Every single time I see someone write “Pshaw! Sex positive just means ‘pro-porn’,” I’ll direct them here.

With your permission, of course.

Another problem I have with POV’s like the one quoted in the original post here, which almost seems too obvious to mention: that somehow, in the zeal to castigate all porn-lovers, what comes out of their mouths (and keyboards) often sounds to me far dirtier than any of the original material. I mean, you can just as easily turn it around: if you’re so disgusted by all this, why keep bringing it up? And in a number of cases, not so much the above-quoted, but in the course of at least one flamewar I’ve been in recently: hello, imagery. What rape fantasies? Whose rape fantasies? *What on earth are you talking about?*

“But doc, you’re the one showing me all the dirty pictures!”

While, obviously, there’s no one opinion on theis, and a million points of variation, and I’m not in agreement with EVERYTHING you said, this was wonderfully expressed and so nice to see.

And for the record, there are plenty of us out there who are not 100% anti-porn, who work in sexuality, and so forth able to have productive, fantastic discussion with other feminists who are more solidly against all porn, all sex work, etc. Takes some doing and usually a lot of patience and communication on both ’sides” over time, but if it’s any consolation, that’s not a pipe dream. It happens, and sometimes, it’s really awesome. Seems to me you’ve made a great step in that direction here.

- HC

Thanks for that Thomas.

I don’t think the way to create a vocal and visible sex positive feminism is to argue with people who will never change their minds.

However, I do think that the more sensible folks on each side of the debate ought to get together and create a way to actually have a productive discussion about its history — where there are standards of evidence and argument — and respectfulness.

I don’t think that calling people “bad feminists” (and I’m not sure if anyone did) is a good idea, in other words. There are positions with which I don’t agree, but “bad”? How could I possibly make that claim?

Finally, in many ways, “slut feminism” and so many other derogatory phrases to describe what’s going on in popular culture is very much a creation of the media. I’m sure in a couple of years, someone will finally uncover this insidious piece of ideological framing, the way Faludi exposed the myth that women had a greater chance of being the target of a terrorist attack than she had of getting married past the age of, what was it?, 40?