From: payner@netcom.com (Rich Payne)
Subject: Re: Catharine MacKinnon, Playboy and feminist propaganda
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 22:07:11 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.160838.9739@ils.nwu.edu> lynch@ils.nwu.edu (Richard Lynch) writes:

[...]
 
>The real issue (for me, I can't speak for MacKinnon) is that there is something
>wrong with our society and its views when there is so much pornography showing
>women, and so little showing men.  It *does* indicate that women are considered
>*more* as sex objects than men are.  I certainly don't think there's any
>natural imbalance, on average, in sexual drive between men and women.

What is wrong other than the fact that you seem to feel that it should be
different? And -everything- is objectified, it is more than a non-issue,
it is a non-sequitor. (sp?)

You cannot get to know a person other than by getting to know all of the
individual things that they do, and they are objectified by each description,
be it cook, sailor, technician, lover, or mother/father. So what?

This is another invented issue, and as it basically describes what we
do all of the time, it says that we are all -f***ed- up, not just sexually.
Either that, or this is so completely normal that we take it for granted,
and it is no more of a problem than men leaving the toilet seat up.
 
>But the pornography is a symptom, not the illness itself.  And it's not just
>a symptom of an illness in a few people who are going to be sick with or
>without porno.  It's a symptom of an illness in society as a whole.  Please
>note that I am still talking about the INEQUALITY 

"INEQUALITY" is anothert invented non-issue. It has never existed, and
I think it is not a stable or realizable position. So what? An equally valid
issue (and one which at least one feminist has taken a position) is that
men have penisis (or larynxes for that matter), and women do not. That's 
just the way things are, describing the situation is not revealing a problem.

>                                                of porno, not the existence.
>I enjoy a good porno flick as much as the next guy, but there IS something
>wrong when there are *way* more girly mags than there are Playgirl-type mags.
>                                                          ^[Note the irony.]

So what? Why is this 'wrong'? Where in either type magazine is there a
wrong?
 
>Extremists like MacKinnon and that D-chic* are quite possibly taking a
>political stance they know they are going to lose in order to wake people up to
>this problem.  [Similar to haggling over a price/raise.]  They have to take
>such a stance just to wake people up.

You mean to condition (read brainwash) them to their political ideologies.
Ideologies which give them a great deal of power to solve a -percieved-
problem that may well not exist, at least not as they envision it.
 
>I do think things are improving, and I don't think censoring porno is the
>answer.  I would like to think that the exteremists know this also, but I can't
>speak for them.

Some things are improving, overall things are much worse, much much worse.
 
>* Intentional use of D-chic so that my killfile won't kill this, and I'm
>feeling an imbalance from all my pro-feminist posting, so I'd thought I'd be
>real rude and call her a chic.  :-)

I thought it was just because you did not like to hear her name. Apologies
if I have you confused for you-know-who on this.

>"TANSTAAFL"     lynch@aristotle.ils.nwu.edu

Rich

payner@netcom.com