langa: Those on the left are afraid of alienating the radical feminists, many of whom consider porn to be the worst thing in the world.

Huh?

1. Antipornography radical feminists generally oppose, and have repeatedly come out against, the kind of nasty remarks and polemical abuse that’s directed against women in pornography from people (mainly men) on the political Left and Right. Whether you think we are right about pornography or not, I don’t think this is an accurate understanding of the position towards women in the pornography industry.

2. I can find no evidence at all that much of anybody in the mainstream Left is particularly afraid of alienating antipornography radical feminists, or really cares what radical feminists in general think (whether they are antipornography or not). Do you really think that someone like Catharine MacKinnon or Susan Brownmiller has very much influence over what people in common liberal or Leftist discourse, outside of specifically feminist political spaces, think it is or is not acceptable to say?

The idea that people on the male Left really want to object to nasty remarks about the women in pornography, but fear of radical feminist backlash is somehow holding them back, strikes me as bizarre.

Briggs,

I think that’s true, but I don’t think it’s funny. (Neither ha-ha, nor particularly strange.)

It’s entirely ordinary for women to be treated like crap by both the official Right and the official Left simultaneously, and especially women who are perceived as being defined by their roles in the system of sex-class (e.g. sex workers and other publicly sexualized women).

There are very few rules when it comes to the girls, and especially not girls who aren’t seen as “nice” according to prevailing male standards. Or I should say that there are a lot of rules: just not rules of courtesy or common decency, but rather rules of Patriarchal Correctness, which are themselves quite rigid in their expectations of who has the right to act like a dickhead, or even has a positive obligation to act like a dickhead, and who ought to be kept in their place.