Reply #4: Weinberg on pornographic sex---

[Katherine Brengle]

Please keep in mind, this is from a progressively-minded man:

Can we be turned on by sex that is not violent? Is sex inevitably violent? Can power-with (instead of pornographic power-over) be erotic? We will not be able to break the addiction to aggressive, violating sexual behavior unless the new feelings of power-with are felt to carry the same sort of sexual rush and pleasure.

And for more depth and perspective, Gloria Steinem on pornography:

Look at or imagine images of people making love; really making love. Those images may be very diverse, but there is likely to be a mutual pleasure and touch and warmth, an empathy for each other's bodies and nerve endings, a shared sensuality and a spontaneous sense of two people who are there because they want to be.

Now look at or imagine images of sex in which there is force, violence, or symbols of unequal power. They may be very blatant: whips and chains of bondage, even torture and murder presented as sexually titillating, the clear evidence of wounds and bruises, or an adult's power being used sexually over a child. They may be more subtle: the use of class, race, authority, or just body poses to convey conqueror and victim; unequal nudity, with one person's body exposed and vulnerable while the other is armored with clothes; or even a woman by herself, exposed for an unseen but powerful viewer whom she is clearly trying to please... But blatant or subtle, there is no equal power or mutuality. In fact, much of the tension and drama comes from the idea that one person is dominating the other.

These two sorts of images are as different as love is from rape, as dignity is from humiliation, as partnership is from slavery, as pleasure is from pain. Yet they are confused and lumped together as "pornography" or "obscenity," "erotica" or "explicit sex," because sex and violence are so dangerously intertwined and confused.

The problem with "pornography: okay by me" and "rape: bad" is that the two cannot be separated.