People who shouldn't be allowed to work with women

I don't normally look at PostSecret, but someone pointed this out to me:

There are really no words I have to describe how horrifying and repugnant this is. No matter how much you dislike someone there is NO reason to not only condone, but agree with the daily terror that is Domestic Violence. I've worked at a DV shelter and I have seen firsthand the effects of DV on women and families. There is nothing, NOTHING that excuses this. It is not only blaming the victim for the abuse whose responsibility is solely that of the abuser, but it is also continuing the oppression by blaming that person. This is the same mentality that keeps women from reporting the abuse and that keeps abusers from jail and from police taking the matter seriously.

The most common reasons for not reporting domestic violence to police are that victims view the incident as a personal or private matter, they fear retaliation from their abuser, and they do not believe that police will do anything about the incident.

Women who are in DV situations have more then enough problems without the people who are supposed to help them blaming them for abuse and disregarding the fundamental reason for that abuse: misogyny. Most women already believe that it's somehow *their fault.* The person who wrote this should quit since they feel this way.

I wish I could express myself better, I am beyond angry.

Onto more people who shouldn't be allowed around women.


Recently blogger Kyle Payne plead guilty to filming himself sexually assaulting a woman. According to his site, this is Kyle Payne:

Meet the Blogger

Kyle is a social justice educator, writer, and activist. Much of his work is concerned with putting a stop to violence against women. For years Kyle has served as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence and other forms of abuse, in addition to promoting what he calls “a more just and life-affirming culture of sexuality” through activism and education. As a researcher, Kyle has studied the feminist anti-pornography movement and is particularly interested in men’s roles in confronting pornography and the rape culture. In addition to his pro-feminist work, he is involved with anti-racist, free speech, peace, and anti-globalization movements.

Education

2008 - M.S. Degree in Adult Education
Capella University, Minneapolis, MN

2007 - B.A. Degree in Philosophy & Religion,
Social Consciousness, and Women’s Studies
Buena Vista University, Storm Lake, IA

College Activities

Rape Crisis Advocate (4 years)
Editorialist (4 years)
Webmaster (4 years, several organizations)
Resident Advisor (3 years)
Student Radio (3 years, several positions)
Academic Assistant (2 years)
VP of Service Learning (1 year)
Wellness Education Specialist (1 year)
Career Peer (1 year)
Student Senator (1 year)

College Honors and Awards

Male Leader of the Year Award, BVU (2007)
William H. Cumberland Research Award, BVU (2006)
Willard Stief Award for Community Living, BVU (2006)
Nominee, Senior of the Year, BVU (2007)
Nominee, Volunteer of the Year, BVU (2006, 2007)
Alpha Chi Honor Society (2006-present)
Dean’s Fellowship, BVU (2003-2007)
Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities (2006)
Campus Compact Civic Engagement Fellowship (2006)

Here's the thing: Much of his work is concerned with putting a stop to violence against women. For years Kyle has served as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence and other forms of abuse, in addition to promoting what he calls “a more just and life-affirming culture of sexuality” through activism and education. As a researcher, Kyle has studied the feminist anti-pornography movement and is particularly interested in men’s roles in confronting pornography and the rape culture.

He works putting a stop to violence against women and against rape culture yet he, himself had no problem with sexually assaulting and making pornography out of an intoxicated and unconscious female student. He was in a position of power over this woman, a Resident Advisor in the dorms and police found the film on his hard drive. After he posted bail he wrote this on his blog:

"For a variety of reasons, there is very little I can say about the recent news. So, unfortunately, I cannot give you the answers that you might seek. Worse yet, I can do little in the way of defending myself against a whole host of claims about my character that are both irrational and damaging.

IRRATIONAL! IRRATIONAL! Yes it's irrational to get angry about the fact that you, someone who labeled himself a "radical feminist" who worked against rape culture then turned around and not only sexually assaulted someone, but made pornography out of it. According to his blog he works doing rape crisis advocacy which scares the hell out of me-a rapist talking to victims of sexual assault! There's more about this at Buried Alive.

Presidential primaries

So here in WA we caucus. Last time I caucused for Kucinich. But now I find out that not only is he a friend of Larry Flynt, but that he supports his misogynist ways. More on the second point below.

As a feminist who is against the exploitation of woman I can no longer support Kucinich. So I guess I will be backing Hillary. I did vote for her for Senator in NY ages ago. Barack scares me. His voting record tells me nothing, and he has not done anything to distinguish himself in any way that's satisfying to me.

