I had no idea I’d be as annoyed as I am by someone failing to understand that ‘are’ is not the same as ‘should be’.
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How did all this become about feminism?
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Because Deen has been called a feminist porn actor… turns out he wasn’t.
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Rape can be about a whole lot of different things. It’s dangerous to pigeonhole it into just one.
A friend of mine said that when he was raped, he kept saying “no, stop,” and the rapist kept saying “I love you, I love you.” I don’t think the rapist was even hearing him. He was a dumb horny teenager who let his dick take over his brain and filter all inputs. He probably walked away honestly believing that it was consensual.
It’s something I’m reminded of when I’m seriously attracted to a lady and have to keep reminding myself to behave: “No, don’t put your hand on her shoulder. No, don’t give her a hug. No, don’t offer to pay for her lunch, for fuck’s sake, she’s a grownup and so are you.” In someone without much self-control or self-awareness, those impulses are the first step toward rape. It’s scary and sobering to think about.
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The failure here could be that you imagine that when I say “men and women are equal” that I am saying also that “society treats men and women as equals.” But these are two different statements. One can be true without the other being true. Just because I say the first thing does not mean that I am also saying the second thing.
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The basic intent behind the so-called immortal declaration “All men are created equal” seems clear enough to most people even if the Founders themselves never lived up to the ideal. I wonder why “men and women are equal” is so much harder to understand.
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Oddly, I have similar feelings about men who call themselves feminists… and then leave it at that. It’s pretty weak tea, when you don’t have any skin in the game. Being a feminist (if you’re a guy) is kind of the very smallest gesture you can make toward some kind of liveable future. To really be considered some kind of decent person, you’d want to be a lot more than that.
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This is from 2012. How exactly did James Deen get a reputation as a feminist?
Hell, I just like rejecting @brainspore on general principle!
There’s certainly credence to the claim that Deen was (apparently) wrongly celebrated for being “female friendly”.
Porn for Ladies: The Subtle Sexism of Assessing Female-Friendly Smut - The Atlantic
In a post for Slate’s XXFactor called “Porn That Women Like,” J. Bryan Lowder wrapped it all up. “Women can’t get the kind of porn they want from the mainstream,” Lowder wrote, because the largely male-controlled porn industry mistakenly imagines that they want to watch big muscly, mean-looking men, when, according to Lowder, what actually gets women off is something a little more along the lines of James Deen’s non-threatening, preppy aesthetic.
Even more of the mystique is illuminated after I talk to one of Deen’s superfans, Laterra McDaniels, 38, who came to get an autograph from her idol. McDaniels, a sex educator, credits Deen with inspiring her to forge that career path. She gushes about how welcoming he has been to her: “I’m this big girl. I’m not the type of girl who should be hanging out with any porn star, in my mind,” she says. “He made me feel like I was special. I’ve done it a couple times now, and even though I get super nervous, he is such a gentleman, such a sweetheart, really honest and fucking awesome. It makes me want to be authentic.”
We may disagree about the definition of the word “feminist” – and let me tell you guys and gals there is nothing I enjoy more than a rollicking debate about the dictionary definition of a word – but I think we can all agree that someone who regularly rapes women … isn’t.
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Well, I guess that my perspective is that the immortal declaration is couched in a phrase which is informed by a Christian world-view and attempts to place their innovation - that is, the idea of equality as a basic state - beyond criticism by their opponents, by placing that fundamental state of equality in the hands of God - the creator. I think that it’s pretty stupid for a few reasons, personally, but the salient reason is because of the implication is that equality has been achieved, which risks entrenching inequality. And guess what? That’s what has happened.
Frankly, I think that it’s insulting to women to gloss over the constant effort of highlighting inequality that affects them, by just saying ‘men and women are equal’ - 74 cents to the dollar say that they aren’t, for example. My pay rise does too - which is a subject I bring up with my managers every year, incidentally. To achieve equality for all is a matter of constant risk, effort and discipline for those who want to achieve it, which is not to say that I shoulder an equal share of that burden, but certainly that I can do what I can to recognise when it is not happening, or when I am a beneficiary of inequality.
Men and women are not equal, because they do not enjoy equality in all things. They should be equal. They merit equality. They deserve equality. Equality is a state which benefits everyone - even those currently favoured by inequality. We must strive to achieve equality. Adopting a blue-eyed aphorism to describe the current state we’re in does not sufficiently galvanize the revolutionary response needed to effect the changes we want to see.
Sometimes it is not about preferences but about relative availability. 
