War-Monger vs. The Porn King: Is Bill Kristol Respectable?
Until I recently moved, my next-door neighbor was an extremely successful pornographer. He’s made a fortune by transmitting pay-per-view satellite broadcasts of hard-core sex films to many of America’s best-known hotel chains. (One of the curiosities of the age is that while it is a crime for a man to pay a woman for sex, it’s perfectly legal for a man to pay an 18-year-old girl a few hundred dollars to have sex simultaneously with a half-dozen strangers, and then sell a film of the event to millions).
The Porn King built himself an impressive mansion here in beautiful Boulder (this is just one of his several residences I’m given to understand), and it towered above my modest home. Like Nick, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, I was both bemused by the splendor of my neighbor’s abode, and somewhat puzzled by just what sort of relations I ought to have with a man who, although exceedingly rich, could not be considered respectable.
All of New York knew that Jay Gatsby was a gangster; all of Boulder knows the Porn King is essentially a glorified pimp. Yet just as much of fashionable society came to Gatsby’s splendid parties, many an eminently respectable Boulderite enjoyed the generous hospitality of the Porn King’s table.
I myself was more than once invited to partake of his food and drink, but politely declined. Still, I occasionally found myself engaged in a friendly stop-and-chat with my amiable neighbor. I always came away from these trivial moments of social intercourse with a slightly confused feeling. Was it, after all, a bit cowardly on my part to treat him as if I didn’t know or care who he was?
All this came to mind last week when I glimpsed Bill Kristol’s smooth and amiable face on the television, where it appears so often. Kristol - editor of The Weekly Standard, Fox News contributor, co-founder of the key neo-conservative group the Project For the New American Century, and current visiting professor at Harvard - is the very definition of a well-respected man about town, doing the best things so conservatively.
But how respectable is Kristol, really? Anyone who pays the least attention to him soon discovers that the ruling passion of Kristol’s life is to involve the United States in as many wars as possible, with as many enemies as he can find or create.
In short, Kristol thinks about war in much the same way the narrator of Lolita thought about 12-year-old girls: with a constant, obsessive, perverse longing.
I choose this analogy with some care. An overwhelming lust for violence seems to be the common vice that links together Kristol, the various Kaplans (Lawrence, Fred, Robert), and other leaders of the contemporary neo-conservative movement.
All these men appear to genuinely love the idea of war for its own sake. The thought of their countrymen - not they themselves of course, as not one of them has ever come within a thousand miles of a live bullet - inflicting the horrific violence of modern warfare on various hapless foreigners is something that clearly excites these gentlemen quite a bit.
And that, when you think about it, is rather disturbing.
When he says goodbye to Gatsby for what turns out to be the last time, Nick suddenly realizes that, although Gatsby is a criminal, he isn’t, at bottom, nearly as great a scoundrel as many of the pillars of polite society who circulated on his perfectly clipped lawn on those starry summer nights.
” ‘They’re a rotten crowd,’ I shouted across the lawn. ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.’ ”
For my part, I’d rather give the Porn King the Presidential Medal of Freedom than shake Bill Kristol’s hand.
Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. He can be reached at paul.campos@colorado.edu.
© 2007 The Rocky Mountain News
Well said, Mr. Campos. I agree, a human being with his guts blown out screaming his death cries in the filth of their contents is perhaps the untimate obcenity. My country has exported more misery than I am able to grasp the extent of and is poised for even more. When our polititions are put to trial, then I will begin to have pride in our actions.
Veteran ‘66-68
What do you suppose is the drive behind Bill Kristol’s lust for war? Is it pathological, financial, or what? I’d like to know what’s in it for him? Can anyone explain it to me?
What kind of society do we have when we teach our children that it is better to kill than to make love? When passion for death overwhelms passion for each other?
Personally, I would rather have my child work in the adult entertainment industry than join the army.
For all of his accolades as an intellectual, Kristol - like Joe Lieberman - is still stupid enough to believe that the US military can make Israel safer by taking out Iraq, Iran, and Syria.
Even as our involvement in Iraq demonstrates that all we can really accomplish is getting a lot of people - including our own - killed, Kristol, Lieberman, et al., cling to their zionist wet dream.
jj
It comes down to this: Any talking head promoting war and death gets off on thoughts of suffering and pain. Theres a word for this. Psychopath. A danger to the surrounding society. These are the kind of people we warn our children to run away from. Kristol, Limbaugh, Carlson and the rest no doubt have deeply buried issues with sex and intimacy, and can only resolve them with thoughts of violence.
Is Bill Kristol respectable? No.
Borrowing from Atrios, this has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
This reminds me of the time the US was trying to shut down Larry Flint’s porn mag Swank for printing full nudity - at a time Playboy and Penthouse were much more tame - and he responded by printing graphic images of mangled bodies from the vietnam war and asked the question what was more obscene. Of course today as the article states US media is flooded with sexual images and video, but nothing to show americans what they are really doing to people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The Human Mexican Patio Chair is far more insidious than any pornographer because, like the president, he is an S&M queen who doesn’t require consent from his partner. The only pornographic movies Bill could be into are snuff films.
Didn’t former gay male prostitute / military fetishist and media poseur Jeff Gannon/James Gluckert spend times overnight in the Whitehouse?
I have often wondered how it can be illegal for two consenting adults to have sex when one pays the other, while it is legal for a person to have sex with multiple partners for pay as long as the pay is ostensibly for “acting” in a movie rather than personal gratification. Of course, it’s also not illegal for one person to take another out to dinner and a movie, buy expensive gifts, or pay for the other person’s apartment with the end result being a sexual relationship.
It’s very weird, convoluted, and hypocritical. I have read that much of the porn being produced and distributed today comes from major corporations, which are run by many of the same people who decry sex and violence in our society. I don’t know this personally, but I believe it to be true from all indications.
War is so much more pornographic than sex. Kristol and his ilk are responsible for more death, suffering, and torment than any prostitute, not to mention the declining reputation of the US in the rest of the world.
The priorities of too many people and institutions are certainly skewed in a bizarre way. War is peace, pollution is clear skies, cutting trees is healthy forests, equality is oppression, fearmongering is patriotism - the list goes on and on.
‘Slavery is freedom’?
Bill Kristol is the Whore’s whore. For a blue blood northeastern son of Irving, he is one dumb, zombie looking, arrogant mother fucker.
