Loose Women, Lecherous Men (75 page)

Read Loose Women, Lecherous Men Online

Authors: Linda Lemoncheck

Tags: #Social Science, #Feminism & Feminist Theory, #test

BOOK: Loose Women, Lecherous Men
5.28Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
 
Page 242
Littlefield, 1983), 14585; Rosemaria Tong, "Feminism, Pornography, and Censorship,"
Social Theory and Practice
8, no. 1 (spring 1982): 117; Russell, "Introduction," 23. For work being done in lesbian erotica, see comments by Susie Bright (of
On Our Backs
), Nan Kinny and Debi Sundahl (of Blush Entertainment Productions), Marie Mason (of Hot Chixx), and author Katherine Forrest in Victoria A. Brownworth, "The Porn Boom,"
Lesbian News
18, no. 7 (February 1993): 4243, 6163. Less overtly sexist or less violent sexually explicit material has already found consumers in heterosexual women, as more women are choosing (with their dollars) which sex videos to bring home. See Brownworth, ''The Porn Boom." For examples of erotic literature written by, and for, women, see Susie Bright, ed.,
Herotica
(Burlingame, Calif.: Down There Press, 1988); Louise Thornton, Jan Sturtevant, and Amber Coverdale Sumrall, eds.,
Touching Fire: Erotic Writings by Women
(New York: Carroll & Graf, 1989); Michele Slung, ed.,
Slow Hand: Women Writing Erotica
(New York: HarperCollins, 1992); Lonnie Barbach, ed.,
Pleasures: Women Write Erotica
(New York: HarperCollins, 1984); Laura Chester, ed.,
Deep Down: The New Sensual Writing by Women
(Boston: Faber & Faber, 1989). Essays that combine erotic writing with feminist cultural criticism can be found in
Sexy Bodies: The Strange Carnalities of Feminism,
ed. Elizabeth Grosz and Elspeth Robyn (New York: Routledge, 1995).
11. Andrea Dworkin,
Pornography: Men Possessing Women
(New York: E. P. Dutton, 1989), xlii; also see Barry,
Female Sexual Slavery
, 17485; MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified
, 14849; A Southern Women's Writing Collective, "Sex Resistance in Heterosexual Arrangements," in
The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism
, ed. Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice G. Raymond (New York: Teachers College Press, 1990), 14047.
12. MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified
, 160.
13. See Lorenne Clark, "Liberalism and Pornography," in
Pornography and Censorship: Philosophical, Scientific and Legal Studies
, ed. David Copp and Susan Wendell (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1983), 4950, 5657; Christine Boyle and Sheila Noonan, "Gender Neutrality, Prostitution, and Pornography," in Bell,
Good Girls/Bad Girls
, 4547; Evelina Giobbe, "Confronting the Liberal Lies about Prostitution," in Leidholdt and Raymond,
The Sexual Liberals
, 75; Sarah Wynter, "WHISPER: Women Hurt in Systems of Prostitution Engaged in Revolt," in Delacoste and Alexander,
Sex Work
, 26768. For a comprehensive survey of feminists' arguments against pornography, see Catherine Itzin, ed.,
Pornography: Women, Violence, and Civil Liberties
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
14. See Deirdre English, in Deirdre English, Amber Hollibaugh, and Gayle Rubin, "Talking Sex: A Conversation on Sexuality and Feminism,"
Socialist Review
11, no. 4 (1981): 61; Gayle Rubin, in ibid., 57, 60; Alison Assiter and Avedon Carol, "Introduction," and Gayle Rubin, "Misguided, Dangerous, and Wrong: An Analysis of Anti-Pornography Politics," in
Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures: The Challenge to Reclaim Feminism
, ed. Alison Assiter and Avedon Carol (London: Pluto Press, 1993), 1516; 2125; Camille Paglia,
Vamps and Tramps: New Essays
(New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 65; Paula Webster, "Pornography and Pleasure,"
Heresies
#12 "Sex Issue" 3, no. 4 (1981): 4851; Valerie Scott, Peggy Miller, and Ryan Hotchkiss, of the Canadian Organization for the Rights of Prostitutes (CORP), "Realistic Feminists," in Bell,
Good Girls/Bad Girls
, 217.
15. See COYOTE/National Task Force on Prostitution position statement, in Delacoste and Alexander,
Sex Work
, 290; Varda Burstyn, "Who the Hell Is 'We'?," in Bell,
Good Girls/Bad Girls
, 168. For an excellent contemporary history of the movement for prostitutes' rights as well as a discussion of the variety of prostitutes' lives, from victim to vamp, see Gail Pheterson, "Not Repeating History," in
A Vindication of the Rights of Whores
, ed. Gail Pheterson (Seattle: Seal Press, 1989), 330.
16. For examples of radical feminist positions that would reject a strong antipornography stance, see Deirdre English, "The Politics of Porn: Can Feminists Walk the Line?,"
Mother
 
