The second-class status of women in India...

and elsewhere, is a subject that I always want to blog about regularly and comprehensively, but for a number of reasons, I don't. The chief among these are that other people do it far, far better and that I get SO ANGRY.

When something is a personal topic - when it cuts close enough to the bone to make you wince and panic - it's REALLY hard to write about. The problem of the personal/political thing emerges too, as this is a topic that exists beyond me and yet encompasses my life. I have only recently made peace with my past. I would say that things really turned around in a positive sense about mid-2008 - so yes, it hasn't been long.

I've had it lucky though. I'm a wet, liberal, British Asian. The regretting of my own existence that lurks inside me has damaged, and damages me, but I have been able to find heretics. People who would pull me back to some kind of objective reality just when I thought that 'tradition' would fucking sink me yet. I am certain that a woman of my opinions would go quietly insane in India and eventually kill herself or those around her, then herself. My family have accepted my rebelliousness and unfeminine behaviour in a way that others wouldn't. I CAN COMFORTABLY SAY THAT MY FAMILY WOULD NOT HONOUR-KILL ME, and horrendous though it is that I can be glad of such a thing, I am glad. They've made me cry, they've belittled me, they've made me doubt my grip on sanity - but I have managed to get space enough to see that they do, beneath it all, love me.

To all those people who remind me that it is OK to be me, and that my life is not dispensable just because I am the black sheep third daughter in a family of four children, I must just be intensely grateful for a minute - and I will be for the rest of my life.

Okay, misery memoir moment over. It's time for worthier issues than my own personal ones!

asquith, my favourite Stoke-based person (although he always spells it Sjoke - I may be missing something there?) highlighted this:

Calls for help from victims of forced marriage GOING IGNORED. Sign the petition to keep the Honour Network Helpline going, and also donate to Karma Nirvana, a charity which supports victims of 'honour'-based abuse. Despite being eye-wateringly poor, I am going to donate £20. That should leave me enough to live on for um, another 2 weeks or so... DONE! I would love to actually give them volunteering time, but seeing as I would have to move to Derby, 'tis not a realistic option.


Heresy Corner flags up some unsurprisingly barbaric treatment of a 16-year-old girl raped in Bangladesh. I commented in a fit of fury, but frankly donating time and/or money and signing petitions to support charities that work against HBV, as well as encouraging other people you know to do so, is the best anyone can do.

Walk For India's Missing Girls - a global march against female foeticide. I sadly cannot participate in this as it is taking place in Ireland, Canada, the US and India only (why not in the UK?). Still, it's March 6, 2010 so if you know anyone who lives in any of those countries/cities and who can make it, please encourage them to go while there's still time!

There is now ONE late-term abortionist left in the whole of the United States of America. And this is a nation that considers itself civilised? Fucking terrifying reading for anyone with a brain. Especially if, like me, you fear that we are slowly turning into a smaller, greyer version of America. Just look at the recent news that the rich-poor divide is wider than it was 40 years ago, and the fact that people are less in favour of helping the poor to move on up than ever:

Blair's triangulation was this fabled meritocracy, a feelgood creed where we don't have to be locked in eternal struggle, we just all try our best and end up minted. This took hold – in a study about social equality conducted last year by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 69% of respondents agreed with the statement: "There is enough opportunity for virtually everyone to get on in life if they really want to. It comes down to the individual and how much you are motivated." Without that (pretty groundless) faith in mobility, many of these newly revealed, hostile attitudes to the poor – for instance, only one in five of us now believes that unemployment benefits are too low and cause hardship (53%, 16 years ago) – would be untenable.

Though - oh, yay! - good, old-fashioned British hypocrisy might stop us from morphing into self-made-men with American-style Dreams in the end:

The unbelievable thing is that, even in this mulch of conservatism, this belief that the poor are poor on purpose, 67% of people still think it is the government's responsibility to reduce income differences between rich and poor. As soon as you put the word "redistribution" in the question, everybody's suddenly against it.

Speaking of America, laugh (or cry?) at a tale of a Texan Christian school aiding Haiti victims by praying for them, whilst a public school 'in a poor part of town' raised over $4000! Oh God, is He merciful...

Some things to be happy about - the possibility of Andrew Wakefield being struck off. I would actually pray for that. Just don't pay too much attention to the parents who are 'standing by him' (figuratively and literally - on TV) because then you'll remember how fucking stupid great swathes of the human race are, and want to kill someone all over again. Also, the increasing anger against our globally embarrassing libel laws - I donated to Simon Singh's campaign against the BCA, and I signed this petition - and if you haven't, do the latter at least!

