Rage Against the Man-chine

I recently heard a disgustingly fawning interview with Larry Flynt on a left wing talk show, with a female host no less, in which he was made out to be a champion of free speech, and that’s all. There was no mention made of the horrendous shit his company pumps out, no mention of the fact that the only reason he fought for his “freedom of speech” in the first place was because it would allow him to turn bigger profits, and no mention of the fact that it has been repeatedly PROVEN that the kind of misogynistic bullshit he publishes contributes to increases in the numbers of sexual assaults on women and children, not to mention the general piggish attitude of most men - and many brainwashed women - in this country toward women and their right to sovereignty over their own bodies.

Well, fuck that. I don’t give a shit if Mr. Flynt and I agree that Jerry Falwell was an asshole. Falwell’s dead, and I am much less threatened by religious fanatics who most people consider insane than the ever more pervasive and mainstream porn industry. Am I really supposed to forget that Larry Flynt regularly publishes cartoons in his magazines that revolve around rape (by donkeys, no less), incest, and child molestation because some other group of assholes I don’t like are opposed to him? I’m not getting in with any strange bedfellows. Flynt is coming from essentially the same position patriarchal religious assholes like Falwell are when it comes to women: we men decide what gets done with them women’s bodies. Fuck the both of them.

And that brings something else up. What the fuck are these women thinking walking around with Hustler T-shirts on? Have they ever seen a copy of that rag? I know that pretending that smut peddlers are culture heroes can help a “chick” gain the approval and attention of the average gross asshole, but is that really the goal? Is it enough for you to have a few disgusting dudes pretend to like you (but only just as long as it takes to get you to take your pants off) because you’re pretending to be too stupid (or too deluded) to realize your entire gender is being degraded for men’s titillation? A boner is not a compliment, no matter how many times you have been told that it is. The fact is, any dude who is into Hustler (or porn in general), even if he’s unable to admit it to himself, has a low opinion of women and their place in the world and thinks our desire to be treated like human beings with autonomy equal to his own is unreasonable. No thanks.

And don’t even get me started on the idea of the Hustler coffeehouse, which I unfortunately went to for some reason when I lived in LA. I think the mainstreaming of hardcore porn through stores like the fairly posh Hollywood Hustler store and its attendant coffeehouse is worrisome, not to mention a cheat. What I mean by that is that, in the past, anyone who wanted to buy porn or the kind of humiliating “lingerie” that the Hustler store sells used to have to endure the shame of being seen going into a shady-looking store with no windows in a dodgy part of town. That seems fair to me, or at least a little closer to fair — a little humiliation as payback for creating demand in an industry that banks on women’s humiliation. But now it’s fucking COOL to go to the Hustler store, and all the same heinous shit is for sale there as at Dirty Dan’s Sex Shack, but with nice lighting, big windows, and lattes. But I digress…

Larry Flynt isn’t cool. He thinks a picture of a naked woman being turned into ground beef is funny, he thinks rape and child molestation are funny, he thinks women ought to be glad they have the opportunity to get treated like subhumans so that the kinds of shitbags who get excited by seeing people degraded can jerk off, he has no problem with the fact that most of his “models” (prostitutes, come on) have been sexually abused and/or have drug problems, and he thinks it’s intellectually honest to argue that any feminist (i.e. woman who doesn’t like to see other women abused) who dares to point out the noisomeness of what he does is “pro-censorship,” a bad word as far as he and 2 Live Crew are concerned. He even molested his own kid, for fuck’s sake.