There’s a terrifying reddit thread where people talk about raping someone and its horrifying, but enlightening… And for a lot of them it was just that, there was a lot of “I looked up and saw they were sobbing…” followed by a whole lot of self hate. These stories were countered by the people that talk about how they did it, they knew they did it, and they’ll do it again, and they have no remorse. I don’t suggest reading the thread on its own, but Jezebel did a handy recap so you don’t have to. http://jezebel.com/5929544/rapists-explain-themselves-on-reddit-and-we-should-listen
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I don’t think that’s what “men and women are equal” implies any more than “all men are created equal” implies that all colonial-era men were born with equal rights and opportunities.
“We believe all men are created equal” was a statement of ideals about the kind of society the Founders set out to create, a statement that formed the basis of the Revolutionary war and in a sense the 240-year-long civil rights struggle that followed.
By the same token when feminists say “we believe men and women are equal” it’s a statement about the ideals we should fight for, not a claim of what society currently reflects. Same goes for “black people are equal to white people” or “gay people are equal to straight people.”
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“All men are created equal” only means everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, not that every person should be treated equally by every other person, or that everyone’s abilities or potential are equal. It means that no one is (officially) born with some noble title that subjects him to a different set of laws than someone without it.
Of course, things haven’t quite played out according to that ideal, thanks largely to economic disparity, but nobody gets charges dropped just on account of that law explicitly not applying to their class: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
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re-he-he-eally…
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The assertion that human beings are in essence equal does not imply that any particular society actually respects that essential equality. Rather, it is a criteria by which to judge how a given society is in need of critique. If a society doesn’t actually treat human beings as equal, the society is in need of a change.
Again, saying “Men And Women Are Equal” is not the same as saying “Society treats men and women as equals.” Conflating them is a critical misunderstanding of the statement.
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Perhaps so, but I don’t think porn rakes in the kinds of profits it does from just people who are, for whatever reason, celibate. I think there are a lot of people, men (and probably women too) who are choosing pornography over real-life sexual partners. I also think it’s making people worse at sex when they do have it because it twists perceptions about what actually feels good. But the availability of porn itself is no more the problem any more than alcohol makes alcoholics or chicken-pot-pie makes compulsive over-eaters.
The root of the problem is social anxiety and alienation added on top of deeply embedded sexual insecurities that aren’t eroding even as the puritanical mores that gave rise to them are. In her novel The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin talks about walls people have in their minds. Our society has walls around the topic and sub-topics of sex that in turn build walls in the minds of people who become so inculcated with the aversion to the healthy open socialization of sex that their very thoughts shy away from it. And when they do think about it, or engage in it with other people, it generates this childish titillation of the taboo that gives them a temporary thrill in but no real appreciation for what sex can actually be.
Nor is the scope of the damage limited to sex. Kissing and intimacy of all kinds become stunted by their farcical pop-culture representations. It’s the mass commodification of emotional intimacy into a momentary illusion of the thing itself that lingers only as long as you keep coughing up coins for the penny arcade.
It’s as if someone walked into the foyer of a magic castle, marveled at the singing coat-rack, and then hurried back out before anyone saw them, never exploring the grand chambers within.
Porn is like watching a crude Mattel-made puppet show of the castle, but instead of puppets it’s performed by human beings who are treated like puppets by the ogling public then marginalized by people who normally fight against marginalization because even they’ve bought into the disrepute of sex.
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Sometimes it’s not you who makes such decision for you. There have to be two for this kind of tango.
Google “involuntary celibacy”. It has quite some and sometimes quite worrying effect on people.
Sexless in the City: Involuntary Celibacy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/10/07/incels-4chan-and-the-beta-uprising-making-sense-of-one-of-the-internets-most-reviled-subcultures/
Enough of it can drive you quite far to the dark side.
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/27/inside_the_terrifying_twisted_online_world_of_involuntary_celibates/
That’s what actual instruction books/videos are for. Porn itself is distorted image. But if you know that and don’t take it as a primary and reliable data source, it should not have much of adverse effects.
And sometimes not even that.
If you can’t get the real thing, the puppet show has to do the job.
I’m not entirely sure on that one. Because that’s hardly the only thing in public from years ago that made him look creepy and fucked up. Best I can come up with is that its a combination of who he associated with. Very much the “good porn” brigade; intelligent, vocal, inclusive and often times openly feminist or otherwise ethically concerned people and companies. The absolute vacancy of his public persona. And a few quirks of his performances. Allowing people to project pretty much whatever on the guy. He was an ink blot, but one that was biased in that direction.
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