Thursday, 16 April 2009

Pornography and Masculinity article by Robert Jensen

We're going to be reading this article (found at the following adderss http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/freelance/pornography&masculinity.htm) by Robert Jensen about Pornography and Masculinity and discussing it at our meeting in a month's time so feel free to add to that discussion by coming along or commenting after this post or dropping us an email sometime.
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2 comments:

  1. Sam Rico7 May 2009 at 02:07

    hi, i would like to attend your meetings, i am a feminist man living in camden town. please contact me, my email address is: cubanoheat@hotmail.com
    i look forward to hearing from you.
    Sam Rico

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  2. Anonymous29 September 2009 at 18:31

    Whilst I agree with some of the analysis, I disagree with his apparent conclusions. The article seemed extremely sex-negative and appeared to promote the wholesale repression of male sexuality. The author's position seems to reinfore the idea that sex is something that women do for men - he even seems to disbelieve that any woman could ever enjoy anal sex. Any position which seeks to engage with queer sexuality or BDSM, would, I hope, come to quite different conclusions. I can only imagine what the author would think if confronted with a video featuring heterosexual pegging!

    I don't see how we can expect men to be functional human beings if we loathe and deny something as central to our beings as our libido and sexual imagination. For me, the answer needs to be much more nuanced than 'enjoying porn is bad'. Our libido is our life force, our essential energy. Yes, parts of it can be very problematic, but we need to be able to discuss these openly and honestly, without shame or repression. We need to understand those problematic parts and find ways of celebrating them - directing their energy into positive actions.

    I think my objections boil down to two key points - the unhelpful focus on a single symptom (porn) rather than the cause (male sexuality) and the failure to distinguish between porn per se and the the porn industry.

    Richard Lewis

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