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Dear Uncle Biblitz,
I gave birth 6 months ago and I keep finding porn Web sites on my computer? I hate this feeling and I want to know if I
am overdoing this. My husband and I have been together for 5 years and I have found porn DVDs a few times, but
he has said they weren't his and thought i would believe it. We got a computer 4 months ago and I have been finding porn
sites. I never used to look for them until I was cleaning out history one day and found some. So now he deletes them
but I still find them sometimes. Should I really be spying should I let it be? I just feel disrespected by him. At first,
he denied it, but now he says, 'Well its not illegal and I'm an adult and I can do what i want. ... You watch soap operas
so why can't I watch porn? To me there's a big difference. I just feel like crying like I'm not good enough. He is looking
at other naked women doing sexual things. Please give me advice on how I should be acting.
We have sex more than once a week. I have also suggested watching porn with him instead of him hiding it from me and he
said he would feel weird.
Biblitz replies:
You're right to be offended b/c porn:
- injures ALL women when the image of mother/sister/daughter is objectified for use as a tool for masturbation;
- shows flagrant disregard for the fact that the growing porn /
human sex-slave industry already at an all-time
historical high relies on a steady stream of ever-younger victims who are anything BUT consenting adults;
- suggests a preference for the FANTASY that this predatory hobby is in some way a 'normal healthy outlet' for
what is erroneously believed by these hobbyists to be the more vigorous male sex drive. Even the most cursory reading
of scientific data refutes this.
- demonstrates an insulting, obsessive/compulsive preference to be childishly self-absorbed in a way that relies
on while denying a predatory sex trade and this even when it is clearly injuring you, his partner.
As you can see, though he apparently can't, it's an uncreative set-up not only of innocent victims, who are often
kidnapped and tortured for these images, which are later computer enhanced for his 'pleasure.' This is a for-profit
enterprise deliberately intended to breed a legion of discontented addicts, who will keep spending money on this
stuff because they're always just this side of satisfied.
The worst of it is that before too long, porn addicts are no good as sexual partners in an authentic adult
relationship. They're dissatisfied wankers who need
Viagra by age 25-30! Ugh!
At the end of the day, if one partner is disturbed by the predatory habits of the other and the other refuses to
cut it loose, well, you know where you are (and where the door is!)
DVD
A thought-provoking chronicle of the odyssey of two women, Bonnie (Sherr) Klein, the director of the film, and Lindalee Tracey, a stripper. Together they set out to explore the world of peep shows, strip joints and sex supermarkets. Both are motivated by the desire to know more about pornography - why it exists, the forms it takes, and how it affects relations between men and women. Not a Love Story offers insights and perspectives from men and women who earn their living in the porn trade, and from some of pornography's most outspoken critics. This film contains sexually explicit material that may be disturbing to some people. (From the NFB Web site accessed Oct. 29/09)
More on the ground-breaking Hite Report,
which revealed the truth about women's sexuality, finally debunking the myth that men somehow possess a more urgent and intense
sex drive. In fact, as Hite discovered, it's most often the reverse!
People for sale in Canada? The answer will
shock you.
Pornography silences women, suppresses the voices of women's sexuality, constrains women's options, and maintains their subordination in a male-dominated world. We live, they argue, in a culture in which simulated (or real) rape, mutilation, torture, or even murder of a woman are routinely presented to men by men, with the intention (and effect) of making men experience desire, of turning men on, of eliciting erection.
More about ECPAT International (End Child Prostitution
Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes.
More about the explosion in human trafficking
worldwide thanks largely to Internet technologies.
Pornography "is not a celebration of sexual freedom," writes Susan Brownmiller, "it is a cynical exploitation of female
sexual activity through the device of making all such activity, and consequently all females, 'dirty.'" Pornography is
"designed," she continues, "to dehumanize women, to reduce the female to an object of sexual access, not to free
sensuality from moralistic or parental inhibition."
Each click on a porn image makes the purveyor of misery that much richer!
Hardcover
Edited by Michael S. Kimmel
More of the book.
More about NOMAS (National Organization of Men Against Sexism) and The
Harmfulness of Pornography by Robert Brannon, accessed online Nov. 1/09.
Pornography is not just men looking. It is men producing images for men to consume. And consume it we do. In 1984, for
example, 200 million issues of 800 different hard- and soft-core magazines were sold in the United States alone,
generating over $750 million.
And most of the images produced by men to be consumed by men are images of women. In 1970, the
President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography found that 90 per cent of all pornographic material is geared to male heterosexuals and 10 per
cent is geared to male homsexuals, and that consumers of pornography are "predominately white, middle-class, middle-aged
married males." Though today more women are both producing and cosuming pornography, and men always appear in gay male
pornography, the percentages probably remain comparable, I'd estimate that now male heterosexual pornography might
compose 80 per cent of the market, with that for gay men constituting 15 per cent, and for women, the remaining five per
cent. ...
To some women, pornography is, in the words of Susan Brownmiller, "the undiluted essence of anti-female propaganda." To
these women, pornography graphically illustrates the subordination of women in our culture. And what is particularly
objectionable about pronography is that it renders this brutal subordination so that men can experience sexual arousal
and pleasure from it. Pornography, as John Stoltenberg puts it, "makes sexism sexy." And they feel it is a major cause
of men's violence against women - especially rape. As Robin Morgan
wrote, "Pornography is the theory, rape is the practice."
