Feminism

For discussion and comment on feminist theory and objections to pornography.

(USA) STOP PORN CULTURE! conference and training next month

Next month the 4th Stop Porn Culture Conference will be held in San Diego, California. The four day event running from the 16th to the 19th of June will be split into two blocks of two days with the first two providing training to those who are interested in using Stop Porn Culture’s slideshow training, followed by a two day conference entitled “Contemporary Radical Feminism in the Age of Porn”. The Stop Porn Culture Slideshow training will provide attendees with the experience, knowledge, and confidence to speak publicly against pornography in their community and will include in-depth presentations on topics such as: -the links between pornography and violence against women -First Amendment and other free speech issues -women in the industry -how to organize...

Connecting the dots: porn and women’s declining libido

Connecting the dots: porn and women’s declining libido

Dr Bella Ellwood-Clayton, resident anthropologist come sexpert, released her new book this week Sex Drive: In Pursuit of Female Desire. In it she draws attention to something researchers and sex therapists have largely ignored (in this country anyway) and that’s the negative impact of porn on women’s libido. “In any given second, 28,258 internet users are viewing pornography and 372 internet users are typing adult terms into search engines. Every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is created in the US …The effects of this pornography flood are yet to be fully understood, but it inarguably harms female libido” argues Ellwood-Clayton. We know porn is everywhere – “the wall paper of our lives” as Naomi Wolf puts it – with global sales exceeding 97...

STOP PORN CULTURE! conference and slideshow training

From June 16-19th San Diego will be the host city of the 4th Stop Porn Culture Conference. The four day event will be split into two blocks of two days with the first two providing training to those who are interested in using Stop Porn Culture’s slideshow training, followed by a two day conference entitled “Contemporary Radical Feminism in the Age of Porn”. The Stop Porn Culture Slideshow training will provide attendees with the experience, knowledge, and confidence to speak publicly against pornography in their community and will include in-depth presentations on topics such as: -the links between pornography and violence against women -First Amendment and other free speech issues -women in the industry -how to organize in your community Speakers include Gail Dines,...

EMMA Winter edition. The dream of being a porn star – Part I: The road to porn

EMMA Winter edition. The dream of being a porn star – Part I: The road to porn

Warning: this article contains descriptions and/or references to violence and/or sexual assault In the Winter 2011 edition of EMMA (Germany’s leading feminist magazine in Germany, and the only political magazine in Europe entirely run by women) a large part of the magazine was dedicated to pornography. We’ve translated them into English. Below is the first of three parts we will be publishing of The dream of being a porn star, a detailed account from a survivor of the pornography industry. Kim is sitting opposite Alice Schwarzer (Germany’s most prominent feminist and publisher of EMMA) and Chantal Louis (Editor of EMMA) and talks. She talks and talks, for one hour; two. And what she said even dumbfounded Alice Schwarzer and Chantal Louis who did not...

EMMA Winter edition. A large-scale human experiment

EMMA Winter edition. A large-scale human experiment

In the Winter 2011 edition of EMMA (Germany’s leading feminist magazine in Germany, and the only political magazine in Europe entirely run by women) a large part of the magazine was dedicated to pornography. We felt that a couple of articles in that edition of EMMA would be of interest to a lot of you, so we decided to translate them into English. The first article A large-scale human experiment shows that the concerns about the harms of pornography are being raised world-wide. The second article The dream of being a porn star, which we have split into three posts that will be published over the coming weeks, is a detailed account from a survivor of the pornography industry. A large-scale human experiment In...

fetishes.

fetishes.

Porn loves variety. Log on to any porn site, free or paid, open a porn mag, walk into a porn video shop, and you’ll see it laid out before you like the infinite varieties of toothpaste in a supermarket. Amateur, Anal, Asian, Barely Legal, BBW, Ebony, European, Gangbang, POV… a complete list would fill a book. You become the immaculate consumer. Every possible definition is available to you, and the definitions become definitions that only exist insofar as they offer you choice. Every possible narcissism is possible, every combination, every motion of this immaculate world can be bent to your exact whim. The word ‘fetish’, once used about objects with magical properties, continued in the 19th century through use of objects with sexual properties...

(UK) Leveson inquiry called upon to address media sexism

(UK) Leveson inquiry called upon to address media sexism

The UK’s Leveson inquiry has been called upon to tackle the sexual objectification and damaging representation of women in the media by a coalition of women’s groups. The Leveson inquiry will “not be doing its job properly” if it does not examine the portrayal of women in the media, according to End Violence Against Women (EVAW), Equality Now, Object, and Eaves. They argue in detailed submissions to the judge that reporting in tabloid and in some cases broadsheet newspapers perpetuates violence and even prevents some women reporting rape to the police. “Leveson is not just charged with looking at phone hacking but for the entire relationship between the press and the public,” said Jacqui Hunt, director of Equality Now. “Women make up 50% of...

Challenging Porn Culture: Conference report

Challenging Porn Culture: Conference report

This is a write-up of the Challenging Porn Culture conference, organised by London Feminist Network, that took place in London on the 3rd of this month. Apologies for the lateness of the post. It felt like a privilege being at the Challenging Porn Conference in London on Saturday the 3rd. It was an interesting, moving and educational day. Prof. Gail Dines‘ opening presentation skilfully illustrated the aggression, sexism, racism and sexualisation of women and girls in advertising and pornography. It was the kind of media training and education I wish everyone would receive as survival skills in the image based world she described and deconstructed into words for us to digest. Dines said that while we have become familiar with reading and analysing print,...

Need vs Entitlement: Vincent Tabak and myths about men’s sexuality

Need vs Entitlement: Vincent Tabak and myths about men’s sexuality

In response to the recent article on Deconstructing Vincent Tabak, I’d like to say some words about the premises of that argument, namely: that this murder was brought on by the conflict of ‘sexual needs’ and ‘sexual shame’, which men are subject to. I contributed at length to the discussion, this is a summing up of my comments to articulate clearly why I think this thesis is so badly wrong. 1) Men’s ‘need for sexual expression’ This very concept is where violence against women starts – ‘need’. As if men must have sex or else (what? They’ll die? Go mad?). It is a recurrent myth used to control women that ‘men need sexual expression’ (and so, by implication, women must enable them to express...

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