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[flexibeast]

donnaidh_sidhe recently posted an excellent rage to feminist_rage. i thought it addressed a number of criticisms of sex-positive feminism very well, and donnaidh_sidhe granted me permission to post it on the Pleasure Activism Australia Web site. So i've done so, under the title "A response to a critique of sex-positive feminism".

One particular thing that donnaidh_sidhe quoted but didn't comment on was:

Sex positive feminists not only dismiss the idea that porn causes men to view women as objects for their use, and encourages sexual objectification and violence, even when ex-porn-using men tell them it does

So because a number of ex-porn-using men say that it encouraged them to objectify and perpetrate acts of violence against women, then it's definitely true? And not only true for them, but true for all men who use porn? Some people claim that the Devil, or God, made them commit acts of violence - do we automatically believe them? Could it not be that the perpetrators of such acts are seeking absolution by claiming that they aren't responsible for their actions? It certainly wouldn't surprise me if people who are willing to treat other human beings with such disrespect and disdain were also willing to support any notion that shifts the burden of responsibility away from them, and onto something else.

Following on from that: the author of the quote identifies as a radical feminist. But what's so 'radical' about a position which essentially says that men are not responsible for their actions? That, having used porn, they had no choice but to act the way they did? i fail to see how this is substantially different from the patriarchal arguments made by religious reactionaries that say that women must cover themselves up, must "behave modestly" lest they 'provoke' the uncontrollable lust of men.

No, i think the 'radical' position is to reject the notion that men's brains consist purely of a hypothalamus, and instead demand that men take responsibility for their actions, and be held accountable for their behaviour.