Hitler never visited the war front or the hospitals full of wounded men or any other actually-violent event. Instead, with his own taste for porn, Hitler liked to watch films of his enemies’ deaths. Check out “Pornography and Silence: Culture’s Revenge Against Nature” by Susan Griffin (in paperback, very easy to read, and completely empowering for anybody under Christian Capitalist Patriarchy) for the all-time radical analysis of the Bill Kristol kind of mind and man…”When faced with the real nature of the world, he has to make a choice: adjustment to reality, or more delusions of forcing the world to resemble his delusions….” And like a serial killer, each confrontation with reality (given his choice) must be more and more violent, because life keeps coming back; until, like Hitler, he destroys himself rather than face reality….
There is, however, a link between porn and violence. For certain, porn has been SHOWN to impact rapists and serial killers. The dehumanization of another human being is NEVER a good thing. Porn creates for some men a sense of power over women. War creates for other men, a sense of power over populations. The issue then is power. Why is it that healthy people respect the humble gifts of their lives and find satisfaction in close, intimate bonds with meaningful others; while others, fragmented from a variety of things, some related to early child abuse or neglect, cannot “get no satisfaction” and then turn to things overtly or covertly brutal to “get their rocks off.”
Personally, I’d like to see ANY advocate of war forced to spend time in the trenches, or at a children’s hospital where they can see where all the heavy hardware the nation’s tax dollars have invested in does the work of “killing terrorists” in the tragic parody of these maimed children. It would be the modern equivalent of Charles Dicken’s Christmas Carol, where those given much (and in positions to impact the destinies of others) are forced to take a spiritual guided tour of just where their selfish actions lead. Anyone know how to contact the ghost of Marley? Seems a whole lotta people will soon be dragging chains into and beyond “the afterlife.”
If I didn’t believe in Universal justice (karma), I could not remain sane in these times!
As much as Bill Kristol and mindless violence (war) sickens me - I am nauseated by many of these posts. If you do not view pornography as violence against women, hatred of women and young girls, then I refer you to the writings of Robert Jensen, University of Texas, and his revealing insights into the world or pornography. Read his articles, and be prepared to be sick when you learn about what goes on in the porn world.
There is a difference between erotica, much of which is excellent, and pornography.
Peace.
If only porn was just sexual activities between 2 people, i wouldnt give 2 shits about it. But you should see the type of stuff that is peddled these days, womens head down the toilet, pedophile titillation with a video that has the audio “We wont tell anyone that youre not *bleep*” while you read the lips of the guy and he says eighteen.
websites called “sleep assault”, “rapesection”,
another which the name escapes me where “drugged teens” are abused and the male does whatever he wants with the drugged subject. Theres a video out there called “war in iraq” where people dressed as marines rape muslim women. People arent masturbating to sexuality anymore, theyre being fed violence against women, its the eroticization of violence against women, the eroticization of rape, and underground videos must be much worse. Its not like its a fringe part of porn, the porn girl called brianna banks has a video out there where she is raped while sleeping and says something like “Good thing im a slut or i would have called the police”.
Theres a girl doing this kind of porn called Brooke Haven, when she was asked “where is the industry going, at all these extremes it is being taken?
Her answers says alot, she said “I dont wanna think where its going”.
Juliann: There is a definte distinction between erotica and pornography. But the distinction between the two is often deliberately blurred by those who wish to impose stict, totalitarian puritanical views on those who enjoy the human form.
And with some very mild research that can be done in any decent public library, one discovers that the great majority of the porn is produced by companies owned by six large telecom corporations (Viacom is one). The same corporations that employ Kristol et al.
So, who do you blame? They are both ends of the same rope they will use to hang you…
Great points made with the article and in the comments!Max Blumenthal does a great expose on what chickenhawks and hypocrites the College Republicans are on YouTube. Another good clip features a Mathew Continetti from the Weekly Standard getting ripped a new one on C-Span. It is as if people who are drawn to “conservatism” are gentically inclined toward cowardice…to a man this is true!Another “trait” these people seem to share is their reliance upon nepotism and/or cronyism for employment! I hope some psychologist or sociologist does a study on this phenomenon some day!
It’s prejudice: class, race, and gender.
In the end, we’ve all heard, everything comes down to either love or fear.
That tells me everything I ever wanted to know about Kristol.
what real porn go to mindprod.com/politics/iraqwarpix
Well said, professor Campos. And here is another question.
Who is more respectable at the U. of Colorado - Ward Churchill or the sado-porn profs there who research new and better ways to build instruments of mass killing? I say the former by far.
As a CU alum (Ph.D. 1983) I was appalled when the Univ. fired Churchill on incredibly flimsy grounds.
I hope that Prof Campos will join me in objecting to this travesty.
AJ Oliver
Emeritus Prof of POL SCI
Heidelberg College
That would be Kagan (Lawrence, Fred and Robert), right?
“Was it, after all, a bit cowardly on my part to treat him as if I didn’t know or care who he was?”
Beyond cowardly, actually. Consenting adults having sex is a bad thing? Or is it the fact that there is a camera in the room? Or is it because other people enjoy watching consenting adults have sex? Or is it that a tiny group of fundamentalists declared that any sex other than behind closed doors is “baaaaad?”
Kristol’s lies have aided and abetted the murder and maiming of millions of innocents, the emptying of our Treasury for generations to come, a near complete evisceration of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, and the continued decimation of American - make that human - morals by advocating rendition, torture, secret prisons, assassinations and a whole host of other twisted brain farts.
The “porn king” helped thousands enjoy hours of good, clean fun, no one died, no rights were violated.
Which one troubled your conscience again?
I have always wondered: What technical, artistic, scholarly or craftmen skills do neocons actually possess?
In fact, what actual work do they do for the huge compensation they receive?
Look at the totally different bureaucratic positions that, for example, Wolfowitz occupied. What training and skills did he bring to the various jobs he held?
To Grousefather: “Can anyone explain it to me?”
To an honest question, I give an honest answer: Abject, irrational fear of not being in control of everything (and to wit the only way to accomplish that is to conquer what is not under control), and the other is abject fear of ever being told he was wrong.
In that sense, every one of the current and previous members of the Bush 00-07 administration are more afraid of their own failures than they are of the ghastly and irreperable damage they are doing to our country in the blind hope they can make ammends.
Captain Ahab could not have done worse.
Paul Campos writes a truly splendid essay - comparing the Porn King to Bill Kristol in the context of the Great Gatsby, then finally letting the reader know in no uncertain terms exactly where the good professor’s value judgments come down right at the very end. Bravo!
My favorite insight?