Now to bed, stinking and in need of a vigorous snog. :-D

Rape culture + pornification (pt. II)

Just to address some things lingering like a bad smell from the previous post (I know, I know - shoulda done it sooner):

I got this dumbass comment from Alex:

But at the end of the day, porn is nothing more than a genre, and it's silly to bemoan the general pornification of society in the same way it'd be silly to bemoan its scifiification or actioncomedification.

What would Michael Kyle say? 'Ah... nah.' This is an utterly false comparison - porn is not used in the same way that other genres of film are. Most people (especially on the Internet) don't sit down and watch a snippet of oh, I dunno, Star Trek with the express aim of *ahem* 'interacting' with what's on the screen, now, do they? Even if you watch a film for the car chases, you're usually going to have some interest in the overall story. Usually when people do get to the stage of putting up their 'favourite scenes' or whatever on YouTube, it's because they've watched the film or series episode enough to be able to isolate a particular section.

Whereas people don't watch porn for the storyline, they watch it because it turns them on. Why else do mainstream porn TV channels keep promising 'more fucking' and less storylines? Because it's the SEX that people want to see! I have a tendency to pay proper attention to porn sometimes, and it is usually a terrible mistake:
'Oh my God, that man is so tanned he looks like beef jerky, and he is wearing tinted swimming-goggles - wait, are those sunglasses? And why do all the European actors wear those weird little necklaces? Haha!'

Paying attention to porn actresses' expressions (facial and verbal) tends to make me burst out laughing and completely kill my horn. The huge amount of ridiculous pouting and very obviously fake arousal usually provokes hilarity, but sometimes makes me quite depressed, that some men can be so thick (or jaded) that it gets them going. Especially common is the businesslike efficiency of so many porn actresses which, I'm sorry, often makes me think of seasoned prostitutes.

Let us not forget that the Internet has developed on the advance that porn studios discovered with DVDs: people can now slice out, tag and distribute individual scenes involving this or that actress/actor or this or that sex act, tweak the angle/lighting/whatever they want, and so there is even less need to care about the background information. You want a POV scene of Jenna Jameson masturbating? You got it! You don't need to remember that film's title and watch it until you find the right scene unless you're absolutely hell-bent on it - a quick search of a porn site will often point you in the right direction without too much fuss.

No, the only other entertainment form that porn can remotely be compared to (given the way that it is designed to be used), is gaming. It's interesting to note too how much the 'do video games cause violence?' debate mirrors the 'does porn cause rape?' debate, as the more astute among you have hopefully already realised.

This brings me to my other point: a few men (surprise!) immediately leaped on the 'you can't assert a causal link between rape and porn usage' bandwagon, both here and on PP. Erm, no - my wording maybe wasn't unambiguous enough, but I said that I know there's no evidence for it, and I don't believe it. When I said that they were linked, I meant that there is a similar attitude inherent in both. Rape, and the overwhelming majority of porn, reflect a male desire for absolute dominance, translated into a desire to totally dominate women. Just because you and I use it doesn't mean that this can be denied. I'm not going to get into the debate over whether porn can be made feminist or whatever, but I am also not going to be disingenuous and deny what goes on in most porn. It's not a coincidence that women in porn are almost always completely submissive. It's not a coincidence that porn's representations of lesbian sexuality show a form of lesbianism which is all about women wanting to be men, with the strap-on cock and the dildo and when these aren't present, the women are usually young and nubile and conventionally attractive. Just because the cock is not there doesn't mean that the cock can be forgotten! God forbid that porn should show a lesbianism that isn't all about male desire and 'manliness' (read: penises) in some way.

Morons may say (as one did in fact on Pickled Politics):

One genre omitted was the ‘Bend Over Boyfriend’ stuff which features a woman with a strapon subjecting her boyfriend / husband to some rough play.

i.e. 'What about when men are getting fucked? Isn't that, like SUBVERSIVE, and also possibly feminist, because I am a scroteburst and don't understand feminism or feminists?'

Well, now. If you've got the time and the inclination, I would say head over to Bitchy Jones's blog and read a whole lot of posts, starting with the Best Of. It's certainly not for the faint-hearted though. I am just going to quote from a couple of posts: 'subs are not meant to secretly run the show. That’s a lie. If the sub is in charge you’re doing it wrong.'

*All* the femdom porn out there is squarely aimed at sub men. Now, I don’t mind some or even most of it being aimed at sub men. I get the economic argument. Subs spend money on porn and wank like monkeys. We know this. That’s why we *have* to tie you up sometimes for your own good. But all of it! Hey, no fair. I mean, I know for a fact that there are a few other dom women out there, how come we get nothing?