Page 243
Jones
5, no. 3 (April 1980): 20-23, 43-50;
Heresies
#12 "Sex Issue" 3, no. 4 (1981); English et al., "Talking Sex"; Assiter and Carol,
Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures
; Pamela Church Gibson and Roma Gibson, eds.,
Dirty Looks: Women, Pornography, Power
(London: BFI Publishing, 1993); Lynne Segal and Mary McIntosh, eds.,
Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992). Liberal feminist Betty Friedan worries that "[t]he pornography issue is dividing the women's movement and giving the impression on college campuses that to be a feminist is to be against sex." See Betty Friedan,
The Second Stage
(New York: Summit Books, 1981), 357. Feminists of very different political perspectives from Friedan but who would agree with her on this point include Rene Denfeld,
The New Victorians: A Young Woman's Challenge to the Old Feminist Order
(New York: Warner Books, 1995), chap. 3, and Paglia,
Vamps and Tramps
, 5667.
17. For arguments that pornography is both possible and desirable under communism, see Alan Soble,
Pornography, Marxism, Feminism, and the Future of Sexuality
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), chap. 5.
18. The radical feminist organization Women against Pornography (WAP) founded by Susan Brownmiller defines pornography, like rape, in terms of violence against women. Catharine MacKinnon defines pornography in terms of a sexuality and gender hierarchy of dominance and submission; also see MacKinnon and Dworkin on the antipornography ordinances they wrote for Minneapolis and Indianapolis, citing porn as sex discrimination, in MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified
, 17597, and Andrea Dworkin,
Pornography
, xxviiixxxiv.
19. Caption quote from Larry Flynt, publisher of
Hustler
magazine (June 1978), cited in Kittay, "Pornography and the Erotics of Domination," 147; also see Rubin and English, in English et al., "Talking Sex," 57. For porn as parody, see Robert J. Stoller,
Porn: Myths for the Twentieth Century
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991), 219.
20. See Lovelace,
Ordeal
; also see Catherine A. MacKinnon, "Linda's Life and Andrea's Work," in MacKinnon,
Feminism Unmodified
, 12733, and Gloria Steinem, "The Real Linda Lovelace," in Russell,
Making Violence Sexy
, 2331. Compare these descriptions to Annie Sprinkle's experiences, "Feminism: 'Crunch Point,'" in Pheterson,
A Vindication of the Rights of Whores
, 14647; also see Jane Smith, "Making Movies," and Nina Hartley, ''Confessions of a Feminist Porno Star," in Delacoste and Alexander,
Sex Work
, 13541, 14244; International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights (ICPR), "International Committee for Prostitutes' Rights World Charter and World Whores' Congress Statement," in Delacoste and Alexander,
Sex Work
, 3089.
21. Nina Lopez-Jones, "Workers: Introducing the English Collective of Prostitutes," in Delacoste and Alexander,
Sex Work
, 275.
22. See Wynter, "WHISPER," 269.
23. See Marie Arrington, "Under the Gun," in Bell,
Good Girls/Bad Girls
, 17475. Wendy Chapkis notes that even a "pro-prostitution lobby" can fail to challenge class and status hierarchies within the profession. See Wendy Chapkis, "Paying for Pleasure,"
Women's Review of Books
(April 1995), 19, reviewing "Sex Workers and Sex Work," special issue of
Social Text
37 (winter 1993).
24. See the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (1970), "The Effects of Explicit Sexual Materials," and "The Attorney General's Commission on Pornography: Final Report (1986)," in Baird and Rosenbaum,
Pornography
, 2324, 41. Criticisms of these reports arise from both antipornography and sex radical sides of the debate. For example, see Tong,
Women, Sex and the Law
, 1517; Rosemarie Tong, "Women, Pornography, and the Law," in
The Philosophy of Sex
, 2d ed., ed. Alan Soble (Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1991), 304; Irene Diamond, "Pornography and Repression: A Reconsideration,"
Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
5, no. 4 (1980): 69297; Carole S. Vance, "Negotiating Sex and Gender in the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography," in Segal and McIntosh,
Sex Exposed
,

Other books

Pod by Stephen Wallenfels
Get-Together Summer by Lotus Oakes
Master of the House by Justine Elyot
Jane Doe's Return by Jen Talty
The Infernal City by Greg Keyes
7 A Tasteful Crime by Cecilia Peartree