“Kristol thinks about war much the same way the narrator of Lolita thought about 12 year old girls: with a constant, obsessive, perverse longing…… An overwhelming lust for violence seems to be the common vice that links together…..other leaders of the neo conservative movement.”
For those intrigued by the nexus between rape and war, I recommend reading some Germaine Greer, Susan Brownmiller, and Stan Goff. The erotic allure of battlefield carnage itself (for both the wannabe warrior and the surviving combat vet), remains one of the military’s best kept dirty little secrets.
As the barracks bullshit goes, once you’ve had it red and raw and dirty in the field, it’s hard to go home and ever be satisfied again with soft clean sheets and the old lady in a missionary position.
I hereby nominate Phil Ochs’ savage Vietnam era song “We’re the Cops of the World” as the official marching anthem for Little George’s grand GWOT crusade.
Here in the fall of 2007, the neo con lechers’ violent fixation focuses as intently upon Iran as it focused upon Iraq a mere five years ago. After 9/11, Afghanistan alone was not enough. Girly men settle for Baghdad. Real men march on to Tehran.
Call it adolescent fantasy, promiscuity, serial monogamy, meglomania, or whatever you may, but it all boils down to pathetic, insatiable lust.
Big boys, thinking with their little heads, plodding solemnly forward, finger on the trigger, with their brightly colored cod pieces flapping to and fro.
Bill from Saginaw
Anyone who watches or listens to Bill Kristol is as sick as he is.I can’t understand why a sane person would watch Kristol or Fox News.Just the sight of Kristol makes me want to puke,he should be in a cage at the zoo.
Creating war with Syria,Iran and Iraq will never make Israel safe. The perverse logic should be evident to anyone. The only way to settle that is with negotiation and trade - Economics will end the war and set you free.
My Grandmother had thousands and thousands of books in her house, from the basement to the attic. She had read every one. Included in this collection was first editions of both Kinsey Reports. When, at the age of 18 I found it in her bookshelves, I asked her, “What is a dirty book?” she answered, “One with dust on it.”
Much of the pornography is not only demenaing to women, but boring as hell. In the pre-DVD and VHS days, to attract an audience, many of the films relied on a plot (s simple one, true) and some more dialog. Because you really had to work hard to see porn, I mean you had to go to a theatre, know someone with a projector, find a sleazy part of town, I mean porn had to deliver! What is being peddled today is not even good pornography, and it is still boring. Oh, BTW, a lot of the hetero porn is very condescending the men also. It paints them as one dimensional idiots who use the wrong end of their bodies to think. Call it Porn Sitcom.
Oh where is the Devil in Miss Jones and Deep Throat, I am Curious, Yellow and Blue, when we need them? Maybe Bill Kristol still has his copies?
Please don’t confine the blood lust and glorification of war solely to those few - it’s rampant among ALL neocons and bush supporters. I have dozens of comments I’ve saved from regular, middle and lower class people who glorify it to the point of idolatry.
r
http://bloggingforjesus-raoul.blogspot.com/
You go, Paul.
And Raoul, what you wrote is unheard of.
How is everyone so absolutely certain that all the women consent to such acts every time? Today, mainstream porn is exceptionally cruel–downright brutal–and I am not naive enough to believe those involved follow their conscience with regards to coercion or violence when there is tons of money to be paid in presenting “gonzo” type images.
Everyone is entitled to freedom of speech, but their right doesn’t prohibit me from exercising mine, especially when it comes to opposing anti-female violence that happens to incorporate the power of sexuality. Hell, if we start believing the fantasy that sexuality is only capable of being benign or positive, then pedophilia (child rape) would be justified.
FRANK1569: If Porn were intense sex between two consenting adults I’d have NO problem with it. It’s not about that… it’s about the DEGRADATION usually of a woman, or women. This attitude becomes subliminal and feeds the frenzy that sets women up as second class citizens, as non-persons, as OBJECTS of someone else’s desire… and we are NOT talking healthy desire. Most of it is SICK and from what I understand, a lot of men now NEED porn and like the character in Carnal Knowledge, CANNOT relate to women in a sexally healthy, responsive way. Perhaps this has something to do with the high sales of things like Viagra. Sad that people cut off the heart connection and TRUE passion, and then need to take pills to do what nature intended… out of LOVE or LUST or PASSION or BEAUTY. But not in the interest of degrading.
this is a short but well crafted article and it was a pleasure to read it just as collection of words.
their content was every bit as sharp as well.
when it comes to drawing back the curtain and peering into the respectable people’s lives we begin to understand relative judgments better.
who, more than the gop has reeled and rocked from the ever increasing eyes of the cameras all around us, showing us all the warts and pimples.
they now lurk in the men’s can.
the christian bible thumpers seem to be the worst.
they keep falling out of the queer tree any time the wind gusts to 20 miles an hour. in total denial of course.
so funny.
audie murphy, the great cowboy actor said he made 38 westerns and all they ever did different in any of them was to change the horses.
like the gop toilet tarts - its the same rerun every time.
what is also alarming, though, is how many many of these out of shape, bald, sweaty, walking heart attack white guys there are in right wing think tanks dreaming up one war after another. one scenario after another.
given that the neocons had twenty five years to plan iraq, i shudder to think about it.
they are like a festering cancer tumor.
and this author is dead on about b krystol.
98% of the MSM’s pundits are shitheads. Why?
A couple of observations. There are ancient evolutionary genetic traits that homo sapiens has that are just never going to go away. And that’s why “the worlds oldest profession” is never going to go away. Pornography is degrading to the “actors” but it is part of freedom of the press, and legal or not, it’s never going to go away.
And I fear, War, as a result of testosterone combined with political ambition will never go away either. From the earliest days of the colonies, America has always had “War Hawks” present in important positions of leadership.
But this neo-CON group is different. They want perpetual war without any end as a means of increasing their net worth.
We’ve never seen an evil like this in our history. They don’t want to win in Iraq. They just want to keep slipping no-bid contracts to their front men…. forever…
We need a candidate who will campaign on the pledge of capital punishment for politicians engaged in war crimes and for politicians engaged in war profiteering. If he lives through the election, we could deliver this admin to the Hague, restore world confidence in us, and prevent a third world war against us from getting started.
Vote third party even if you know it’s good for the repukes. We have to start showing a third party is a real option.
That’s what I think.
pac
I would not shake Bill Kristol’s hand either. Who knows where it has been??
