Thomas Roche (@ThomasRoche) just used the pages of TinyNibbles.com (where he now shares co-contributor status with Violet Blue (The Sex Blogger)), and also the pages of Our Porn, Ourselves (OurPornOurselves.org), to issue the absolute best refutation of the Radical “Feminist” wingnut that is Gail Dines….especially targeting her recent steaming pile of hot mess she posted posted to the Austrailian Sydney Morning Herakl.
The entire article stands on its own, and I strongly suggest you go to either TinyNibbles (be warned, though, contains NSFW content and links) or OPO and read through it. But, for inspiration’s sake, here’s some snippage of how absolutely on point Roche demysitfies the true nature of Dines’ sex hating foundation (stronger points by Roche emphasized by me in bold):
To Dines, “culturally imposed myths about their sexuality” means specifically the myth that women like sex, or, to meeet Dines and Murphy much more than halfway, the myth that women like the kind of sex specifically portrayed in pornography, since the sum total of Dines’ and Murphy’s “case studies” in the Guardian article are that they hear from women who feel pressured for sex. “They have been told over and over that in order to be valued in such a culture, they must look and act like sluts, while not being labeled slut because the label has dire consequences including being blamed for rape, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-mutilation.”
But who’s doing the blaming here? Dines and Murphy are the ones who just blamed sluts for eating disorders and self-mutilation! I’m slut-positive — and, just speaking for myself, I blame eating disorders and self-mutilation on a sick, diseased Patriarchal society, dysfunctional mental health and health insurance systems, rampant soulless Capitalism, sex-phobic family interactions, sex-silencing religious structures, a culture that teaches girls they are less than boys…need I go on?
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I would assert that one of the most dominant and pervasive myths about female sexuality is the idea that women don’t like sex. Its close corollaries are “good girls don’t like sex” and “normal women don’t like sex,” and “women don’t like abnormal sex.” Whether that is one of the chief myths that creates gendered violence, I don’t know, but it’s certainly true that what follows close on that myth’s heels is the idea that, by liking sex, by liking “abnormal” sex, or by liking “normal” sex but liking it an “abnormal” amount, women abdicate their right to physical sanctity. For a women’s studies professor, Dines sure seems to blame the victim a lot. Is this woman friends with Camile Paglia?
Or, to see it another way, women abdicate their right to physical sanctity for liking sex without it being the kind of sex that “normal” women like. Women place themselves in jeopardy, says Dines, by being “sluts,” which to Dines means that their sex is not about, or not just about, “connection, empathy, tenderness, caring, affection.” That is to say, the crime of sluts is by liking sex without letting Gail Dines decide what kind of sex they have.
In Dines’ view, Women who choose to be “sluts,” especially proud sluts, are partly responsible for rape — not just their own, but all rape.
Because they like sex differently than Dines’ so-called “normal” women, “sluts” undermine their right not only to their own physical sanctity, but the sanctity of all women, in Dines’ view. That sounds like a pretty narrow definition of “normal,” and one that Dines has single-handedly decided on.
But how normal is normal, Gail? In case you haven’t noticed, “normal” sexual relationships are very often royally fucked up! Did Dines burst forth from Zeus’s skull the same year as AOL, or does she honestly not remember that sexual relationships were fucked up before the internet — even, believe it or not, before commercial porn?
And this is even before Roche debunks Dines’ cracked and burnt beyond recognition slander of the term “gonzo”…but I don’t want to give too much away.
Just go there and read for yourself.
