donations for Katherine Brengle

while she's out on the front lines ... flak jacket:



What else should we get her?

go Katherine!!

Hard hat


Flame Suit


Hip Boots


Nice work, Katherine! :thumbsup:

why not just ask her what she needs?:shrug:

What else do you need? :D

Seriously though, I'm good - it's never easy to go into GD and post about something like that. I think we all know that going in. I admit I am shocked at just how far it went.

and posted an article suggesting that hate speech and violence as a feature of mainstream porn was perhaps harmful in some way to women.

Thread summary so far:

women aren't qualified to say how the porn industry affects women
men who don't watch porn aren't qualified to discuss the porn industry
men who watch porn and don't enjoy it aren't qualified to discuss the porn industry
anyone who hasn't worked as a prostitute or porn producer isn't qualified to discuss the affects of porn on general society
some men need to exploit women for medical reasons, so women are obligated to make themselves available to them - for their health
anyone who publishes a book is not qualified to speak on anything - their thoughts become invalid upon publication
men on the left can't oppose porn because they have an agenda
men on the right can't oppose porn because they have an agenda
if the culture condones violence against women, then it's natural to get off on it, and therefore it's a good thing
those who haven't done scientific studies aren't qualified to speak against porn
those who have done scientific studies and oppose porn didn't do their studies right
if the majority of scientific studies point to damage done by porn, those should be disregarded and the subject should be changed ASAP
men who oppose the exploitation of women are excessively macho and homophobic (no, really, that was one argument)
women who aren't on board with hate speech and violence against women as entertainment are frigid and oppose all sex

did I miss anything?

And we don't live in a porn culture so if you don't like it you can just ignore it.



Oh, and today, I flipped through the July 2007 issue of Glamour while at the salon. There was an article about what men think of women's bodies (well, mostly their sexual parts) and one woman said she met a guy who thought women were naturally free of hair on their genitals (and I guess under our arms as well). Wonder where he got that idea?

Also, another guy was surprised when his partner did not like his pulling her hair when they were "in doggy-style position."

But, hey, if you don't like porn, just turn it off!

shave/wax and like getting their hair pulled while in "doggy-style position." They're out there.

Not all women like vanilla sex. People just need to find compatible sexual partners.

Quite honestly, I think porn makes people lazy and rigid. What happens if you, god forbid, fall in love with someone who doesn't like those things? That's when some emotional maturity might help along with the willingness to accept that not everyone is turned on by the same things. See post #11.

If you fall in love with someone who isn't sexually compatible with you, it's not going to work out in the long run. That doesn't have anything to do with emotional maturity; it's a fact. Trust me, all it results in is pain and heartache. Cuddling only gets you so far. Sex isn't the most important thing in a relationship, but it is a very important part.

I'm glad my fiancee and I are basically turned on by the same things, many of which are considered "wrong" by the "feminists" here. In my experience, without that and a pretty matched sex drive, things just won't work out, no matter how much you try.

Saying how sad it is that so many people are defending their right to hurt women and watch women being degraded means you are automatically for censorship, and therefore, liked the Bush Admin torturing all those people in Abu Ghraib.

Oh, yeah, and talking about how women are treated makes you hysteric and a prude. (guess that kind of goes with frigid and opposing all sex)

almost all adults are walking wounded when the comes to this subject.:dilemma:

It's a real shame that we CAN'T discuss this without imploding.

My husband and I managed to. It wasn't easy, at first, because all I'd ever known when I was 27 years old was men that treated me like a blow up doll. I might as well have not been there. So, it was a little shocking when my husband and I first got together and I didn't really know what to do. I had given birth to three daughters at that point and all I knew how to do was lay there and hope it was over soon.

Of course, my husband is a wonderful man, who I love and trust more than anyone in the world. HE gets it and being able to talk to him, to discuss issues like how sex is viewed in America has only made me a better person.

But I digress. I got frustrated on that thread and I lost my temper, which I try hard not to do.

Some of it is, but not all. It's ridiculous to paint it all with a broad brush.

But when trying to have a discussion with others about the content of Katherine's thread (it specifically dealt with the effect that degrading and/or violent porn had on society and men's views of women). I've SEEN porn that was pretty well done and was not degrading or violent. Both partners seemed to be having fun and it was pretty erotic.

