Posted by xuli on 2006-01-04 16:29:21
Post Subject:
Her most famous/controversial book is called Intercourse. I haven't read it, but have read a lot of things where it is discussed.
Mostly I'm just bumping this thread because I'm interested in what people have to say. My view of Dworkin has always been that she was a great feminist thinker with a few misguided ideas. But I wonder, too, if she's been vilified precisely because she was a famous feminist activist. For instance, I'm deeply skeptical of her anti-porn and anti-sex-work activism -- but I think it's as dangerous to uncritically affirm the sex industry. And I worry about some of the more uncritical versions of "pro-sex feminism" that are out there.
It's all very complicated. And I think Dworkin made some really important contributions. And I wish that people had done more serious engagement with her ideas -- the positive and the negative -- rather than dismissing them out of hand,
Posted by anthrogirl on 2006-01-12 13:25:31
Post Subject:
Her most famous/controversial book is called Intercourse. I haven't read it, but have read a lot of things where it is discussed.
Mostly I'm just bumping this thread because I'm interested in what people have to say. My view of Dworkin has always been that she was a great feminist thinker with a few misguided ideas. But I wonder, too, if she's been vilified precisely because she was a famous feminist activist. For instance, I'm deeply skeptical of her anti-porn and anti-sex-work activism -- but I think it's as dangerous to uncritically affirm the sex industry. And I worry about some of the more uncritical versions of "pro-sex feminism" that are out there.
It's all very complicated. And I think Dworkin made some really important contributions. And I wish that people had done more serious engagement with her ideas -- the positive and the negative -- rather than dismissing them out of hand,
Dworkin made very important contributions. Her work was used by the Canadian censorship people to block gay and lesbian porn from Canada, and to seize books on anal health a from small gay bookstore. Her work in the US has been good too- she was one of the people who promoted tolerance against differently-pleasured women (swingers, SMers) in the feminist movement, so that many of us are afraid to publically join our other feminist sisters for fear of being humiliated again. She promoted dialogue between men and women by making and insisting upon the unprovable assertion that at least 1/2 of all women have been raped, and by saying that all men are potential rapists. She claimed that all porn was evil and damaging, regardless of audience, purpose, or content; in other words, what you might do in your bedroom with a videocamera is equivalent to a snuff film or Devil in Miss Jones. She also said that all consensual sex between a man and a woman was rape because of the power differential.
Whatever I may think of the porn industry or some male sex fantasies, I don't think Ms. Dworkin was simply slightly misguided. I think she was a very sad, emotionally disturbed woman whose horrifying sexual experiences drove her to the brink- and I say that because I've read Intercourse and some of her other work. She horrifies me. She and Katherine McKinnon are the fundamentalist lunatic fringe of the feminist movement, and their works are filled with hypocrisy and willful myopia about real women and their lives. Women, in fact, do read porn all the time- they call it 'romance novels'. They watch porn- they call it 'Desperate Housewives', or reading up on what Brad and Angelina are doing. Porn isn't always about men dominating women, or about men at all.
I must say that I am not in favor of groups like Cake and Suicide Girls. I don't think Britney Spears and Jenna Jamison are good role models. I dislike mainstream porn because it's almost always insulting to both men and women, and refuses to see women's sexuality as fluid and not necessarily male-centered. However, the truth is most people watch porn because they think sex is dirty, not because they see it as life-affirming or beautiful. Many of my dominatrix friends try to get their clients to see that an exchange of power isn't role reversal- it means both people have something to bring to the table, and it doesn't have to be about pain or degradation.