Other women ... have claimed that pornography has helped them to break away from the traditional passive definitions of
women's sexuality and to claim a more active, vital sexuality. ...
... I think that men have been the silent spectators in the debate about pornography because, quite simply, we don't know
what to say. ...
... Men need to raise the issue, to examine the role of pornography in our lives. A lot is at stake. Although most
pornographic images are of women, pornography is, at its heart, about men. It is about men's relationships
with sexuality, with women, and with each other. It is about women as men want them to be, and about our own sexual
selves as we would like them to be. Whether or not pornographic images determine our sexual behaviors, there is little
doubt that these images depict men's fantasies about sexuality - both women's sexuality and our own. ...
Feminist writers such as Susan Brownmiller, Andrea Dworkin,
Susan Griffin,
Catharine MacKinnon, and Robin Morgan have also
confronted the traditional liberal idea that pornography is protected by the First Amendment right of freedom os speech.
Their argument is that pornography is not freedom of expression but itself a form of censorship: Pornography silences
women, suppresses the voices of women's sexuality, constrains women's options, and maintains their subordination in a
male-dominated world. We live, they argue, in a culture in which simulated (or real) rape, mutilation, torture, or even
murder of a woman are routinely presented to men by men, with the intention (and effect) of making men experience
desire, of turning men on, of eliciting erection. ...
If a man's freedom of speech requires the silencing of women, there is only partial freedom and surely no justice.
Pornography "is not a celebration of sexual freedom," writes Susan Brownmiller, "it is a cynical exploitation of female
sexual activity through the device of making all such activity, and consequently all females, 'dirty.'" Pornography is
"designed," she continues, "to dehumanize women, to reduce the female to an object of sexual access, not to free
sensuality from moralistic or parental inhibition." Pornograhy does not represent a liberating breath of free sexuality
in the normally stale and fetid air of conservative censoriousness; it is only the sexualization of that traditional
patriarchal world. Pornography is not rebellion; it is conformity to a sexist business-as-usual. (From
Introduction: Guilty Pleasures, pgs. 1-15)
Paperback
By Mary Daly
... From the witch trials, brought about by
the bonding of theologians and legal specialists, to the
Hearst trial
effected by the bonding of secular theologians (psychiatrists) and attorneys, the dis-spiriting process is essentially
the same. Whereas the christian cross glorified suffering as a means to purification and ultimate joy in the
"Afterlife," the contemporary secular sadomasochistic gospel proclaims that female suffering is joy. Thus
even the agony of Patty Hearst was perceived by many as "a rich girl getting her kicks."
A Rolling Stones billboard atop Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in 1976 depicted a
woman (Anita Russell) with hands tied together and legs
spread apart, accompanied by the words, "I'm Black and Blue' from the Rolling Stones - and I love it!" The anonymous
authors of a 1977 Time article entitled,
Really Socking It to Women, paternally
discuss some gimmicks
of "kings of kink" who admittedly seek revenge against women. With Timely detachment they write of the men who shoot
photos of women mutilating themselves, and describe the men who design albums with pictures of women chained, women
hanged, women gang-raped. Predictably, they find a woman psychiatrist who is willing to claim that all of this
corresponds to masochistic fantasies of independent women. (footnote omitted) Thus the rape of the female mind /
will, the message of the Virgin Mary's impregnation by the holy ghost, is repeated and completed in the "joyful"
secular S and M resurrection of the torture cross. (From Dismemberment by Christian and Postchristian Myth,
pgs. 94-95)
... Although some women on some occasions have the "privilege" of being directly addressed by such names as cunt
or pussy, most of the time this language is used in all-male environments. Yet it is the common male view of
all women and, although most women do not hear it directly, we receive the message in a muted way. It is conveyed
through silences, sneers, jeers, excessive politeness, paternalistic praise and disapproval, aggressive physical
contact (an arm around the shoulder, a pat on the behind), invasive stares. ...
Moreover, women are conditioned to pretend not to hear/see the constant and violent bombardments of obscenity, for we
have been taught the lesson that since verbal violence is a "substitute" for physical assault, we should be grateful
for such seemingly mild manifestations of misogynism. ... Exorcising this invasive presence requires acknowledging
its existence and refusing to shuffle. (From Spooking: Exorcism, Escape, and Enspiriting Process, pgs.
323-324)
Male authors have provided ample evidence that the bonding of androcratic aggressors is established and maintained
through the fabrication of misogynistic symbol systems. Thus,
George Gilder, author of a confused and arrogant book
supposedly dealing with feminism, becomes quite explicit when discussing his own sex. He writes of training in
Marine Corps boot camp:
From the moment one arrives, the drill instructors begin a torrent of misogynistic and anti-individualist abuse.
The good things are manly and collective; the despicable are feminine and individual. Virtually every sentence
sentence, every description, every lesson embodies this sexual duality, and the female anatomy provides a rich
field of metaphor for every degradation.
When you want to create a solidary group of male killers, that is what you do, you kill the woman in them.
That is the lesson of the Marines. And it works. (footnote omitted) (From Sparking: The Fire of Female
Female Friendship, pgs. 357-358)
