Re: Pornography

[chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams)]

Lou Fox writes:

>I joined this board hoping to read about my godess KT, but i fell, as a 
>women's studies major and a card-carrying member of NOW, that I must jump 
>into the fray. 

   This is not a fray. I'll have to direct you to a *real* fray. This
isn't even a fracas. 

   I know this is long, but as Kate has used sensuality *and* sexuality
in her work, more than many artists, I feel that it is germane. (Reader
is directed to Krystyna FitzGerald-Morris' multipart exploration of 
same in recent Homegrounds.)

>You can argue all you want about whether or not Penthouse and Playboy are 
>pornography.

   Sorry, but this is a *vital* distinction. Pornography has to be
purchased in seedy rathole newsstands. "Not-Pornography" can be
sold at the corner store. The "strange bedfellows" of anti-sex
"feminists" AKA "Dworkinites" and the religious Right have made
it impossible to purchase Playboy at any Seven-11 below the Mason-
Dixon line. *My* freedoms are being seriously infringed.

>   More to the point, and I believe this was the point of the 
>original comment, is the effect they have on society and what messages 
>they are sending out.

   We disagree about both the "message" and the "effect."

>   A poll published in Elle, not a feminist publication to cut all
> you "statistics say whatever you want them to" people off at the 
> pass, showed that 50% of men who were regular readers of Playboy
> and the ilk had trouble relating to women in their lives. 

   Um...I don't know one single rational being, of *either* sex, who
would not answer "yes" to the question "...have you ever had trouble
relating to the opposite sex?" (Or even the same sex. In my experience
gay relationships are as prone to misunderstandings as hetro.) I'm
surprised at how *few* respondents answered honestly. I would have a
great deal more inate distrust of anyone who claimed to have never
experienced "trouble relating."

   To bring this back to the purpose of this mailing list/newsgroup,
Kate has written several songs about *exactly this*. _Love and Anger_
_Between A Man and A Woman_, _Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)_
_Not This Time_ and _Babooshka_, _Hounds Of Love_, _In The Warm Room_, 
and even _The Big Sky_, _All The Love_, _Get Out Of My House_, and
_Wuthering Heights_.

   If your "Goddess" Kate admits to so much trouble understanding the
opposite sex, how can you blame anyone else for admitting the same
thing? 

> These magazines send the message that women are sexually available; that 
> their main use is for men's pleasure, for men to look at.

    How do you divine this? I have been reading Playboy for 23 years
and have never gotten *any* impression of that sort. I fact, I'd claim
that Playboy, specifically the advice column "The Playboy Advisor" has
had a *positive* influence on male/female relationships. It has
been a great source of sexual (and a wide range of other) advice, 
possibly the *first* female-sexuality-positive information many
men receive. 

   BTW, _ELLE_ is the obverse of Playboy. A mixture of features, 
interviews, some politics, columns, etc. The three pictorials
per issue of Playboy, (the only part it appears that you 
really take issue with) are mirrored in ELLE by the "beauty"
and fashion articles, supporting the *exact same* unobtainable-
to-the-average-person standards of female appearance that you find
so offensive in Playboy. When has ELLE featured an image of a woman
without makeup, or has a fashion ad shown a model above a size six?
Playboy exhibits a *wider* range of female body types and ages
than the anorexia-imprinting, teen-obsessed fashion magazines. 
(The current issue features women over 40.)

>  Do I think its 
> wrong for men to want to look at naked women or vice-versa? No, but I 
> would like it to be in context, with real non-plastic, non-airbrushed 
> women and with the full range of sexualities and preferences given.

   To some extent, I agree, but not in this world. Imagine some
"Harrison Bergonan" (sp? I can't find my Vonnegut) world where complete
equality was enforced. Playboy was filled with pictures of both
men and women of all shapes and sizes. Romance novels were forced
to feature overweight, pimply slobs like me rather than Fabio-clones.

    Sexuality is *the* definitive "personal choice." If you bothered
to make a survey of the range of "Men's magazines" available at the
newsstands that you are lucky enough to have in New York, you would
find that the full range of body types *are* represented in dozens
of different magazines. People have different tastes and are attracted
to specific things. This is human nature, and unless you are proposing
some major changes to the structure of the human brain, it will remain
so. I have my own personal tastes, and you no doubt have your own, and
we *each* have the right to indulge them.

>I would also like to live in a society where we are not constantly barraged 
>with sexual images through ads and the like that portray women soley as 
>the objects of men's desires, rather than as "in control of their own 
>sexuality."

   I agree. I dislike seeing sexuality being used for purposes *other*
than sexual gratifaction, being used to sell soda-pop and perfume.
The women who pose for Playboy *know* the reason they are being
photographed and, if you would trouble to ask them, many of them
do it because they *enjoy* posing nude. For every voyeur there
is an exhibitionist. I have had a number of female friends who
posed and danced nude. Besides the obvious very good money, a
lot of them simply enjoyed it. Really. One of more interesting
events in my life was engineering the audio/video/lighting &
special effects for a huge gay party in the those wild, pre-AIDS
'70s. I was impressed by a *female* stripper dancing to Pink
Floyd's _The Dark Side of the Moon_. She was there dancing for
free, for a group of men who had no sexual interest in her (other
than myself and most of the other techs) for the sheer love of
stripping as an art.

>  I am a feminist who believes women should be in control, but 
>when I walk down the street and am whistled at, or when I hear a sexist 
>joke with no one questioning it or especially when I watch TV, I wonder 
>if a woman in the US can truly accomplish this.

   I agree, it is offensive and annoying. But we disagree on the cause
of these troglodyte attitudes. You think that they come from Playboy,
(which I believe you have never read.) I think they come from that
Hell-pit of male bonding, "The Locker Room" (where I believe you
have never been.) Athlete's Foot and sexist attitudes both grow on 
all surfaces of this dreadful place. As you would probably like to
see Playboy eliminated, I would like to see locker rooms and team
sports wiped off the face of the Earth. Not going to happen.

> To let you know, feminism is defined as believing in equality for 
> all people, borne out by the variety of other issues most feminists are 
> involved in, i.e. racism, gay rights. You cannot use feminist as a dirty 
> word, despite what conservatives keep saying, and I seriuosly doubt that KT, 
> who fills her songs with the emotions of being a woman would appreciate
> having among her fans people who do.

   You seem to be laboring under the prejudice that all men who read Playboy
are conservatives (Playboy has been under constant attack by the Religious
Right) and further, that I have used feminism as a dirty word. It's egalitarian
feminists who have been forced to disown the word, due to its hijacking
by the pseudo-feminist forces of repression.

   Oh, and Kate does appreciate having me as a fan. 

                          Chris Williams of
                             Chris'n'Vickie of Chicago
                               chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (his)
                                 vickie@njin.rutgers.edu      (hers)