Now If You Want Satire June 13, 2005 Lauren …and a Lauren-endorsed usage of pornographic imagery, you might want to see this. via Shannon
Nothing like using pornography of women to attack people you don’t like. That has always been pornography’s main point and it continues to do its intended work here, only it disturbs me to see women picking other women up by their exposed genitals and hurling them at their enemies.
Now, I don’t like the porn industry. I don’t like what it does to so many of the women who work in it. I don’t like that it dumbs down sexuality to a puerile joke. I don’t like that it turns women into consumer products with no value other than that to be found in assisting men in achieving orgasm. But Thalia, when you accuse other women who take images that already exist (and use them for purposes that everyone will understand as satire) of “picking other women up by their exposed genitals and hurling them at their enemies,” you’re not making progress. You’re just throwing judgments at other women. Feminist women saying nasty things about other feminist women never moved women forward.
It is not all right for women to use pornographic images of other women to attack men. What is that really saying about the inherent nature of such images and why is that simple truth so hard to look directly in the eye? Is satire immune from sexism? Are feminists? Any feminist woman should come up with an answer to why she would never perform in porn herself when asking herself if it is feminist to display her sisters in photos she would never allow to have made of her. There are many words for people who feel it’s okay for others to have done to them what they would never submit to themselves, and none of them are flattering. Feminist support of a collage of dehumanized pictures of penetrated, spread women in order to attack a man says to me some feminists find expressing their hated for one man more important than honoring the human dignity of all women, and that’s not the kind of human rights movement I want to be a part of because that’s not the kind of world I want to help create. Ridicule away if you have to, but that’s how I honestly feel.
I think Lauren views the collage in the same way I, a man, viewed it when I posted a link to it on my blog several months ago, and what the creator, whose sex I don’t know, was attempting by creating it. Namely it’s a satire on a man who finds the unclothed female body so disturbing he had the bare bronze breasts of a statue in the Justice Department covered. Which is worse, Ashcroft’s puritanical redressing of inanimate women, or the lame nudie pics that comprise the collage? I have to say, that my delight in the novelty of the collage has dissipated since Ashcroft left the building. Tawdry nudie photos are going to be with us forever, no matter how sexually whole and balanced a world we create. People like sex. Sometimes they can’t have sex when thy’d like to. They console themselves with a picture, a picture very probably taken in the midst of some less than savory power relationship between photographer, publisher, and model. Tawdry, seedy, fundamentally lonley? Sure. A crime aganst women? Smarter folks than I debate this all the time. What do I know? But since these lame images are around and out there, why not put them to some use better than the original one? Why not *redeem* the images in some way by hurling them back at those who would want to outlaw certain modes of human lameness and cheapness. It’s not like Lauren took these picture herself for the express purpose of mocking Ashcroft. Nor did I, nor the did the creator. If any of us had, I think that would be different. Oooh, now there’s an idea! With all of this debate floating around after the Gilligan’s Island ad flap, maybe all of the women of the lefty side of the blogospehere could get together and make a giant nudie portrait of, say, John Cole. You could do it during the next Super Bowl halftime. Lauren, what do you say? Want to organize it?
Thalia, I have no intention of ridiculing your point of view, and I didn’t intend even to criticize it. I was only taking issue with your language, as a matter of tactics. I do think the collage is more complex than using “dehumanized pictures of penetrated, spread women” to attack Ashcroft. The attack on Ashcroft travels, as Shannon points out, through his discomfort with sex, rather than the dehumanization of the women in the photos. In fact, I think the collage would have been more effective, if anything, with only pictures of nude men having sex, since it avoids the worst aspects of pornographic depictions of women and Ashcroft would be, if anything, more horrified by it. I can’t, of course, speak for any feminist woman about whether she would create sexually explicit images of herself and under what circumstances. I know that the reason I don’t create sexually explicit images of myself or allow others to do so is that I fear discrimination, not that I don’t want myself represented in a sexual way. My experience is not a woman’s experience, of course, and any analogy is very, very inexact. However, I do think that much of what keeps women from allowing themselves to be part of sexually explicit images is that women in this society are punished for being sexual. (Madonna apologized today for being so sexually frank in the 1990s,which just goes to show that even a tremendously wealthy international one-name mega-star can’t express herself sexually as she sees fit without apologizing to the patriarchy for it. This saddens me greatly.) Of course, pornography is a particular subset of sexually explicit image, and definitions vary. I can’t guess how you define pornography.
I just want to say the idea that once a woman has been “deflowered” sexually then she’s open game for any and all who want to use or abuse her sexuality after that is straight out of rape culture. Pictures like this aren’t made with naked, penetrated men for many reasons also straight out of rape culture. I know non-pornographic images of bared breasts would not impart the same nasty sting these explicit porn images are intended to produce, no matter what excuses are devised by others, and if a feminist can’t see that she needs more criticism from other feminists, not less.
