I had recently written an article about sex work--particularly prostitution--that offered something seldom seen in either side of the debate these days: nuance. To wit, I had argued that it is both "the oldest profession" AND "the oldest oppression", and the difference ultimately depends on who has the power. I had also argued that Women need to take over the industry and that decriminalization is, on balance, the least-worst alternative for the time being.
But I realize that I left out something crucial, namely the other main kind of commercial sex work: PORN. While it contains many of the same issues that prostitution has, it also has a much wider audience and thus much wider influence. In fact, it is an even bigger elephant in the room, and is more accessible now than ever before. So what do we do about porn then?
To be brutally honest, we need to come to terms with a rather inconvenient truth. Porn, or at least 99% of the stuff that's out there today (give or take a percentage point), does indeed have a serious dark side. It typically contains--when it is not overtly cruel, violent, and degrading to Women, like far too much of it is--a particular kind of warped, twisted, toxic, and patriarchal (i.e. male-dominated) version of "sexuality" that is markedly and often fundamentally different than healthy sexuality. Also, many of the performers, especially the Women, are often forced, coerced, deceived, and/or brainwashed into it. And the often very young viewers end up with a distorted view of what sex is really all about, particularly if porn is the only "sex education" they ever really had. Thus, "making love" gets confused with the "making hate" that is normalized in porn, with predictable results.
So where does this dark side actually come from? You guessed it--the MEN who control and create it. And, of course, the MEN who demand it reinforce it even further. But either way, it begins and ends with MEN. Yet the genie is out of the bottle at this point, and any attempt to ban it entirely is certain to backfire, to say nothing of free speech issues. The only real solution, I believe, is for Women to take over the porn industry and jam the culture for the better. And yes, there is indeed such a thing as feminist porn--not only is that not an oxymoron, but there needs to be more of it. Yesterday.
There are, of course, those who cynically argue that there is inherently no such thing as feminist porn and can never be, period. They even give examples to try in vain to prove this unprovable negative. But the questionable examples they give of so-called "feminist porn" are in fact straw-man examples that are virtually identical (at least in content) to male-dominated mainstream genres. It is of course not enough for it to be produced by Women and done without coercion, but the content itself also needs to at least largely reflect a more feminist and humanizing paradigm of sexuality as well. Thus, such critics do not actually "debunk" the real concept at all, which does in fact exist.
In the meantime, there are several other things that we as a society should do. We need to help young people develop better media literacy to safely navigate a world in which the internet porn genie is long out of the bottle. We need real, honest, accurate, shame-free sex education that goes beyond the pathetic joke that passes for it currently. We need to crack down on any form of coercion or trafficking that does occur in the porn industry, of both adults and children, and have better regulation and monitoring of the industry to prevent it. We need tough laws against "revenge porn" as well. And we should probably require that at least all free porn sites (that don't require a credit card for age verification) be shunted onto the .xxx top-level domain so exposure to such sites can be more readily blocked and filtered from children (currently, the average age of first exposure is 11, and often accidentally). All of these things need to be done yesterday.
But at the same time, we must also take a nuanced view that porn is not always inherently bad or unhealthy, and realize that censorship is NOT a solution--it is in fact a part of the problem, as is the denial of Women's agency. And furthermore, we also need to realize that once we start punishing people for "thoughtcrimes", we will have essentially crossed the proverbial Rubicon on the road to [insert dystopian novel here]. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is far more horrifying than even the very worst gonzo porn out there--which really says something!
As I like to say, if we make the perfect the enemy of the good, we ultimately end up with neither.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Monday, September 18, 2017
Smash The (Adulto-)Patriarchy!
One of the most vexing questions about the origin of patriarchy is how did men take over in the first place, if Women are the superior gender and were already in power to begin with in the last Matriarchal age? And the question is not merely academic, as the answer will at least partially inform us on how to prevent men from taking over again in the future. History may not always repeat itself exactly, of course, but it does rhyme nonetheless.