“IF porn were just sex between consenting adults”… “How is everyone so absolutely certain that all the women consent to such acts every time?”… “rape”… “drugged and sleeping women”… “People aren’t masturbating to sexuality anymore, they’re being fed violence against women”
Wow. Way to be narrow-minded and ignorant.
These “assaults” are called ACTING. They are FANTASIES. You may not like many of them, and I sure as hell don’t either, but anyone who thinks that style of porn is “mainstream” or that the vast majority of it isn’t still the exact same thing it always was (stick some people in a room with a bed and a camera and let them go at it) is willfully misinformed. And anyone who thinks it’s real needs to have their head examined. Do you think they really shoot people in action movies too? Come on, people, use your brains.
Everything you see on a mass-marketed pornographic video is consensual and of legal age, because it has to be. There are very strict regulations and lots of oversight and enforcement, you can read a porn box and find that out. They say what record keeping laws they comply with and exactly where said records are stored, right there on the packaging. If they cannot prove the actresses were of legal age and gave consent, they can be busted. How hard would it be? If you and I can see the videos, so can the cops. It’s not like they’re hiding the stuff.
And honestly, who the hell would be stupid enough to actually sexually assault someone in a porn video? Not only is it unnecessary, as there is a neverending supply of young women who will play for pay, it’s utterly moronic to even try. Think about it, if a woman does not consent to a sex act, how hard is it for her to complain to the cops and everyone involved go straight to jail? It’s not even an investigation, the idiots filmed their own evidence. Hello?
Honestly, this is the kind of prudish misinformation I’d expect from fundamentalists, not progressives.
John Freeman, were you in the “Big Red One” in RVN 1966? I knew a man then with the same name.
ezeflyer:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/092507a.html
Instead of medals, uniformed killers should be obliged to wear photographs of their victims — of villages burnt and people tortured, machine-gunned, and bombed. It ought to be understood that those shiny bits of ribbon and medal are rewards for shedding blood.
The distinction between erotica and pornography reminds me of the line from “The Year of Living Dangerously”:
BILLY KWAN: If it’s in focus, it’s pornography, if it’s out of focus, it’s art.
The bullyboy culture is phundamentally phallic, c.f. Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here”. The businessmen & women who talk in such serious tones, the starry-eyed Kristols and Coulters and Krauthammers who look like they’ve just lifted their faces from troughs of blood & seminal fluid — it’s all a great bombfucfest for the deeply diseased.
One might look at history and note that if you consider “religion” to be defined as the summation of ones actions and the actions one call for others to take, I am fond of noting that, to me, the only “religion” of empire looks like “human sacrifice”. I think stands in opposition to the brand new (historically speaking)”rights” based democracy.
Seen in this light, I Mr. Kristol’s blood-lust makes perfect sense. He is just an advocate for the “Normal” form of human government–EMPIRE, which means he must do whatever he can to destroy the very concept of “human rights” and get as much blood flowing as possible. His “religion” demands that of him
Pinstripe-suited monsters are the worst because of their camouflage. Their sullied souls use position to wield power toward monstrous deeds of death and injustice.
there are so many willing to engage in the porn industry, that they do not have to go about it illegally. as far as kristol is concernerd, he is just following good old christian tradition.
“These “assaults” are called ACTING. They are FANTASIES. You may not like many of them, and I sure as hell don’t either, but anyone who thinks that style of porn is “mainstream” or that the vast majority of it isn’t still the exact same thing it always was (stick some people in a room with a bed and a camera and let them go at it) is willfully misinformed. And anyone who thinks it’s real needs to have their head examined. Do you think they really shoot people in action movies too? Come on, people, use your brains.”
Yeah jerking off to a depiction of a rape is just good clean fun. Once 3d graphics get real enough so we cant tell the difference between a real child and a 3d model, this guy is gonna say that people jerking off to sodomizing a child is just harmless fantasy, since no child is harmed! I KNOW that some of it must be consensual, but along your line of thinking, forced prostitution doesnt exist since every girl could go to the police and get the pimp caught! Yeah duh me! She would never be scared that she would be stabbed and left behind a dumpster or dissapeared at the bottom of the river no no…
Im pretty sure some of the porn out there is just plain pimpery caught on tape…
Humbert Humbert did NOT have an obsession with 12-year-old girls. His “problem” was a “problem” with love, with America, and with their representation in a specific 12-year-old girl, namely Lolita.
At the risk of being pedantic, I had to correct this distortion which disrupts an otherwise fine literary essay. (Sorry, but I’d just finished reading a piece on the quality of our education system!)
And for the record, i never said “IF porn were just sex between consenting adults” i said “If only porn was just sexual activities between 2 people”. Im french so things might not come out as i want to, what i meant was, if only it
was just sex… instead of being violence, rape depictions, demeanment, degradation of women. And im betting this is just the beginning, in 20 years from now with 3d taken to new heights, i foresee the mainstreaming of snuff movies, pedophily, and some things i cant really imagine at the moment.
if porn was sexual activities between 100 concenting adults, going at it with reckless abandon, i have no problem. as long as no one is getting hurt ( unless that is what they like). not my cup of tea, and none of my business. but each to his own. now what really offends me, is the genocidle butcher in the white house, and his henchmen, as well as america’s arrogant foreign policy.
For Kristol’s reason to champion crimes against humanity, check his stock portfolio and where the majority of his income is derived.
He’s just a shill for other interests and well paid at that.
To Grousefather: “Can anyone explain it to me?”
I believe this question deserves more attention. I think Kristol’s mentality/motivation is identical to a gang member’s. He wants his “bros” to come out on top with the most turf, the biggest guns, the baddest “rep”, selling the most drugs and instilling the most fear in adversaries.
In other words, it’s simply a continuation of a basic, elemental human motive that worked pretty well 1000 BC, but not so well thereafter.
Give the Porn King the Nobel Prize, he told the truth to the actors and they agreed to the terms as consenting adults.
On the other hand Kristol and the rethug lie machine do not care about consent, international law or elections or polls and go out of their way to not treat the world, or Americans for that matter, as adults who deserve repect and consnet - just object to expolit, dismiss, shout at, call names, or kill or wound.. or….or……
Meanwhile China has increased defense spending roughly 20% and all its’ war plans are based on defeating the US..
By the time it comes down no one in the world will lift a finger to help us….the vast majority of the worlds’ population will cheer the Chinese on and will hope they wipe us off the map.
There will be no need for an occupation.
Provocative essay to be sure. I believe that the basic underlying sins of the neoconservative crowd are pride and control.
