piny:

I agree that there’s a difference. My concern is over just what “engaging with the text” is supposed to mean in this context.

B/L:

I’m not concerned with whether you’re “nice” or “rude” towards MacKinnon, Morgan, et al. What I’m wondering is whether or not you are trying to represent their work fairly and accurately in the course of criticizing it, given that you apparently deny this in the comment above. Maybe you meant something else by it, in which case my worries are misplaced.

So, just to be clear, in this series of posts (I know that in other posts you’ve taken a very different argumentative stance), are you just saying that you intend to return rudeness because you think you’re getting rudeness from the contributors? Or are you also saying that you intend to return uncharitable reading, cheap-shot argument, etc., because you think you’re getting uncharitable reading, cheap-shot argument, etc. from the contributors? If it’s the former, then that’s my bad for reading too much into your statement. But if it’s the latter, then why would this kind of “you-too” argument excuse perpetrating more of the same stuff that you’re condemning?

No, it’s not just you. Yes, the drive-by sneer is nasty, unwarranted, and sexist.

However.

piny:

Now, B/L does not mince words. She is splenetic. At no point does she use the passive voice. But she is arguing. She is engaging with the text. Whatever you might think about her logic, or her motives, or her activities and beliefs on other levels, she’s making arguments about what MacKinnon is saying and how MacKinnon has said it.

That’s not a full description of what B/L is doing, though. Here’s her own self-explanation in a comment on this series of posts:

it’s part of the “no more ms. nice bitch” series and, as such, i’m purposefully not being fair, or nice, or reasonable, or any such thing. why? because this book, the one that’s inspring these rants, is, itself, not fair, or nice, or reasonable, or any such thing.

How much is “engaging with the text” supposed to be worth if the rules of engagement are openly and deliberately unfair and unreasonable?

Brooklynite:

But I do think that a lot of men are tremendously insecure about their sexual attractiveness, and for such men porn offers fantasies of acceptance as well as domination.

I’m not sure that this really addresses the question. For many men “sexual attractiveness” and “acceptance” (being sexually “liked,” etc.) are themselves cashed out in terms of domination. If these “fantasies” portray “attractiveness” as a sort of force that overwhelms initial reluctance or produces sexual frenzy out of nowhere then they are portraying “acceptance” as more about domination over a woman than they are about the woman’s autonomous desire. (And I think an awful lot of pornography does portray “acceptance” like that.) Indeed the whole scripting in terms of men “offering” and women either “accepting” or “rejecting” is itself part of the problem.

Jill:

The practice itself isn’t inherently demeaning or disgusting, but I think that reality of how it’s performed in the sex industry is troubling. That said, there’s obviously a distinction between what people see in the pornos they watch and what they actually do and feel. But the lines can get blurry.

Right, and I think the reality of how it’s performed outside the sex industry (or, how men very often expect for it to be performed) is also pretty troubling. Those lines get especially blurry when what people (or specifically, men) do and feel, or what they “fantasize” about doing, is deeply influenced by what they see in the pornos they watch.

Sara:

I just don’t see how a healthy attitude toward male orgasm can be portrayed in porn with prevalent anti-semen feelings …

It probably can’t. A healthy attitude toward male orgasm probably can’t be portrayed in porn at all, in a society where sexuality is so often laced with male manipulation and domination of women, whatever the feelings towards semen in particular. In point of fact, I’d say we should worry more about the former than the latter, since if you knock out the attitude that semen is dirty but don’t knock out the attitude that sex between men and women should be about the man dirtying and degrading the woman, then these kind of humiliation rituals will just be expressed in different ways, not involving the smearing of semen.

… since it’s a necessary part of male sexuality, so the only thing we can really work on is the attitude toward it.