I thought this was all about *my* pleasure, *my* needs. Well, could someone tell the porn site makers that please.

As Bitchy so astutely observes, even porn which pretends to be about female domination (i.e., giving women the power of the penis) is not really, because it is aimed at satisfying male desire, just like the rest of porn. The depictions of femdom in mainstream porn are obviously going to adhere to this, but she notes it in the dominatrix industry and 'proper' BDSM femdom porn as well:

Dominant women are beautiful. And that’s why the guy gets on his knees. That is what he worships. Her beauty.

I don’t just mean in porn – I mean the whole ’story’ of femdom runs along these lines.

It’s pretty interesting that, where men have decided to allow women to have ‘power’ for their own wanky needs, that this is the kind of power they choose to give her. The power of being desired. A completely passive power.

And I’ve told you before dominant sexuality is all about *desiring*. Dominant sexuality is active – not passive.

*Wanting* not being wanted.

*Demanding* not being demanded.

But the beautiful Amazon thing is woven into the fabric of femdom (black PVC – since you ask).

This is my major problem with porn: it's all about men. Even when they're the ones being fucked, the focus remains on satisfying male desire. I hate the way it makes me end up feeling like I have some sort of sexual split-personality disorder. You're always led to identify with the penetrator - the man, or the male-proxy lesbian - yet as a woman, you know deep down that you're supposed to be the penetratee (yup, not a word, don't care). Where the man is getting penetrated, I just find myself agreeing with Bitchy and thinking 'But I don't want to screw a man! It might turn him on, but it doesn't turn me on! And it doesn't turn her on, either, by the looks of it.' This takes me back to why feminist porn may not be possible; like Simone de Beauvoir, I fear that 'the women's effort has never been anything more than a symbolic agitation. They have gained only what men have been willing to grant; they have taken nothing, they have only received' ("Introduction" to The Second Sex (1952), p.19).

Let us not forget that the greedy hand of mainstream porn has reached into BDSM culture and taken practices which usually occur after much discussion between sexual partners, and stolen them. Your average hardcore porn video does not show the man asking the woman if she is really, truly, 100% OK with any form of auto-erotic asphyxiation, the couple establishing any safe words or limits, or anything such. In short, mainstream porn removes all the pesky 'responsible behaviour' that actually underpins any extreme sexual practices and just hands you the sexual practices on a plate. This is yet another example of heteronormativity in action. Extreme sexual practices were roundly demonised and ignored by the heterosexual majority for ages. However, now that heterosexual culture is 'bored' and needs novelty, it has 'graciously' decided to legitimize BDSM, sort of, by stealing from it. Only, conveniently enough, it ends up making BDSM look worse because it does away with the whole 'safe, sane and consensual' ethos that distinguishes it from actual rape, torture etc.! God forbid that 'vanilla' heterosexuality ever be seen as anything other than THE true and right way (because of course, y'know, the majority have vanilla heterosexual sex, so anything else is weird and probably evil). Anyone who thinks I am on that conspiracy shit wants to remember that the majority of porn users in America belong to, that's right, the bullshit party (who make it their business to argue against ALL sexual activity that isn't 'Christian') and that in the UK, you can now be prosecuted for being in possession of 'extreme porn.'

Ultimately, I'm finding that I've come full circle - I'm doing my best to stay away from Internet porn and just occasionally watching some of those cringeworthy erotica films that come on certain Sky channels late at night. These still promote female stereotypes and female sexual stereotypes enthusiastically, but at least they hold back from the violence that is implicit, and becoming increasingly explicit, in so much porn. They also often try to connect sex and love to some extent, by putting in some kind of romance. Loving couples can have good sex too, you know! While I understand that the fantasy of completely no-strings/anonymous sex is exciting - SOMETIMES - porn is OBSESSED with it, and it gets really boring.

The repetitiveness of porn is damaging, but for a critical mind, it is also revealing. Most porn consumers want to be the 'daddy' fucking girls old enough to be their daughter (eww) or they want to fuck their mums (eww), or both. All very Freudian and distinctly pathetic. It's no secret that they are largely insecure and unattractive (often, but not always, physically as well as emotionally) men, compensating themselves by being able to get their way all the time and 'have' anyone they want who wouldn't normally look twice at them. They don't want to be anyone's beloved equal, they want to be SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES, goddammit! Me, me, me! Bor-ing - and this is precisely the message we DO NOT need young male teenagers high on hormones to be embedding in their already self-centred brains.

Rape culture + pornification

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I really need to stop staying up so late

Because I think it is making me suicidal.