discipline posted:

hey so my computer really blows and crashes anytime I have like more than four tabs open, but off the top of my head I think I was addressing ken's complaint I wasn't being dialectical and someone else who was talking about pat califa. well ken, I wasn't planning on this being a dialectical discussion on the contradictions inherent in various modes of female oppression. it was about how porn makes women sick to their stomachs. and as for pat califa, I have never read anything by him but assume as a man he probably has some fucked up and warped views when it comes to writing fanfic about intentional bareback HIV transmission. thanks for stopping by the rhizzone!

well, i mentioned pat, but just saying "pat likes filth" isn't really the meat of what i was trying to get at.

"discipline, why do you think authors like pat califia, who are willing to interrogate the role of capital (edit: at least somewhat) in everything from sexual legislation on children to prostitution, still find themselves unwilling to write off porn or prostitution entirely? I use weasel words there, but califia revels in it.


but i guess i should reformulate this as:
what do you think accounts for the predominant divide between non-positivist queer theorists, even interdisciplinary ones like halberstam, and non-positivist feminists on the issues of pornography and prostitution?"

like pat's just one example of many, although occasionally a notably unsubtle one, of a stance common to many queer theorists that's diametrically opposed to certain feminists on topics of sexuality, and it's ironic that the feminists they're most in opposition to on these issues tend to be the ones they have the most in common with otherwise. Jack Halberstam's opposed to Dworkin on many things, not just topics of sex, but they agree on almost everything when it comes to taking the structural inequities inherent in sexuality as an a priori, and they both posit failure, hurt, and struggle as integral parts of the sexual experience/perspective for those who aren't hetero men. I wonder why these two discrete stances have formulated among a wide group of thinkers who have so much in common outside of these topics.

as for pat califa, I have never read anything by him but assume as a man he probably has some fucked up and warped views when it comes to writing fanfic about intentional bareback HIV transmission. thanks for stopping by the rhizzone!

also, re: pat, pat was publishing his bdsm stuff for decades before he transitioned to male, and it's not like he was alone. Although he was always upfront about his genderfuck leanings (including a fun piece about showing up to a conference in half-male garb), he very firmly declared himself as -lesbian- up until the late nineties. I also think it's brave of him to take barebacking as a topic for eroticism given that he came up in one of the gay scenes most decimated by AIDS (and thus a scene that turned circumspect about it), and while AIDS was doing the decimating.

Lessons posted:

*executes dead ken* wahahaha Oops. *exiles dead ken's family to the gulag* Gosh darn it I did it again! *raises den ken's hometown of Cumwantingham to the ground* oh gawd I'm such a klutz

my home town is the ancestral home of my tribe m8

deadken posted:

you can infer that if you want i guess but i don't see where you'd get that. the idea of female power in some arenas along with the fetishised image of the dominatrix are equally conditioned by patriarchy

that's all certainly true, but much of the visual and semiotic language of bdsm was created in queer spaces. it exists as a series of meanings and signals crafted under patriarchal conditions, but not necessarily reinforcing them (or not reinforcing them, for that matter . . .). to assume that the queerly-created thing itself necessarily constitutes male oppression of women is to de-queer it, and from there we conclude etc. etc. i'm not here to stand up for it, for porn, or for anything like that, but to truncate it solely into "this is the place where straights have mean sex and here's what that means" ignores a lot of interesting queer cultural history. this is not an interesting post though, and i may not even have the right to interject myself into this conversation

chickeon posted:

the real triumph is to have the balls but act as if that one did not have them

low-t 4 lyfe

littlegreenpills posted:

palafox posted:

to assume that the queerly-created thing itself necessarily constitutes male oppression of women is to de-queer it,

dequeering is also the main driver/enabler of its commodification into a general profitmaking arena isn't it though? like that's going on right now, and weirdly enough it may even be that standing up for it as a valid, rational choice by welladjusted people instead of a creepy dark subculture inhabiting the gross interstices is the most insidious way of thrusting it into and tying it to (hehe just a lil double entendre there) the power-relations of the everyday. 50 shades probably has led to a bevy of bruised and traumatised women who are keeping schtum out of a sense of quiet isolation and misplaced solidarity with the celebratory fanfares after all

all that sounds right and reasonable to me. the queer thinkers i was alluding to above are predominantly (as far as I can tell re:BDSM) not about that act of validation, over smoothing over edges, though, but rather about describing what it is to be malformed or maladjusted and the merits of seeing this maladjustment for what it is, and what it is in response to, and the joys that can be found in it- this is a very broad generalization though. Pat Califia (to keep harping on a theme) is about as far away from fifty shades as you can get, mein gott! I guess what I'm driving at is: the anonymously squalid and alluringly shameful spaces of play described by koestenbaum and halberstam are at the opposite end of the commercial and subjection-complicit libidinal apparatus, and the day that this gets written over is a sad day for everyone who isn't a pimp.

edit: i don't want to seem like i'm advocating anything other than a historical correction to the porn industry's glossy take on a cultural strain, but it sure looks like i'm cheerleading for pervs up there. sorry

Edited by palafox (April 24, 2014 16:39:39)

littlegreenpills posted:

this, but ukranian food

you don't like pierogies???

littlegreenpills posted:

what's a pierogie, are those those pasta sacks of meat/potato that you boil and eat w. sour cream? they're vile

littlegreenpills posted:

you used to mercilessly take the piss out of depressed people back on wddp

only the ones who were just posting I WANT TO DIE I AM MADE OF ASS AND POO all day erry day

The damaged goods hypothesis posits that female performers in the adult entertainment industry have higher rates of childhood sexual abuse (CSA), psychological problems, and drug use compared to the typical woman. The present study compared the self-reports of 177 porn actresses to a sample of women matched on age, ethnicity, and marital status. Comparisons were conducted on sexual behaviors and attitudes, self-esteem, quality of life, and drug use. Porn actresses were more likely to identify as bisexual, first had sex at an earlier age, had more sexual partners, were more concerned about contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and enjoyed sex more than the matched sample, although there were no differences in incidence of CSA. In terms of psychological characteristics, porn actresses had higher levels of self-esteem, positive feelings, social support, sexual satisfaction, and spirituality compared to the matched group. Last, female performers were more likely to have ever used 10 different types of drugs compared to the comparison group. A discriminant function analysis was able to correctly classify 83% of the participants concerning whether they were a porn actress or member of the matched sample. These findings did not provide support for the damaged goods hypothesis.