Their pride keeps them from seeing the faults of humanity in themselves. Because they are American Conservatives, they are without sin and allowed to do whatever moral crimes that they condemn in other polical groups and nations. If they speak in favor of violence and killing, it is okay because they are not Muslims who clearly lust for violence.
This sin of pride is compounded by a desire for control that compells them to eliminate governments not acquiescent to American policy and supportive of American economic exploitation. Their pride prevents them from seeing the basic violation of the Golden Rule that this is. Their faith in control prevents them from seeing how control always fails to achieve its own ends and becomes self-destructive in the final results. Unfortunately, those of us who realized this early in the present conflict find ourselves only able to sit back and wait for the gradual realization of a significant portion of the rest of the country.
Kudos to Paul Campos for this piece. The analogy is entirely appropriate. The war-mongering of the Kristols and cohorts is obscene. Would that this kind of shaming appeared more widely in our mainstream media.
The old adage “follow the money trail” always seems to tell all. I run into hypocrites all the time, and simply following the money trail exposes them. A “Christian” fundamentalist gave a lecture to my sister on the evils of gambling because she visits the quarter slots at the casino once in a while. When I asked her what that guy did for a living she said that he had a chain of those check cashing services. This is so ironic as to be off the map. Here is a guy who tells someone dropping a few quarters in the slots they are a sinner, but as I know my sister tends to spend less on casinos than most people do on movies every year, I find his lecturing ridiculous–not too mention the fact that HE is one of those moneychangers that Christ would have taken his whip to. Christ said to the religious hypocrites: you strain at a gnat and swollow a camel. But this guy is a smalltime pimp–leave the real stuff to Wall Street.
Our economy is one where the real pimps always live very well indeed. Think of the movie Pretty Woman with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. That movie is such a good commentary on the economics of the 80s and right up until today. In that movie, Julia, the prostitute, is trying to survive in an economy which is pretty unforgiving for the working classes, so she sells the only commodity she owns, her body. Gere is a Wall Street businessman who can afford the penthouse, expensive sports cars, etc. But Gere’s character is not a happy man, even with all of his money. He has a shallow girlfriend and an “existential vaccuum” that leaves a pretty big hole in his personality. Julia, the prostitute, is amazed at this master of hedgefunds. Like the rest of us, who don’t really understand the machinations of the Machivellis of Wall Street, Julia is taken aback by this pirrhana. The whore shames the rich businessman by asking him in her child-like innocence: “you mean, you just take over companies and you dismantle them and you sell them off, and put people out of work, and destroy them?” Unlike most of the Wall Street crowd, Gere’s character ends up having a conscience and seeing the evil of his ways–yeah, we can suspend our disbelief as these are the movies. Yet, this is exactly what has happened time and time again. We are to the point where this country doesn’t produce anything anymore. Our whole economy is based on one bubble after another–the Federal Reserve loans money to the pirrhana so they can eat up more and more little fish. People work at useless, meaningless occupations, shuffling papers around, filling in little boxes that approve payment for medical treatment or deny it, give a loan for an inflated house so that all of those setting up the deal can make a fortune. As my dad used to say about this bunch, a drop of their sweat would kill a rattlesnake. Very few have actually ever toiled at real labor at anytime in their lives–and for this they are richly rewarded.
In the political realm, we have the Condis, and the Rumsfelds, and the Albrights–people who toe the line for the Wall Street Bankers and the elite wealthy. They produce murder and mayhem and misery throughout the world, and when they are through, our universities always offer them a well-paying position so that our young people can look up to them. No honest labor rewarded here–only evil machinations.
It makes no difference how many times these journalists and pundits mislead us and lie to us, they are doing just as their corporate masters want them to do, therefore there is always a seat at the table for them–which is why you will continue to see Kristol week after week. Tim Russert never asked a hard question of a guest in his life, and week after week he waits to see whom the White House will send him so that the White House can spin the news the way they want. He plays the game and we all watch as his chin has doubled over the years–yep, pandering to the power class feeds one well–bodily speaking anyway. When Bill Moyers asked Tim about his putting up the White House line and lie week after week about WMDs, and yellow cake, and allowing Cheney to quote Judith Miller’s parroting of Cheney’s “leaks” as though this were fact, just replies “I wish to God someone had picked up the telephone and called me and told me differently.” Hello!! Isn’t your job supposed to be to do a little bit of work instead of being a stenographer for Cheney and Rove???? But GE who builds bigger and better bombs has already brought good things to NBC (Nuclear Broadcasting Company) and to Tim’s Life. Little Tim should be really proud of his own man, and maybe he, too, will one day write a book: Big Tim, Little Tim.
We should judge people by what they do for a living–and the more misery they produce, the harder we should judge them. I knew a woman who worked as a nurse and was worried because her husband, an engineer, thought he would lose his job at Raytheon. The war was instigated by Bush and suddenly her husband received such an increase in pay that she could quit her job as a nurse. Yes, war pays for some folk it would seem.
Sooo, I hate to admit it, but porn films are a symptom of an economony which is run by super pimps who, when we are lucky enough to have a job, makes whores of us all–wage slave whores at that. We usually do not produce anything worthy of human consumption, and if we make really good, we move useless financial instruments around the board, trying to see whom we can screw out of what. If a poor kid tries to go to the movies to forget it all, he is hit by adds beckoning him to join the National Guard–they don’t show guys killing Iraqi villagers on those ads either, they show a a guy working with his buddies to rescue flood victims and other types–in other words, their commercials show what our National Guard ought to be doing–not what they, in fact, do. They show a kid who has been forced to go to poor schools how he can get an education in the Guard, why they even show him that he can wear a red cross patch on his arm–I meann, you can be somebody, a medic helping folks in a disaster. You can get all this technical training that you can never afford in civilian life. You might even get to go to COLLEGE!!!! Lure the poor schmuck in and then put his ass in Baghdad. Shouldn’t their be some truth in advertising here????
Years ago, you could hardly get anyone in the south to join the guard because the state militias were brought out by the governors time and again to shoot coal miners who were on strike. It didn’t take the good ole boys long to figure out that they didn’t want to shoot other good ole boys who where trying to feed their families by going down in the mines. I think we may have another instance of this, for all of their signing up bonuses of 20,000. In spite of their lying ads and pimping monies, some people would still rather eat beans and live poor and with dignity than to be a pimp of the pimps, and in some cases, a murderer for the pimps.
