions.

I did offer a brief response this morning to Julie’s blog, but I feel that this bit of temper tantrum deserves its own bit of fisking and analysis…so, I will break it — and him — down over here for your viewing pleasure.

Buckle up, Clones…it may get bumpy.

s0lution
August 12, 2012 at 10:49 pm

I did not “attack” anything. The only people who are attacking are those seeking to undermine and distort an age old institution.

Defending an existing institution – that has existed for many millennia – is not attacking.

Right…I mean, only our enemies attack; all we do is defend, because we are the ones always under attack from the evil secular humanists/sex pervs/Muslims/atheists who would undermine God’s grand plan for humanity…and our exclusive tax exempt status, and our right to convert everyone. Of course, nothig beats defending something just because it had existed for millenia (so, BTW, has consensual homosexual behavior amongst adults, which probably even predated the growth of Christianity); so why not defend slavery or forced circumcision or hazing on those grounds, too??

Kennerson, you are in no position to comment on the motives of the people you try to demonize, the people you despise. You disrespect the sense of the majority of Americans but no surprise there. And that’s your prerogative because the people you despise allow that right for you. Those with the sense of American values have always been out there to fight for our freedoms, from the beginning, over the years, until even now.

Dude….dude….who the HELL are you to assume MY motives in opposing your favored initiatives?? I didn’t say that I despised those who voted for Proposition 8 or everyone who voted for that proposal, but those who did due to blatant anti-gay prejudice do deserve much more than mere contempt. And remember, this is NOT about “the majority of Americans” and whether or not they support the rights of gay/lesbian folk to have their relationships recognized by the State via civil unions and marriages; this is about the tactics and memes of those who fervently oppose GLBT folks asserting their rights to fair and equal treatment. All of whom, incidentially, happen to be AMERICAN; and quite a few of them even having paid the ultimate sacrifice of fighting for their country to sustain both their and your freedom….even in spite of the harrassment and open prejudice they face.

And no, sonny, I no more need your approval or patronizing sneers to justify my right to speak my views than I need Lydia Lee’s approval, or NOM’s approval, or AHF’s approval, to speak my peace on the condom mandate. My rights as an American citizen and my duty as a sentinent human being are good enough reasons and justifications.

>>>you ignore the basic fact that the most fervent proponents of Prop 8 do indeed lfundamentally and feverently oppose not only the recognition of same-sex marriage, but even the legitimacy and legality of consensual same-sex acts amongst adults<<<
WRONG. PROVE THAT. THAT IS BASELESS. Did someone poll the majority of people who voted? Or are you just making stereotypes?

Ummmm…you did notice the qualifying phrase “the most fervent proponents”, did you?? I was talking about those who promoted and sponsored Prop 8, not those who ultimately voted for it…and their own statements and press releases are the proof. Now, the fact that they were able to garner a small majority of supporters in November 2008, thanks in no large part to their campaign of distortion and distraction, does say plenty about how deep homophobia and prejudice still remain even in one of the most “liberal” states in the Union…but even then, it says not much about the majority of the electorate. (And in fact, most recent polling does show that a majority of Americans do in fact SUPPORT marriage equality; and most Californians would, if given the chance, vote to repeal Prop 8 now.)

Besides that….my main point remains that essential basic human rights are not and should not be subject to a plebisite or a majority vote in a poll. That’s why we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights….and why California has its own Constitution.

In short, they use their preexisting social and political power to impose THEIR assumptions… blah blah blah. The ones who are trying to impose their will upon others are those trying to destroy the institution as it has existed for many millennia.

Ahhh, this old “the gays are attempting to destroy traditional marriage” trick. Never mind that no proponent of marriage equality has ever called for forcing fundamentalist consevative Christian churches to conduct gay marriages; or that the status of gay marriages or gay civil unions do not affect in any way the status of tradtional marriages or even the doctrine of more conservative Christian churches.

Unless, of course, “the institution” of “traditional marriage” is seen not as a religious sacrement or a civil recognition of a kinship relationship, but as a means of mass social control and discipline and regulation of sexual behavior. Then, of course, the mere recognition of those queers becomes a cosmic threat to right-wing fundamentalists who believe that sex is a privilege to be given only to those making lots and lots of babies for Jesus….and not to be misused or abused for such sinful, Satanic, un-Godly pleasures as butt-fucking or masturbation or slutting out.

Homosexual acts are not illegal now, and I’m not aware of anyone trying to make them illegal (I’m sure you can dig up fringe nutjob from somewhere saying something stupid, but plz spare us).

Oh, but you really need to get out more, s0lution…not only is sodomy still functionally illegal in many states (many of them still have their original sodomy laws on the books, just waiting for a more conservative United States Supreme Court to be shifted enough to the Right to restore their power to enforce such laws); but whole religious institutions hardly considered to be “fringe nutjobs” (would you call Pope Benedict XVI or Richard Land or the Catholic bishops “fringe nutjobs”??) have openly called for the return of sodomy laws and a general crackdown on “sexual libertinism”….which basically consists of all sex acts not involving procreation within marriage.