I just want to say the idea that once a woman has been âdefloweredâ sexually then sheâs open game for any and all who want to use or abuse her sexuality after that is straight out of rape culture. Agreed. Pictures like this arenât made with naked, penetrated men for many reasons also straight out of rape culture. I don’t know who created the collage, and I suspect that you’re correct that the picture is made of pornographic images of women because our society makes them so readily available. There are of course plenty of pictures of men naked and penetrated, but those pictures are generally made by and for gay men, and are not so omnipresent (like you said, for reasons having to do with rape culture). I know non-pornographic images of bared breasts would not impart the same nasty sting these explicit porn images are intended to produce … I don’t disagree. But I didn’t say non-pornographic pictures of bared breasts was the counterexample. I said “pictures of nude men having sex.” What I had in mind was explicit gay men’s porn. and if a feminist canât see that she needs more criticism from other feminists, not less. Now, that’s what I was criticizing.
But you didn’t criticize Shannon or Mark (two men…hmm) for disregarding my comments by questioning my femininity and you didn’t criticize the notion that since these women were prostituted by someone else that makes it okay to re-prostitute them here and forever after. You save all you tsk tsking for me, and for what, the crime of disagreeing with a feminist using offensive graphicporno pictures of women as a weapon just like the men who intentionally leave degrading porn in their female co-workers workspaces use it as a weapon. Next time I’ll just say Lauren is man and leave the feminism out in more ways than one. Less criticism that way.
Thalia, if you’re referring to Shannon’s second comment, seventh on the thread, I didn’t read it as questioning your womanhood. In fact, if you note my comment, I thought Shannon was referring to the creator of the collage, which I thought was a non-sequitur, hence my response to him. In fact, Shannon was correcting my misimpression that he was a woman (I made the incorrect assumption based on the demographics of the readership of this blog). As to Mark’s comment, I thought he was suggesting that the collage described Ashcroft to a tee. I’m not sure why you interpreted “he” as a reference to you …? (two menâŚhmm) You’re apparently too new here to have witnesses my lengthy, vitriolic battles with Monjo and other men who make sexist comments. you didnât criticize the notion that since these women were prostituted by someone else that makes it okay to re-prostitute them here and forever after. You’re right, I didn’t. I only said: Now, I donât like the porn industry. I donât like what it does to so many of the women who work in it. I donât like that it dumbs down sexuality to a puerile joke. I donât like that it turns women into consumer products with no value other than that to be found in assisting men in achieving orgasm. My criticisms of the porn industry are apparently narrower than yours. If you think the problems I’ve pointed out with porn aren’t the half of it and I don’t fully appreciate the problem, that’s a valid point of view. Next time Iâll just say Lauren is man You can attack other feminist women for having views that diverge from yours if you want, but that’s just going to alienate feminists who are really more on your side than not. If the theocons win and impose fundamentalist christian sharia on us all, they’ll hang me and Lauren right alongside you. Just a suggestion, but you might want to try persuading other feminists to agree with you, instead of attacking them when they do something you don’t like.
I see how signals about the above posts got mixed and apologize. Women who would use women’s sexuality this way and pull out Eminem’s excuse of everything “funny” being off limits to feminist criticism are not my allies. A feminist cannot speak from one side of her mouth that women’s sexuality should be thought of positively and with respect when she uses the other side to say a thousand misogynistic photos of women’s sexuality make a good weapon for taking shots at enemies. People who don’t take responsibility for furthering the association between women’s bodies and sexuality with negativity and who use pornography of thousands of anonymous women they know they’ll never be as a weapon for attacking others are not my allies. I defy that I, or anyone else, should put up with women’s caricatured, infantilized, and mocked sexuality being used to beat others down with because “the fundamentalists are coming, the fundamentalists are coming!” This issue is important and the existence of other important issues doesn’t detract from it. You didn’t give the same advice to Lauren, that maybe instead of callous-to-women and juvenile ‘satire’ she should try persuading him and 40 million Republicans who think highly of him why she has a point. Just me. Should be if you can dish it you can take it, and I hope Lauren is taking my criticism and the explanations I gave for offering them in the spirit of feminist women holding each other accountable to the greater goals of feminism. I’ve had my say and you’ve had yours, so thanks and good day before we repeat ourselves too much.
I’m really troubled by the idea that pornographic images cannot be interpreted as anything but pornography. Although I don’t think this work is particularly inventive, it is not pornographic; its intent is not to get people to objectify female bodies as sexual objects. This collage references pornographic depictions of sexuality–their ubiquity, their coarseness, their familiarity–in order to comment on the ludicrous inability of John Ashcroft to deal with any representation of the female body, however stylized, however tame. It’s also a reference to his violent and demeaning use of women and women’s bodies to further his career and stabilize his party’s reputation among the religious right. How can someone visually communicate anything about pornographic depictions of women without visually referencing pornographic depictions of women? Your insistence that a naked, subjugated female body in art means exactly that is, like I said, really scary–it means that you can’t critically differentiate between violent porn and “Unos Cuantos Piquetitos.”