Raoul, I followed your link and read your profile. Unfortunately, my prejudice doesn’t let me go any further. A banker!!! I’d rather talk to a porn king. Maybe I’m wrong, but stereotypes sometimes save time. I really dislike bankers, cops, other people who plot and plan to destroy our lives, steal hard-earned money through loansharking (which is all mainstream banking is these days) and insurance companies. So, reader, what do you do for a living? Does any one do anything out there that they can be proud of??? I have found most of the worklife in this country so depressing and so dehumanizing that I am to the point that I would rather starve with dignity than eat well in abject humiliation. Sometimes a virtual steak is just not worth living in the matrix.
Brilliant dissertation Mr. Campos how ironic that the Jewish and Christian War-Mongers can renounce the evils of sex and support the call to war.
I am glad that someone finally called out Mr. Kristol for what he is, a soft-spoken psychopathic promoter of death and destruction to any country trying to interfere with Israels biblical manifest destiny.
It is very difficult for me to comprehend why America is still tolerating these type of demonizing, arrogant, lying scoundrels, who care nothing for diplomacy and wish to impose our form of democracy on countries we disagree with, from the bomb sight of an F16.
Shock and Awe upon civilians, can you imagine neocons smiling and snickering about this catchy phrase?
Mr. Campos your analogy was very apropos.
HOLYMOLY: Evocative posting, yet like most of the MALES on this site (CD) you all are too quick to pass off porn as just some casual entertainment without really demonstrating EMPATHY for how it DEGRADES women. The issue is not really if a female chooses to be in such a film, it’s what the FILM projects and mostly, the unholy marriage between sexuality and violence/degradation. Robert Jensen (whose articles are frequently found on CD) just completed a book that relates the impact of porn to our nation’s psyche’s growing tolerance for increasing levels of war and violence. Until you guys GET that link, it’s a moot point whether political corruption is more obscene than porn. BOTH are poisoning people!
Note to Paul…
Unless you have some vital reason for living where you do, I would move.
There is much more to life than these two extremes.
Siouxrose, I am a woman, with two grown children. I was married for 25 years before my husband died. So much for your assumptions, huh? I’ve watched some pathetic porn films, and I just felt sorry for all of them–skinny blonde woman receiving big black dick–two at the same time, as a matter of fact, on that particular film. The two blacks were nothing but pieces of meat, who had to keep playing with themselves to keep it hard. I will admit that my knowledge of porn is limited–I tend to like erotica–those ridiculous love stories like Susan Johnson writes–they are down right dirty, but they are all about a man and a woman who care about each other, even if crazy passionately. They always have a story line even if it is a ridiculous one–like handsome earl, pirate, plantation owner in Louisiana whatever falls in lust with wild gypsy woman. In those stories, they are engaged mentally as much as physically. Sometimes, female plantation owner falls in love with gypsy outlaw guy. Of course, many people would call these “romance novels” I read porn–and in a sense, they are. I mean, they often describe the act in great detail. As Raymond Chandler said: when the plot gets boring, bring in a man with a gun. The romance writer’s creed seems to be “when the plot gets boring, write a sex scene.” I repeat, anytime people are not really engaged in the act mentally and physically, its sad, and a poor substitute for what they could be having. Don’t be so defensive thinking that everyone wants to belittle women and keep them under. This economy is geared to belittle everybody and to keep them under–male and female–and porn films are no exception. I don’t like any kind of a film that exploits children or harms people–I hate slash movies–can’t stand to watch them. To me, Chainsaw Massacre and other rubbish is far more insidous than a guy screwing a woman–all of these movies that show people being cut up are sick. in my book, but the kids I know realize they are just movies and don’t take them seriously. It took me a long time to be able to watch Pulp Fiction–now I just laugh at it because I realize it is a comedy drama–Tarentino is a master of this. It is stupid shit and is meant to be stupid shit–therefore, I love it. Kill Bill 1 & 2– with Bill II being my favorite– and this latest dumbass film by him with Kurt Russell as a mad serial killer with a car–it is stupid and is meant to be. I can’t begin to guess why women make porno: money, the thoughts that they may break into the big films, a punitive conscience…who the hell knows, but I tell you they aren’t the only ones being demeaned.
But it pleases me to know that I have posted on this site for such a long time and you never knew if I were a man or a woman–and I find being “accused” of being a sexist male pretty entertaining.
Partymariner: thanks for the Blumenthal info. I listened to the one about the young Republican Chickenhawks–is that not great!!! Can you believe that dumb ass Tom Delay–he tells that bunch of assholes that if abortion had been outlawed, we wouldn’t have an immigration problem. That’s right! That is what our previous Majority Whip said. I kid you not–those of you who don’t believe me–go to youtube and listen until you cry. “If those women hadn’t had abortions,” he says, “we wouldn’t need all of these illegal aliens.” That’s right Tom, keep the poor women pregnant and reproducing for your Fourth Reich. Those who can’t fight in your sicko wars could at least pick your tomatoes and mow your lawns and they would speak a crude form of lower class English–which Tom speaks, and that would make his giving them orders that much easier. Meanwhile, the children of the wealthy go to college and talk about how much they love the war and how “we need to fight them over there so that we don’t fight them over here.” Same old lie they spouted during the Vietnam era for those of us who can remember. Well, hell, why change an old trick? It worked on dumbass Americans during the ‘Nam conflict–and since these people never read a history book, why shouldn’t it work on them, too? Guess what, it does!!!!
The Porn King in this article is guilty of promoting the more base instincts of man for profit. That’s not good, but as a vice it is fairly benign. Still, the author wonders if he should be polite to the man.
On the other end stands not Bill Kristol, who is only an advocate, but instead Bush and Cheney — the men directly responsible for initiating the war which has led to all the innocent deaths, troop deaths, torture, debt, etc.
The real question this article raises is — how come we treat Bush and other murderous leaders with so much politeness and pusillanimy?
That Bush is a killer is a cold fact. He is Commander-in-Chief, and in that capacity initiated an entirely elective war of aggression which he knew would kill many thousands of innocent civilians and troops. Even as the bodies pile up, he continues and escalates the war (surge). So, he is a killer. His orders must be followed. Every trigger that is pulled traces straight up the chain of command to Bush 43. Every bomb dropped.