Non-traditional sexual lifestyles do exist, sure – and real, live, law-abiding human beings engage in them regularly – that’s right – although the numbers are around 2 to 3% – sure that’s OK. And those people and their supporters are ON THE ATTACK against the majority, to change a long standing institution. It’s not going to happen, sorry.

Actually, most surveys put the number of outed gays/lesbians at around 10%, and that doesn’t even cover “straight” people who regularly engage in homosexual” acts; nor does that cover those who engage in non-traditional sexual practices. (The ones involving consensual adults, that is. If you think that I am justifying nonconsensual acts or abuse of non-adults..well, that’s your issue, s0lution, not mine.) And even at that, even if it is just 2%, that 2% deserves the same right to equal protection from abuse and equal rights and responsibilities and treatment as the other 98%. Democracy does NOT equal mob rule.

By the way, many atheists agree – and many atheists voted for prop 8. I wonder why, if your theory is correct that it was a bunch of religious fundamentalists?

Gee…didn’t you just ask me for proof that those who voted for Prop 8 weren’t just religious fanatics or anti-gay bigots?? Yet you can assert that it was “atheists” who voted for Prop 8 without any verification of such?? Moving the goalposts much??

And just because some atheists might support your position does not make it any less corrosive or discrimnatory. Some Democrats used to vote for segregation, too. And plus…why must you assume that I am gay or an atheist??

Gross antisexual ignorance? Fear of loss of assumed power? So now you are attacking and smearing with false insults those who support traditional marriage.

Sophistry about regulating “human behavior ? No one is trying to regulate human behavior by defending marriage from attack. Americans are free to do what they want. You are even free to launch your attacks, as long as you don’t break the law. And you are free to live with the results.

I guess that the shoe fits all too tight for you, right?? So, merely because I make a point of defending marriage equality and the right of GLBT folk to their basic human rights, I am “attacking” conservatives like you?? What’s wrong, s0lution..can’t take the heat? And, exactly what “results” are you implying that I “live with”? That you reserve the right to take away my rights to oppose your campaign to privilege some people over others?

Gay marriage is not, and never was a “human right”. You can make the case for it being a “civil right” – and the “equal rights” angle is probably the best angle, but it still fails in the end.

So, let me break this down for you: Gays and lesbians are human beings. The only difference between them and other human beings is that they engage in acts of sexual love or lust with each other. So, when they assert their claims to the same rights, responsibilities, and protections that other human beings take for granted, that consists of a HUMAN RIGHT…regardless of how some other people may disagree. It is those who would claim to deny them such rights who have the burden of proving why they should be denied such….and simply quoting “Well, ‘traditional marriage’ has existed for thousands of years, and why change all that?” simply won’t wash any more. When it gets right down to it, the only justification for denying GLBT folk basic equality is the same justifications used by bigots and fascists for centuries: deep seated prejudice combined with a fear of a loss of their assumed power and superiority.

I really don’t think the outcome of the Prop 8 vote in California can be attributed to Mormons, just because they supported it. It represented the will of the people there, which you reject now since you lost – the liberal agenda which goes against the will of the people has the best chance of being foisted onto the people by activist judges in the courts.

That’s right, s0lution..go straight to the “activist liberal judges obstructing the will of the people” card. Because that’s all you and your Tea Party allies have left to justify your prejudice and hate. You do know that those “liberal activist judges” were appointed by the same politicians that “the people” put in office, right? Or, do only right-wing activists count as “the people” in your mind??

And if I remember right..I never mentioned “Mormons” anyways, other than the institutional support that the LDS Church hierarchy provided for the boosters of Prop 8.

Oh..and you do know that the same Cali electorate that passed Prop 8 also elected Barack Obama for President by nearly 20 percentage points, right?? Doesn’t he represent plenty of that “liberal agenda” that you so oppose?

Gay people are free to live together and practice their relationships how they want. And that is how it should stay. Your claims that homosexual couples are exactly the same of regular couples is incorrect – you can look at the statistics on that – you will always be able to find some anecdotal evidence of anything you want, a story here, a story there, but look at the stats. They don’t stay together as much, or as long, and they are statistically more promiscuous than their hetero counterparts. And again, they are free to do what they want – but they are not exactly the same.

And that matters….HOW????? How should that be used to deny those gays and lesbians and others who aren’t quite so “promiscuous” from getting their monogamous relationships recognized in the same legal way as heterosexuals?? Or…is it simply just…TEH SECKS that freaks you out?? I mean, marriage sure has done an excellent job of controlling the “promiscuity” of straight people, right?? Right?? RIGHT???

Part of American values is taking responsibility for yourself, and the life you choose to lead. Of course attacks on that particular core value are coming from the far left, which incidentally have adopted this issue as well.

Nothing wrong with taking responsibility at all…of course, it would be nice if those most exercised about lecturing people about “personal responsibility” would first seek to clean out their own advocates about their own indiscrections from their doctrine before they seek to impose their directives on others. Or…establishing their own exclusive monopoly on government and using it as a wedge and hammer to impose their power and hegemony on other folks.

