Male feminists and porn

[AmyFarrahFowlerCooper]

Can a man who believes he is a feminist be interested in porn? Or does that kind of negate his believing he is a feminist?

I explained it too, lib. Right upthread.

Don't disagree with her on third-wave, though. Or whenthe.

Kinda obvious isn't it?

It's not like women don't enjoy sex so I'm not quite sure what anyone would gain from spitefully pretending to object to lovely, feminist-friendly porn if such a thing did exist?

It's just that, given the structure of the society we live in, such an animal couldn't survive.

Seriously who just types in 'porn' into a search engine. I think you'll find people tend to be a bit more specific about these things.

Ah, shit.

You know what we're doing wrong? We're searching for porn all wrong.

In other words, a fluffy version of porn produced for men so that men can foist on their women. Then they can say that porn is okay because women do it too.

mmm it seems you have conveniently cherry picked one element that happens to involve men and interpreted in the most negative way possible. What about the stuff on the feminist porn awards link that was referenced, did you check that out? I only put up the wiki link in consideration for work place viewing

It's not like women don't enjoy sex so I'm not quite sure what anyone would gain from spitefully pretending to object to lovely, feminist-friendly porn if such a thing did exist? confused

but it does exist, your right you do need to improve your searching skills.
I get it though, even if you knew of it's existence you would never admit to it anyway. Otherwise most of the anti porn arguments used against men would start to go out of the window and that wouldn't do now would it?

One of the problems here is that,even if there is this niche of woman friendly, non exploitative, right on, Dworkin approved porn, how would be recognise it? How could we be sure?

I'm sure it is possible to have ethically produced diamonds, for example, but I won't wear a diamond until I can be absolutely sure that the one I buy is. No hardship- diamonds are a luxury item I can well do without. The same goes for porn. It is possible to live happy,productive, sexually fulfilled lives without it. It it also possible (gasp) to live a happy, productive life but not be sexually fulfilled!

I wonder if perhaps as I have suspected for some time there is something wrong with a lot of men's attitude to sex itself? I think if that was picked apart and understood we might get somewhere. I believe porn reflects this central problem back at us, and were we to find a way to correct this, porn, if it even still existed would along with sex itself probably be perfectly fine and healthy.

I think there might be a pretty long wait.

lib - no, I don't believe it does exist.

This has been explained.

derv - I think yes, there's probably something wrong with all of our attitudes to sex.

That's something that has occurred to me too Dervel. Maybe not just men though.

But the fact that porn is the expression is unlimited fantasy, unfettered by any other consideration except pleasure, and this is what emerges is worth considering.
If there wasn't something dark there in our attitudes surely porn would naturally be woman friendly and cuddly and equal? It wouldn't be a niche thing that needed to be sought out.

Thanks LRDY - you were quite right.

I put the phrase feminist porn in quotation marks because I was, um, quoting .

You may find you have to explain and justify that a bit better.

I mean, you just stated it.

As if it were something obvious.

I feel a thorough review of punctuation-related semantics is necessary before we can accept your usage, and ideally for as long as it takes to keep the discussion off the subject of the OP and the poor, poor men who just want to be free to watch their porn.

libertarianj are you going to respond to the questions I asked you upthread or are you just going to talk about me in the third person?

You know, I find the whole subject of so called "feminist porn" (that was a quote) pretty tedious. However, it does highlight the increasingly common phenomenon of co-opting the word feminist (or using feminist language) in order to repackage internalized sexism and sell it to women as something positive for us.

It's like that hideous word 'empower' - a word that mostly seems to be used to repackage the idea of acting like a male gaze sex object as something liberating for a woman to do.

It is such a load of bullshit.

It's reminding me of Basil's most excellent feministy lemon drizzle cake thread we had a while back

LRDY

Yes, why are we talking about the misogyny in porn or focusing on the men who consume porn when we could be analysing the various usages of inverted commas...?!

(I used ?! to express questioning surprise - HTH)

I could fancy some lemon drizzle cake.

I posted a delicious lemonade recipe yesterday.....

You can always tell when an interesting and potentially educational discussion about a serious topic has gone to ratshit when someone has to start with the sarcasm. If you are bored of the subject, why not just stay out?

if you are not why not just add to it?

I'm not bored with the subject, though. I'm bored with digressions and with people who can't be bothered to read the thread before complaining that no-one has yet addressed their point, when it has in fact been addressed several times.

Can men use porn and still be seen as feminists?

We've now debated pretty thoroughly whether or not such a thing as 'feminist porn' exists, and I think we've established that some of us believe this is a question whose answer lies in analysing the structure of society and the nature of gender relations, while others thing a quick wank google would be better.

It's fun and all, but what's wrong with a little light relief, lemonade and lemon cake, before we get back to the subject?

Yes, I think that's absolutely true. I think the vast majority of sexism/misogyny is like that - people don't think 'ah, I have conceived an enormous hatred of women, now I will put it into practice'.

Interesting how the figure of Jeremy Clarkson springs to mind in both the feminist and the prius example ...

Very true.
Seen too among ourselves not men only.

Re your hypothetical man - I said the same thing on page 2. Most men agree with equality for women in the eyes of the law. The basic tenets of feminism are a different thing entirely. The patriarchy, hatred of women, institutional sexism - most men will find these concepts a bit of a stretch, if they are aware of them at all. And most men will find vanilla porn acceptable because it's accessible, free and for the vast majority, appears to have willing participants.

Convenient, cheap and apparently without a victim - like so much in our society.

^...and so to the majority, feminists who speak of the inherent misogyny and harm inherent in all porn are similar to the people who speak against car ownership. They seem a bit bonkers?

Feminist porn is the Toyota Prius of porn! ^

yeah i see what you mean, and i will just add that getting people to ditch their cars would be nigh on impossible and would restrict their freedom of choice, whereas getting people to use greener vehicles is a lot more feasible prospect and is surely the sensible way forward?