But, the other stuff, the blow jobs till she gags sort of thing... that's generally not something that most women would WANT to do and the way the men talk to the women in those movies is VERY degrading. Obviously, not all women are alike, nor are all men. I can't say with any certainly that NO woman wants to give a man a blow job until she gags, but I, personally, don't think there are many that think that's a good sexual experience.

And thank you for understanding the distinction between ALL of something, and PART of something lol.

seemed pretty un-fantasylike, as well. And I know from personal experience that, when men watch a lot of that sort of stuff, they THINK that women want to do it too. Luckily, I those men and am married to a wonderful man now who is quite the champion of women's rights and the treatment of women.

I really appreciate your posting that article, even if I ended up having a huge headache from banging my head against my desk in frustration. My husband and I both got a lot out of it.

It was buried in the post, but if you haven't read it already, "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" by Ariel Levy was a fantastic book discussing women's roles in their own subjugation. I didn't agree with everything she said, but I certainly got a lot out of it.

certain things in porn, and certain types of porn, that are degrading and hurtful to women.

And the industry as whole is hurtful to women.

I'm sure there are tastefully made, respectful pornographic movies out there, but all of the ones I've seen (cringe) have been the mainstream horrible to women variety. And this isn't even way out there kind of stuff - it's right off the new releases shelf kind of stuff.

I think it's difficult to have a discussion in a place as big as this and make those kind of distinctions with any success - everything has to be black and white for the large audience to understand it, it seems.

but it seems that anything other loving caresses and gentle missionary sex is degrading and hurtful, according to a lot of women here.

and at least in the women's forum, it's a little out of place. In GD, it would fit right in.

Anyone want to take time to explain why those fighting the patriarchy might have issues with sex being defined exclusively as "the missionary position"?

vanilla sex, what is that? Is that code for phallocentric sex?

If you think that's what getting rid of the patriarchal power structure is all about, you done missed the boat.

and assume that is someone is against porn they must therefore be against sex.

the gist of one of the comments was that if you weren't enthused about pornography that is degrading to women, you'd never get laid - your bed would be empty, I think is what they said.

That was about the only real man-hating comment I saw in the thread - the implication being that there aren't any men who don't get off on images of women being degraded. (If we don't like THOSE men, we hate ALL men.)

I hate to quote wikipedia, but here's a definition of vanilla sex:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla_sex

And no, it's not code for phallocentric sex, which I rather enjoy.

I'm glad I haven't done missed the boat, by the way. I'll accept an apology for your pre-emptive attack over a definition you didn't understand.

"Among heterosexual couples in the Western world, vanilla sex often refers to the missionary position."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A critique of the term "vanilla sex" that ought to be read by anyone contemplating using the term:

"How White Folks “Other” Themselves for Fun and Profit"
http://www.adonismirror.com/07182005_leader_vanilla.htm

"Among heterosexual couples in the Western world, vanilla sex often refers to the missionary position. Among homosexual men it sometimes implies that the activity is non-insertive (i.e. intercrural intercourse, frottage etc.). It can also be used to describe insertive sex without any element of BDSM or any fetish. The British Medical Journal defines it as "Sex that does not extend beyond affection, mutual masturbation, and oral and anal sex." <1>"

As for that "critique," I believe the author read way too far into a simple term, with the following origin:

"The term "vanilla" derives from the use of vanilla extract as the basic flavoring for ice cream, and by extension meaning "plain" or "conventional". Thus, the term "vanilla" is sometimes used as an insult to describe someone who is overly conventional or unwilling to take risks, in both sexual and non-sexual contexts."

in WANTING to believe that those who oppose misogynistic porn are - as you first put it - only capable of or desiring of missionary sex, which incidentally is how your link describes the common interpretation in the western world.

We've said very directly, we oppose misogynistic themes in heterosexual porn. Why not take that at face value?

Why do you have a need to make up shit beyond that?

Instead of saying "you must like only missionary sex" or "you must like vanilla sex" or implying people are boring and bored in bed, why not say "you must not like sex that is degrading to women or sex that is based upon unequal power."

Is that SO hard?

so-called "vanilla" lol.

How far do we have to go to be in the cool kids club?

I'm not part of any "cool kids club," believe me.

It's about the people around here who seem to think sex beyond that is somehow "wrong."

That's what I have a problem with, and there are plenty of posts around here that say that, but to link to them would be calling out DUers and breaking the rules.

I needed a little laughter.

The Porn Wars seem to have died down a bit, though unfortunately no good really seems to have come from them.