In closing – the gay marriage proponents ARE the aggressors. And you can see even here from Anthony Kennerson’s comments that the gay marriage proponents tend to be disrespectful in their attacks against the defenders of marriage, making off-the-wall accusations and insinuating how ignorant or backward the defenders are. Lydia Lee makes some good points about tax breaks and equal rights – but also tends to generalize that the people who support marriage must be religious zealots. Obviously there is a theme here of taking on those stupid Christians, but there are actually bigger political and cultural concerns to this issue. This issue is best looked at in a secular way. There are forces that try to chip away at everything that makes America strong: from the way the economy and markets work to the strengths of the society. And there are all these “useful idiots” that jump on board with the attacks because it “makes sense” to them.

I hope I have given some good discussion/feedback.

For someone who accuses me of making assumptions about opponents of gay marriage, s0lution sure seems to make some genuine misassumptions about people like me. So, just as he concluded his bash with his principles, allow me to conclude this post with a restatement of mine.

Dude…I am NOT gay. Nor am I an atheist. I am very much a “straight”, hetero middle aged Black man who was borne of Catholic parents, and who have siblings who are very much devout Christians who probably would believe just as you do about “traditional marriage”.

But, unlike you, I do happen to believe that people should be judged by their actions, their deeds, their words, and, most importantly, how they treat their fellow human beings and other sentinent carbon life forms. How they prefer to engage in sexual relations with other consenting adults is NOT a deal breaker for me respecting them as free and equal human beings, or for asserting their rights to the same liberties, responsibilities, and autonomy that all Americans have earned by right of citizenship. If that makes me in your eyes part of the “far left”, then I plead guilty as charged…and I’m damn proud of it, too. Better to be part of the “Far Left” and speak for equality, justice, and truth than to be a part of the fascist Right any day of the week.

You may claim to paint a more “secular” justification for your prejudice against gay/lesbian folk but when all the smoke clears, it comes out to the same old tired antisex bullshit that “Christian” fundamentalists have smeared sexual dissidents and all other heretics with since time immortal: “If you aren’t our kind of Christian and fit your personal sex practices to our narrow definitions, then you should either convert or accept fifth-class status or simply die…and we will make damn sure that you suffer either way until you repent.” I don’t accept that kind of BS from antiporn “feminists” like Gail Dines; do you really think that your brandishment of “knowledge” will be any more effective in intimidating me?? Do you know me very well??

And no, s0lution, tacking your antigay prejudice to the traditional right-wing message of “free markets” and “keeping America strong” and selling it as “secular” isn’t going to cloak the essential bigotry you are promoting here. Been there, done that, watched the movie.

Whether you like it or not, s0lution, people engage in sex, and not just the kind that produces babies during “traditional marriages”. They have been doing so long before religious leaders attempted to drop their laws and edicts to control them, and they will continue to do so in spite of all your efforts to repress and contain those practices that freak your sorry ass out. It’s not “traditional marriage” and the “defense” of it by intimidating and wiping out its competitors that makes America strong; it’s the willingness to accept diversity and tap the resourcefullness of everyone who contributes to the grand plan of shared vision.

In other words, we’re not the threat, s0lution…YOU ARE. Adapt to reality and accept full equality for all, or just get run over by the inevitability of the present and the future..because those of us who believe in equality just aren’t going away quietly. Don’t like it?? Tough cookies, palie. Just do as you would lecture poor people to do: pull yourselves by your own bootstraps and DEAL WITH IT.

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Red Garter Club Blog (Version 3.2)

A slightly irreverent journal view of the world from the eyes of a Black, middle-aged, sex-positive Leftist. (Part of the Red Garter Club Network)

Author Archives: Anthony

Gail Dines’/Stop Porn Culture’s Latest Poop Fest: Throttling Routledge Press’ Porn Studies Journal Because Sexual McCarthyism…errrrrrr, “Academic Bias”

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An Open Letter To The Pro-Sex/Anticensorship Left: Time To Arise From Your Slumber

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Meet Meghan Murphy…The Latest And Greatest Town Crier Of The GenderBorg RadFem Hive Of Crazaa

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WOW. Just…WOW. Gail Just Can’t Help Herself. Jumping The Porn Censorship Shark In Iceland

Iceland considers pornography ban

Iceland could become the first Western democracy to attempt censorship of the internet under radical proposals to block online pornography.

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Maggie Mayhem. Game. Set. Match. World Championship. Sit Down, Gail, And Read How It’s Supposed To Be Done.

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Memo To Kink.com: Gun Play Is NOT A Kink Fetish…..It Is A Crime!!

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Why CounterPunch Could Seriously Use Some Sex-Positive Education: More Kink.com Bashing From The “Anarchist” Wing

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Because When Life Deals You Lemons, Whine And Bully The One Who Has The Scoreboard On You: Gail Dines, Jordan Owen, and “Squish Muffins”

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The Latest Gail Dines Whackadoodle: Kink.com = “Torture Porn”…Send In The United Nations!!!

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Responding To A Fundamentalist Anti-Gay Troll (To [No]S0lution Via Julie Meadows’ Blog Re: Marriage Equality)

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Iceland could become the first Western democracy to attempt censorship of the internet under radical proposals to block online pornography.

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