Some theorists would say that was because Women were too lenient with men and allowed them too much freedom ("give them an inch, and they take a mile") while others say the opposite, that Women were too harsh and strict and did not allow men enough freedom, so they rebelled ("forbidden fruit" or "reactance theory"). (Note also the parallels with today's discourse about teenagers and young adults, as this foreshadows the rest of this article.) Still others, such as Riane Eisler and many others in the Goddess Movement, put forth the Kurgan theory, namely that a few patriarchal cultures formed in central Asia and the Arabian peninsula, and violently conquered their peaceful Matriarchal neighbors and eventually the world. These cultures, called Kurgans, were semi-literate or illiterate nomadic sheepherders who really had no culture of their own, but they did have superior weapons technology, and aggression was rewarded in their culture. But that does not fully explain how those cultures came to be patriarchal in the first place, except for the fact that aggression is wittingly or unwittingly rewarded in nomadic pastoral societies, and men are generally more aggressive and competitive than Women.
I generally favor the Kurgan theory myself, but then when Googling the title of Robert Jensen's most recent book "The End of Patriarchy", I inadvertently discovered a similarly-titled book by Claudio Naranjo, titled, "The End of Patriarchy: And the Dawning of a Tri-une Society", which led me to a new theory on the matter. And while I don't agree with everything that Naranjo says, he does make some good points nonetheless. He posits that young people were the ones in charge in the Paleolithic age, then Women were in charge in the Neolithic age, and then men took over in the Bronze Age and remained in power since. And as the title implies, he looks forward to the end of patriarchy and the beginning of a new, "tri-une" society that combines the best of all three past ages, with women, men, and children all being equally valued members of society. While I agree with him for the most part, I do think that he sells the idea of Matriarchy a bit too short and often mischaracterizes what it really is, and I also think that the best way that his tri-une society or something like it can be created is with Women in charge.
But one thing is certain. Adultism (i.e. the systemic oppression and subjugation of young people) can theoretically exist without patriarchy, but patriarchy cannot exist without adultism. To wit, men would never have been able to disempower women as much as they did if young people had not been thoroughly disempowered first by adults of both primary genders (even if done more so by men). Kind of like how the rich would never have been able to torpedo the middle class as they did from Reagan onward if the middle class hadn't also helped the rich by throwing the poor under the bus. That is my latest insight after coming across the work of Naranjo. After all, it took thousands of years to remove Women from power and subjugate them, and it looks like adultism was one of men's secret weapons to accomplish this nefarious and perfidious act.
Thus patriarchy should really be called "adulto-patriarchy", and any self-proclaimed feminist movement that is not on board with the youth-rights movement as well is indeed a major intersectionality fail. Much like how brocialists and manarchists are towards Women, and how White Feminists (TM) are towards people of color. The entire edifice of kyriarchy must come down at once, as piecemeal approaches are ultimately doomed to fail.
So smash the adulto-patriarchy, yesterday!
Some theorists would say that was because Women were too lenient with men and allowed them too much freedom ("give them an inch, and they take a mile") while others say the opposite, that Women were too harsh and strict and did not allow men enough freedom, so they rebelled ("forbidden fruit" or "reactance theory"). (Note also the parallels with today's discourse about teenagers and young adults, as this foreshadows the rest of this article.) Still others, such as Riane Eisler and many others in the Goddess Movement, put forth the Kurgan theory, namely that a few patriarchal cultures formed in central Asia and the Arabian peninsula, and violently conquered their peaceful Matriarchal neighbors and eventually the world. These cultures, called Kurgans, were semi-literate or illiterate nomadic sheepherders who really had no culture of their own, but they did have superior weapons technology, and aggression was rewarded in their culture. But that does not fully explain how those cultures came to be patriarchal in the first place, except for the fact that aggression is wittingly or unwittingly rewarded in nomadic pastoral societies, and men are generally more aggressive and competitive than Women.
I generally favor the Kurgan theory myself, but then when Googling the title of Robert Jensen's most recent book "The End of Patriarchy", I inadvertently discovered a similarly-titled book by Claudio Naranjo, titled, "The End of Patriarchy: And the Dawning of a Tri-une Society", which led me to a new theory on the matter. And while I don't agree with everything that Naranjo says, he does make some good points nonetheless. He posits that young people were the ones in charge in the Paleolithic age, then Women were in charge in the Neolithic age, and then men took over in the Bronze Age and remained in power since. And as the title implies, he looks forward to the end of patriarchy and the beginning of a new, "tri-une" society that combines the best of all three past ages, with women, men, and children all being equally valued members of society. While I agree with him for the most part, I do think that he sells the idea of Matriarchy a bit too short and often mischaracterizes what it really is, and I also think that the best way that his tri-une society or something like it can be created is with Women in charge.
