Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site psuvax1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cadre!psuvax1!berman
From: berman@psuvax1.UUCP (Piotr Berman)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: erotica/pornography
Message-ID: <1695@psuvax1.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 21-Aug-85 23:53:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: psuvax1.1695
Posted: Wed Aug 21 23:53:09 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 00:12:01 EDT
References: <3700@decwrl.UUCP>
Organization: Pennsylvania State Univ.
Lines: 41

> 
> A couple of days ago I came across a mail that said that (some, all???) 
> feminists were opposed to erotica.  I, being a feminist, would like to 
> respond to this statement.
> 
> I am not opposed to erotica, but I am opposed to pornography.............
> .........................................................................
> Does this mean that we should abolish the 'mish posish', and/or that the only
> 'politically correct' position is female superior???  Nope, it means we need
> to look carefully (i.e. skeptically) at pictures which are aimed at arousing
> sexual feelings.  ............................................................
> 
> 					As always,
> 					Joanne E. Munson
> 
> P.S.  I know my heterosexual bias are showing.  I think, however, that 
> analogous statements can be made about homosexual erotica and pornography.

Hey, men! Are you looking carefully at the pictures in Penthouse?
YES!!
Are you looking skeptically?
WHAT??  

If one pays for a magazine "aimed at arousing sexual feeling", he (she?)
doesn't pay for looking skeptically at pictures.  I agree that there
exists erotica in better taste.  One can buy reproductions of Cezanne,
to mention an example.  Or Rubens.  

SO WHAT?  Outlaw pornography?  What else?  Dirty jokes, perhaps.
More seriously, feminist should swallow the fact that most men have
fairly trivial kind of sexual fantasies and complain only if they
project into their behaviour.

Look on the better side of the issue.  Nowadays one looks for a submissive
women in magazines.  Before pornography, to have a submissive woman one
had a wife.  

Personally, I know about pornography readers whose attitude to women
is without any fault.

P. Berman