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December 1993

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Subject:
From:
"Daniel B. Case" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 16 Dec 1993 17:56:53 -0500
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Is no one willing to make a case *for* pornography?  As the expression
and advocacy of sexual possibilities. It is well to remember that
without Freud, D. H. Lawrence, and other admittedly sexist writers
we might still be thinking of women's sexuality as the Victorians
did.
 
At the risk of setting myself up for some flaming, I baglia
has being making a pro-porn case, among her other positions. She was
certainly not the first to do so and at least claim to be doing it from a
feminist perspective, but she has definitely received the most attention.
(Although, having been rereading the last chapter of "The History of Sexuality"
today I can't help but smile ironically at your call for more open sexual
discussion. Oh well).
 
I find, BTW, from what I understand of MacKinnon's arguments, that she makes
an interesting reversal on Derrida: for him, there is nothing outside of text;
for her, there is no text. Blur the difference between speech and action and
you will eventually lose the freedom of both.
 
Richard Posner, reviewing "Only Words" in "The New Republic", also made the
interesting note that Denmark is a lot less restrictive than the US or Canada
about porn and yet it has a lower rate of rape. Ditto with Japan, where porn
with an element of bondage is also pretty widespread, even entering mainstream
popular culture. Then again, I think he was one of the judges MacKinnon argued
her case for the ordinance in front of.
 
Daniel Case State University of New York at Buffalo
Prodigy: WDNS15D | GEnie: DCASE.10
                            Ceci n'est pas une pipe
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