But one thing is certain. Adultism (i.e. the systemic oppression and subjugation of young people) can theoretically exist without patriarchy, but patriarchy cannot exist without adultism. To wit, men would never have been able to disempower women as much as they did if young people had not been thoroughly disempowered first by adults of both primary genders (even if done more so by men). Kind of like how the rich would never have been able to torpedo the middle class as they did from Reagan onward if the middle class hadn't also helped the rich by throwing the poor under the bus. That is my latest insight after coming across the work of Naranjo. After all, it took thousands of years to remove Women from power and subjugate them, and it looks like adultism was one of men's secret weapons to accomplish this nefarious and perfidious act.
Thus patriarchy should really be called "adulto-patriarchy", and any self-proclaimed feminist movement that is not on board with the youth-rights movement as well is indeed a major intersectionality fail. Much like how brocialists and manarchists are towards Women, and how White Feminists (TM) are towards people of color. The entire edifice of kyriarchy must come down at once, as piecemeal approaches are ultimately doomed to fail.
So smash the adulto-patriarchy, yesterday!
UPDATE: We would be remiss not to give credit to Naranjo's inspiration for his thesis, fellow Chilean Totila Albert.
Sunday, August 6, 2017
More Evidence of Male Redundancy
A recent New York Post article by Melanie Notkin titled, "Childish men to blame for women having kids late in life", seems to be getting a lot of attention since it flips the script by blaming men instead of Women. And yes, the article is partially correct. But we need to ask if it is really such a bad thing for Women to delay (or forego) motherhood in the world we live in today, and also ask why so many men are being viewed as less-than-ideal partners and fathers these days.
One thing is certain: the "everybody must procreate" mentality needs to end yesterday. Only a fool or an economist (same difference) would believe that infinite growth on a finite world is possible or even desirable. That is the logic of a Ponzi scheme. If anything, our overpopulated world needs to shrink. And the cost of raising a child these days is, not coincidentally, becoming increasingly prohibitive.
That said, we need to be brutally honest about the fact that men are becoming increasingly redundant. Women are rising while men are falling. And it's only a matter of time before Women reclaim their rightful place as the new leaders of the free world, as the late, great Buckminster Fuller predicted. So why are so many people of both primary genders still trying to prop up traditional gender roles?
As I had discussed in a previous article about the decline in (straight) marriage in America, the underlying reason for this phenomenon (and the tendency to delay parenthood as well) is indeed increasing male redundancy. From technology to globalization to union-busting to increased economic inequality and precarity to increased female empowerment, men in general are falling away and falling apart as we speak. Women have already crossed the proverbial Rubicon at this point, and it is time to accept this truth for once.
Also, as Bucky famously noted even back in 1970, with today's technology, the idea that "everybody and their mother must work for a living" has become specious and outdated. We could damn well afford for everyone on this planet to have a guaranteed decent standard of living if we wanted, but the oligarchs at the top would rather hoard the world's massive wealth for themselves. Perhaps his first prediction is a prerequisite for his second one?
One thing is certain: the "everybody must procreate" mentality needs to end yesterday. Only a fool or an economist (same difference) would believe that infinite growth on a finite world is possible or even desirable. That is the logic of a Ponzi scheme. If anything, our overpopulated world needs to shrink. And the cost of raising a child these days is, not coincidentally, becoming increasingly prohibitive.
That said, we need to be brutally honest about the fact that men are becoming increasingly redundant. Women are rising while men are falling. And it's only a matter of time before Women reclaim their rightful place as the new leaders of the free world, as the late, great Buckminster Fuller predicted. So why are so many people of both primary genders still trying to prop up traditional gender roles?
As I had discussed in a previous article about the decline in (straight) marriage in America, the underlying reason for this phenomenon (and the tendency to delay parenthood as well) is indeed increasing male redundancy. From technology to globalization to union-busting to increased economic inequality and precarity to increased female empowerment, men in general are falling away and falling apart as we speak. Women have already crossed the proverbial Rubicon at this point, and it is time to accept this truth for once.
Also, as Bucky famously noted even back in 1970, with today's technology, the idea that "everybody and their mother must work for a living" has become specious and outdated. We could damn well afford for everyone on this planet to have a guaranteed decent standard of living if we wanted, but the oligarchs at the top would rather hoard the world's massive wealth for themselves. Perhaps his first prediction is a prerequisite for his second one?
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