Okay HOLYMOLY: One for “your team.” Suppose I said to you that it seems to me your sentiments have subliminally come to absorb the values of a generally sexist male culture? That is what radiated to me as “male.” I do NOT watch porn, but I LOVE sex in a romantic movie when as you related, it expresses a genuine URGE to merge, and that URGE is based on two people feeling that ineffable IT (chemistry, passion, etc) for one another. I liked the EMMANUEL films but I would not call that porn. Please read the posting by GANDHI (I forget which one, but it was done today) where he relates ALL the statistics on violence against women. Porn is NOT a personal issue, it impacts society. I would also recommend Robert Jensen’s new book on this topic (name escapes me), but I plan to read it soon.
I appreciate your taking the time to write. Your sensibilities are quite different from mine. I would not watch what you described. I find it offensive. And I am very clear on the varied and sundry ways and means to exploiting people in our new neocon “free trade” global economy; and I certainly think WAR and the weapons our nation invests in are the quintessence of obscenity. There are links between the two. That’s the real message I was hoping to convey.
Catseyes:
Since when do pimps who deal in forced prostitution film their crimes and put them out on the market for everyone to see, including the cops? What part of the fact that every single pornographic film in this country is required by law to keep records of age and consent available to be checked by law enforcement on demand do you not understand? Simply failing to keep the records is itself a crime, the law doesn’t even have to prove an actress was underage or did not give consent in order to bust the producers of the film, the burden of proof is on the film producers. No paperwork, can’t prove everything was above board, equals prosecution.
You and Siouxrose both go on to make references to female degradation and imply a causal relationship between pornography and sexual violence that is purely ridiculous. It’s the same argument that moral majority censorship zealots make when they try to pin violence on movies, videogames, or music –as if nobody killed anyone before the movie projector was invented, or rock or rap or heavy metal came on the scene, or the first quarter ever went into a videogame machine. Or societies that lack access to those things are miraculously crime free. It’s a bullshit argument that scapegoats distasteful entertainment choices for the purposes of censorship. A free society has no place for such restrictions.
Honestly, I don’t care if you don’t like it. I don’t have to like it either. Like has nothing to do with it. If someone makes a porn horror film where some slasher flick supernatural monster rapes and murders a female cast and pisses on their corpses, I won’t like it a bit. And I sure as hell won’t watch it. But I will NOT agree to censorship of it no matter how offensive it is. And I will hold my nose and defend the producer’s right to make any disgusting and vile thing they choose, because freedom is meaningless when only the commonly acceptable is free.
Rape and murder and the other things you rail against are already illegal, and rightly so. Laws already exist to ban all of it. Advocating for thoughtcrime legislation on top of them is where you cross the line.
Kitty_tc: good points. Exactly why I don’t like so-called hate-crimes. If something is a crime, it is a crime, no matter why you committed it. It is stupid to say someone hates blacks or gays and so therefore murdering them is worse than murdering someone else. If you murder someone, you should be charged with murder. It is also impossible to completely get into someone’s mind to determine why they did something, unless they want to share it with you.
AT the present time, I don’t think movies, even porn, are gateways to other crimes. I don’t think marijuana is a gateway to other drugs–this is just more of the establishment propaganda. I could be wrong, but that was the same reason given for banning books–letting dirty, filty things corrupt us. Maybe they do, but I don’t want anyone to censor my books. I also don’t want anyone to censor my movies.
And Siouxrose, what is this “one for your team” nonsense? You are just being overly sensitive again. You had built-in blinders where you wanted to jump on that nasty old male (capital letters) who equates political obsencity with porn and you were just wrong. So you say, ok you are a woman who has been indoctrinated by men to the extent that you think like them. What is wrong with this picture? From reading your comments on my first post, I think you missed my point anyway–of course, I made so many that the post was rather long, so you are forgiven for that.
“I would not watch what you watch. I find it offensive.” So you are going to tell me you never watched a movie or read a book out of curiosity, even if you did find it offensive? You are sounding awfully middle-class, Siouxrose. If you had read that post properly your response would have been: I would not have watched that movie; I would have found it offensive.” But that would not have fit into your preconceived notions, and God forbid we should have to ever give those up. Better to blame men or if a woman says something, she must be a woman who is brainwashed by men. Well, it does make for a simple world.
Siouxrose, do you have issues? Maybe you were abused as a child or something and you are blaming porn films for influencing that man who did bad things to you? I’m just c”urious. All men who watch porn do not go out and abuse women and children, to think so is just plain silly. To blame men for all the problems in this culture is also silly.
I haven’t read Jensen’s book, but he e-mailed me as soon as it was published because I had communicated with him at some point in the past about other things. It sounds interesting, and I will try to get around to reading it–I might learn something new. However, if I remember correctly Jensen also believes 19 hijackers with boxcutters caused 9-11, so I can’t say he is too up to snuff on every topic. Guess that makes him human like the rest of us.
holymoly:
Please allow me to explain my view on “hate crimes”, and hope that I might convince you to see the issue as I do.
It’s a common misperception that “hate crimes” is simply an additional charge added for a certain motive for a crime, where the crime itself remains identical. That is not the case. A hate crime is an additional crime, and that’s why it recieves an additional charge. How is that so? Let me give you an example.
In one crime, a white mugger assaults an affluent black couple, and the man attempts to resist and it leads to him being shot in the struggle. The mugger, in a panic, then shoots the wife as well in order to not leave a witness. He then loots the corpses and runs like hell.
In another, the same affluent black couple moves into a white neighborhood, and an angry white supremacist confronts the couple late at night, and shoots them both. He then hangs their bodies from the tree in their yard, with a sign saying “n*****s keep out” pinned to them.
What’s the difference between the two crimes? The same two people are just as dead. So why does the second crime rate an additional charge? BECAUSE THERE ARE ADDITIONAL VICTIMS.
Before you reject that out of hand, think about it. That couple hanging in that tree isn’t just a dead couple. It’s a message. It’s intended to frighten an entire group of people into acting as the perpetrator wants –in this case, to stay out of his neighborhood. It’s the use of violence to inspire fear as a tactic against an entire group of people –to TERRORIZE them.
Yes, that’s right, “hate crimes” are a form of terrorism. And they should be called that, so that people can more easily understand the issue. “Hate crimes” is a pitifully vague term that leads to the misperception that the motive is being punished, rather than the additional crime of terrorizing a target group.
this is why we have to strenthen the minds of the young, through hard rigorous education on humanity. if this is instilled at a young age, their own sense of what it takes to be a respectful human being will be enhanced. they will then have the tools to respect themselves, and reject that what they find offensive.
