And what is this, “we can’t do anything about it, we can’t censor art” or whatever? Child porn is illegal. Why can’t women be afforded the same protection?

Only when it’s non-males does the freedom of speech suddenly become exhaustive. Only when women demand to be depicted and described as equal to men is the First Amendment brought to bear. Any excuse to keep from having to acknowledge that their motivations are purely selfish and self-serving, any excuse to maintain the privileges that tell them they are superior by virtue of the peen. Men use women as a mirror that magnifies their reflection to double its actual proportion – porn is the most obvious example of that.

The women in porn are not made up. They are real living breathing human beings. That people refuse to recognize that demonstrates inarguably porn’s ability to warp perception of what reality is, and to blind to the real humanity of women.

BTW, I’m super-Catholic and I love your blog! With the exception of your stance on religion (obviously) I agree with you on everything. All this porn and lady-hating needs to stop!! Glad to finally find a feminist of the non-Christina Aguilara variety.

Why is it that a fantasy BOOK influences someone to do something, like be nice to a neighbor of give to the poor, or a film like Blood Diamond gets people to stop buying diamonds, but it is somehow inconceivable that watching a womyn degraded and raped is influencing people? Why the fuck won’t these people just wake up?!?!

We have to do something. Just talking about it doesn’t seem to be working. Men have all the power and asking or demanding them for it isn’t working. I need to break something.

Thank you for this. For a long time I have found it difficult to articulate why the depiction of sexual violence is so much worse than “general” violence. You have hit the nail on the head – there is genuine positive re-enforcement for sexual violence. That is why we have to treat the videos and images of it with different rules.

This is a great essay and I will definitely be referring back to it. It really cleared up a few of the thoughts I had about the issue of violent porn.

Nine Deuce, once again you put into words an argument that I can’t. “People don’t actually believe that stuff” is one of the most frequent pro-porn arguments I hear. (Second only, of course to “Some women enjoy it.” Ugh.)

This reminds me of a debate I got into a few months ago. The dude I was arguing with said that porn was ok if women were made to appear like little girls (pigtails, small and skinny, no body hair) as long as no actual kids were involved. I still refuse to believe that guys who watch porn excessively can disassociate “actresses” on the screen and actual women and girls. Not to mention that infantilizing the “actresses” is completely demeaning.