Feminism

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

Men’s Feminist Book Group (London, UK)

Men’s Feminist Book Group (London, UK)

Men’s Feminist Book Group This new group will be meeting for the first time to discuss The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard. The place: The Green Bar, Royal Festival Hall The time: 6.30pm, Tuesday 8th March Based in London UK, the Men’s Feminist Book Group seeks to bring together feminist and pro-feminist men to discuss books on feminist issues, women’s history and feminist fiction. All meetings are open to women and men. Each month we choose a book to read and discuss at our next meeting. Meetings are open to women and men. The overall purpose of the group is to enable men to become better-informed and therefore more effective in their support for the women’s movement. To find out about the group, join us…

From Jekyll to Hyde: The grooming of male pornography consumers

Rebecca Whisnant has written this chapter for a new book on pornography entitled ‘Everyday Pornography’. It starts: “in contemporary mainstream pornography marketed to heterosexual men, hostile and humiliating acts against women are commonplace. Consumers of such pornography routinely see women treated in ways that most people would neither choose for themselves nor accept for those they care about. While some of these consumers may be sociopaths or utterly unregenerate misogynists, I assume that the majority are neither. Thus, many consumers must experience ethical qualms about at least some of the pornography they encounter and about themselves in so far as they enjoy such material. These qualms pose a threat to their continued enjoyment of pornography. Thus, if they are to continue . . . they…

Cambridge University Union Society to debate pornography

The society will debate the motion “This house believes that pornography does a good public service”. The debate will see British porn actor Johnny Anglais, porn director Anna Span, and Jessi Fischer, an American writer who calls herself ‘the Sexademic’ proposing the motion. Debating against them will be former porn actor Shelley Lubben, child psychologist Richard Woolfson, and sociologist Dr Gail Dines. Read more about it at Cambridge News and Cambridge First.

Event: Saturday 27th Bristol University Feminist Conference

Event: Saturday 27th Bristol University Feminist Conference

Including Chris Green of the White Ribbon Campaign. Take a look at the flyer below and the conference website.

Images of degradation

At the start of October this year, I attended a charity postcard auction at The Aubin Gallery which was organized to help raise funds for the 2010 Feminism in London conference later that month. The evening before the auction I came across an online-only article about it on the Guardian website which focused on some of the contributing artists and their postcards. The article was complemented by photographs of 9 of the postcards which were to be auctioned the following day. One of the artworks featured in the article and slideshow was that of a young artist called David Rusbatch. It was described by as “a triptych of female images” and showed the following pictures, each accompanied by a label attributed to them by the…

Taking Back Anti-Porn Feminism

40 years ago, feminists were agreed that women were not objects. That women were not the sexual, political or social captives of men. They didn’t work for men, they didn’t give in to men, they didn’t owe men a good time. Empowerment was defined as women who could control their lives, who could live in a way that pleased themselves. It was societally encoded that women were submissive to men, but the feminists agreed that the woman is empowered by breaking free from this jail, not by locking herself in. A decade later many feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin, extended this philosophy to the sex industry. Dworkin fought against the exploitation of women as sex objects, as products to be owned by men. In opposition…

Anti-porn conference stresses importance of awareness

Anti-porn conference stresses importance of awareness Students of all stripes came to discuss feminism and pornography during the Feminist Anti-Pornography conference held last weekend. The UNH Womyn’s Club, along with the New Hampshire chapter of the group Stop Porn Culture, hosted the event. Read the article by Caitlin Andrews for The New Hampshire here.

The Wicked Wretch of the East (US), Bob Guccione, is dead at age 79.

The Wicked Wretch of the East (US), Bob Guccione, is dead at age 79.

image which appeared in Vanity Fair magazine is from here Bob Guccione, who died Wednesday 20 October 2010, at the age 79, was what might be termed one of several infamous U.S. pimperors, or rulers of pornography empires that trafficked in women and made exploitation and objectification into “sex” for heterosexual male consumers. He was the founder of Penthouse, a magazine of pornography (literally, the graphic depiction of ‘whores’) which started in England in 1965 and arrived in the U.S. in the late 1960s becoming tremendously popular and profitable through the 1970s and 1980s. It was Hugh Hefner’s Playboy magazine’s main rival for years. While Hefner made women into naked and less-naked Playboy Bunnies whose features were far from natural or normal, Guccione turned “his”…

No Regard

When talking about the damage that pornography does there are many places to start: “The scenes you see in porn aren’t fun at all…To be blunt, shooting a scene is not easy…it’s not enjoyable…girls are getting hurt.“ Sierra Sinn – former pornography performer “My first scene was booked and I was terrified. I tried backing out …but the male porn star I first met said I could not back out because I had signed a contract. I was threatened that if I did not do the scene I was going to get sued for lots of money. So I ended up taking shots of vodka to get me through it.“ Michelle Avanti – former pornography performer Production is where most of the direct and severe…

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