HOLYMOLLY & KITTY TC: The best way I can respond to both of you is to suggest that your idea of freedom is focused on THE INDIVIDUAL and the individual’s predilections. I am an EMPATH and identify with, that is to say, FEEL others lives, pain, etc. Whether you understand the link between porn and violence or not, it DOES exist. Robert Jensen has a new book out on that subject, and from what I do know of rapists and serial killers (from TV documentaries and Ms. articles) PORN is a link. Obviously some fairly balanced persons may like that type of thing, and IF that was the issue, sure, then I’d have NO RIGHT to make a negative comment about this topic. YOU confuse the individual’s rights with where appetites encouraged POISON society.
I have posted many responses on CD about the over-emphasis of aggression, a Mars-styleld “el primitivo” response that is OVER-INFLATED (perhaps to the degree men are not being inflated, and thus NEED viagra) on this site. The US is obsessed with violence, and I take issue as a woman–symoblic of EVERYwoman–that people dehumanize one another, whether in sex rites and/or war/violence–in ANY form.
Once again, if this was merely a matter of personal taste I would conceive the argument to you “ladies,” but it is not. MEDIA and its messages infuse culture and when decency standards literally end up in the toilet, society as a whole suffers the result of an equivalency of raw sewage. I have daughters and an interest in watching them grow up in a society that sees them more as holes of entry. Got it? And by the way, my criticism is towards porn/industry, it was not aimed as character attack. I did NOT feel the same respect or courtesy in return.
Extremely well put, Kitty tc, I have never heard the rational for supporting hate crime legislation worded so clearly and succinctly. However, I would suggest that just as all punitive laws are designed to deter behavior, hate crime laws as well are intended to deter the prejudice that leads to their activity.
PS Holy moly: NEVER did I “blame all males” for the problems of culture. The discussion I related linked VIOLENT males, rape, etc with porn. That was YOUR projection, so do your OWN inventory. As far as I am concerned, any women who defends porn is not too hip to the concepts of feminism, humanism or sisterhood.
“What part of the fact that every single pornographic film in this country is required by law to keep records of age and consent available to be checked by law enforcement on demand do you not understand?”
So what if a pimped girl has signed a paper saying she was consenting? What is that worth? Im not saying that its always like that, im not saying it even is often like that. Im saying its very plausible shit like this can happen. Please explain to me what is stopping a video pimp from filming himself with his girls?
“You and Siouxrose both go on to make references to female degradation and imply a causal relationship between pornography and sexual violence that is purely ridiculous.”
Did you even recently took a look at what porn is like? Fuck me for thinking some guy wanking to a girl getting raped, with explicit sex, has some issues that could get out of hand. The link has been made that sexual predators do use violent pornography as a precursor to sex crimes, as detailed in the book “pornified”.
“But I will NOT agree to censorship of it no matter how offensive it is. And I will hold my nose and defend the producer’s right to make any disgusting and vile thing they choose, because freedom is meaningless when only the commonly acceptable is free.”
I never said that i thought that censorship was the way to go. Im doing what i can to point out these things, thats what i would say we have to do. Blow it out in the open. When nazis come to your town, shout em down, argument them down.
Get ready for child porn, because if rape porn is acceptable, then why isnt child porn acceptable? It is not acceptable right now because you would have to hire a real child, even though the explicit parts were not using the child, i dont think someone could go legal with something like this. But once 3d graphics get up to par with a regular movie, its going to happen.
Im not saying that censorship is the way to go, just that holding your nose might not be enough to stomach the stuff thats gonna be put out in a few years.
“What part of the fact that every single pornographic film in this country is required by law to keep records of age and consent available to be checked by law enforcement on demand do you not understand?”
With the internet laws dont mean shit. People are gonna download that 12 year old sex slave girl being torn to pieces, ’cause they can.
Once again im not saying we should censor this stuff (although you have to wonder, is beating the shit out of a girl free speech?), just expose it, blow it out in the open, talk about it.
I get it off when viewing a freshly killed corpse. Ferget about passe sexual porn. Bring it on Kristol!! love to see intestines spilling out of a freshly killed corpse, decapitated torsos, Kristol rocks!!
For the record, i do like porn. I enjoy seeing people having sex. But thats not what some of the porn out there is, it is titillating the power equation of men with money, and girls being exploited. It is titillating rape.
People who defend this type of porn will often use the argument that we are puritans, that we are the same as the christian nutjobs who say ill go to hell for watching porn. Or that we are on the same side of people wanting to censor heavy metal or whatnot.
Most punk music that ive heard, says things like “ITS FUCKING VIOLENT, ARGHH GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA HERE”. They were not advocating violence, they were openly talking about it. They were giving an explicit critique of it, kinda like what i am doing right now. True hiphop artists like KRS-ONE or Gangstarr talk about violence as something thats eating poor neighboorhoods from the inside, not glorifying violence as if it was something to be proud.
Thats where the difference lies, this fucked up porn is glorifying hate against women, it glorifies having money to buy sex, it glorifies the power equation that permits these men to buy sex for money. It eroticizes punching a women in the back of her head, it eroticizes a girl grimacing in pain, when she says ow it hurts, thats the cue to start fucking harder, which ive seen countless of times.
How many times did i see a scene in porn where the girl is looking at someone outside the camera when a scene gets rough as if to say “hey, this is getting out of hand” and no one intervenes, so
she justs struggles through?
To me that doesnt sound like free will at all,
its a grey area i suppose sometimes as the girl knows if she wants to keep doing videos she has to “give people what they want” (what the director wants to feed his audience, sometimes the director is the actor, so its what he likes, too). But sometimes it just feels like its just brutalizing someone knowing she will shut up and take it. She consents, just like someone who went through years of abuse “consents” to more abuse out of
being used to it.
pundit, may i suggest, respectfully, that you go and discuss your issues with a professional. if you can find a path to humanity, you will never regret it. that is where you will find some genuine fullfilment. it is also where you obtain some love of self. it’s in there, you just have to make the effort. peace to you. terry.
Having had some correspondence with Prof. Robert Jensen after reading an article of his here on CD, I was curious to learn how many commentors see today’s porn as fairly benign. I had gone to his website and started reading, but found his graphic descriptions too sickening to bear. Yet without reading about it at all — or watching it — one can’t come to an intelligent conclusion as to where society is going with this. Is some kind of limit required, particularly relative to violent and degrading porn on the internet?
To me, today’s porn is just one facet of the world’s sick fascination with violence, and a turning away from affection and love. It was SO nice to read Juliann’s post (up near the top) expressing her enjoyment of erotica, as opposed to porn. I worried that I was the only one! (With sex, emotional context is everything — at least for me.)