But semen isn’t a necessary part of male sexuality. Satisfying and pleasurable sex may or may not have anything to do with a man ejaculating, let alone going to some special effort to ejaculate visibly on someone’s face or body.

nerdlet:

I do agree, though, that there are plenty of guys who are ashamed of their naked bodies, or basic, I don’t know, sexuality, and that’s not something that’s discussed often. Mostly I blame porn, too bad there’s nothing to be done about it.

Well. The men in question could always stop watching porn, if it makes them feel bad about themselves.

Marksman2000:

So what’s your idea of kinky sex? Missionary with the lights off?

Please let’s not go there. Neither Glaivester nor anybody else is under some kind of mandate to enjoy oral sex, or for that matter any kind of sex at all.

Thanks for this post. On a related note:

I suggest to you that transformation of the male sexual model under which we now all labor and “love” begins where there is a congruence, not a separation, a congruence of feeling and erotic interest

Jill: This will surely be an unpopular argument with some people here, but completely open borders would wreak havoc on both our economy and our national security, …

Why?

Jill: And like I said in the post, we really need to loosen up our asylum policies. When I said “anyone and everyone,” I was referring to immigrants in general, not just asylum-seekers.

Part of the problem with this is that not everyone agrees on legitimate reasons for granting asylum, and if you allow the politicians to pick and choose who to let in, then the kinds of people they recognize as “real” refugees are going to be limited by the political blinders that mainstream politicians or immigration bureaucrats happen to have on when they approach the issue. To take a real world example, it’s been like pulling teeth getting the immigration bureaucracy to recognize the threat of almost certain death as cause for granting asylum, if the threat comes from your abusive ex-husband — because wife beating is not considered a “political” issue by the immigration inquisitors or their political bosses, and so doesn’t really come into their worldview when they ask themselves who counts as a political refugee. People written off as “economic” refugees are routinely turned away, as if starvation were somehow less of a crisis for the refugee than near-certain murder. Generally speaking, political agencies respond to political incentives, and frankly I don’t trust politicians to pick and choose who counts as a “real” refugee, especially not when most of the candidates already come from marginalized groups that are routinely misunderstood and ill-served by politicians here as well as abroad.

“Now, I’m not arguing that we have to let in anyone and everyone…”

Well, why not?

It is criminal that there’s a single refugee in this world who cannot immediately find asylum and a new life for herself in another country. It is inexcusable that this system of international apartheid is maintaining the

• feministe

I don’t think that’s true. Can’t the border patrol arrest and restrain people crossing the border illegally?

That depends on what you mean by “can.”

They certainly have the power to do so. But they haven’t got any legitimate right to. Neither they nor anyone else has the right to harass or forcibly restrain peaceful people, who are, after all, simply trying to move into a new town to find work, and aren’t interfering with anyone else’s rights to person or property. Moving should not be treated as a crime.

zuzu, nope, but they did it without V.D.’s knowledge or consent, so he still has his own personal copy, Endlösung reference intact, online. You can click through to the original and modified copies via my post linked above.

Glaivester, personally, I’m all for it because I want to overthrow the government and achieve international workers’ control over the means of production. Thanks for trying, though.

So, last night George Bush announced plans to have the National Guard “support” the Border Patrol until an additional 6,000 Border Patrol agents can be hired. …. this is a bad idea for a number of reasons.

It’s a bad idea because the government has no right to shoot or restrain peaceful people just because they are trying to find a place to live in the United States. Ramping up the number of people working on making that a reality just means ramping up violence against innocent people.

There are lots of reasons why the means that Bush is proposing are unlikely to achieve his professed ends. But since the ends are themselves fundamentally immoral, the strategic and tactical mistakes he’s making in trying to pursue them are of secondary importance at most.

Incidentally, WorldNetDaily sent his reference to the Final Solution down the Memory Hole this morning. Now the column simply asserts that it couldn’t take more than eight years to put 12,000,000 undocumented immigrants on the cattle cars, without any explanation of where he pulled that particular timetable from.

But V.D. is proud of his work and has kept an unedited copy on his own website, so that you can compare and contrast.