It really saddens me about Kucinich endorsing Hustler (article by Jackson Katz *sigh*). No matter how much I agree with the other things that he stands for I cannot support someone who supports a woman hater and rapist.

From the article:

For those of us who cling to the quaint notion that any progressive politics worthy of the name must be anti-sexist by definition, this is truly deflating news. After all, we're in the 21st century. The days when prominent men in the progressive movement would dare to associate this openly with the likes of misogynists like Larry Flynt were supposed to be relegated to the mists of memory, before the modern multicultural women's movement came along. In fact, one of the catalyzing forces in the rise of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s was women's experience of sexism on the left and in the civil rights, anti-poverty and anti-war movements.

....

Let's be clear about who Flynt is. He's not some run of the mill good ol' boy with political passions and deep pockets. Please spare us the "First Amendment hero" platitudes. On the contrary, Flynt is a wealthy capitalist who for years has been one of the most notoriously sexist figures in American public life. His signature publication, Hustler magazine, has published some of the most misogynist and racist photo layouts and cartoons in the history of mass-distributed porn magazines. He has been accused of incest by his now-grown daughter. He repeatedly dismisses women with the gumption to challenge his raging sexism as "anti-sex bitches" and much worse.

It is willfully naïve for any self-respecting "progressive" to dismiss Flynt's pornography as harmless "adult" entertainment. How can it be considered harmless to consistently portray women and girls in a sexually demeaning and degrading manner? Flynt hasn't built his porn publishing empire in a vacuum. Our society has some of the highest rates of sexual and domestic violence in the world. The numbers are staggering: one in four women will be raped or sexually assaulted. One study showed that one in five teenage girls has been in a physically or sexually abusive relationship. Most women won't even walk alone after dark. Whenever we discuss the effects of pornography -- and regardless of how one feels about people's right to produce or consume it -- anyone with a minimal sense of social responsibility has to examine the relevant context, including where and how it is produced and its relationship to social reality.

....

Hustler cartoons are also notoriously saturated with images of racism and sexual cruelty. As the media scholar Gail Dines points out, the cartoons can be even more overtly offensive than the photo layouts because they carry a "humor license" and hence avoid critical scrutiny. One result is that men of color -- especially African-American men -- are routinely presented in the most reductive racist stereotype: as brutish rapists of white women. Women of color are caricatured with animal-like qualities -- or as non-hygienic slobs. One characteristic cartoon depicts a school science fair. A white boy proudly stands in front of his project, next to a big sign that reads: "ant farm." Next to him is a large Black girl, naked from the waist down; under her the caption reads: "crab farm."

*sigh* I REALLY liked Kucinich. I am really disappointed. I, like Jackson Katz and many of my feminist friends, took his very progressive politics to mean that he supported the equality of women.

Silly, silly me. I spent the years previous to my school as a traveling activist in anarchist circles. The, what many people call "manarchists," are misogynist, racist assholes, which is ridiculous because if you are advocating anarchism, as I understand it, you are advocating equality and freedom of all people, regardless of anything like race or gender. Why am I surprised? Dammit. I've been able to escape this heartbreak for the past few years by concentrating solely on my schooling. That and being on disability and having 3 cats makes it *somewhat* difficult to just hop on a train and go wherever I want whenever there's a campaign I want to work on. I don't miss it partially because I was so burned out by fighting the manarchists and the fact that almost all my sexual assaults have been by my 'fellow activists.'

I HATE THE SO-CALLED "LIBERAL" MALES WHO ARE MISOGYNIST JERKFACEHEADS. ARGH

Porn again, porn again

This was in the anti-porn LJ community, and I thought I'd pass it on.

'm not requesting to join the community because I don't feel I possess the right attitude for it, but, I did find an article in this month's issue of FHM in England (of all things!) about why one man had given up porn, and I typed up most of it because I thought you and/or the members might be interested in reading it. (Were my scanner capable of scanning magazines without blurring the text to buggery, I'd have scanned rather than typed, but there you go):


[just skipping to the main bits of interest, really]

Then the internet arrived. Designed to be a force for good and to share the knowledge of the world, it was immediately used, of course, to spread images of people having sex. The filth travelled around the glove like those ocean-going barges stacked high with rotting garbage. Only this was muck that everybody wanted, that found a welcoming port in every corner. In mine too.




Along with most other red-blooded males, I gleefully downloaded the photos, saw the pussies of Pamela, Paris and Abi. I cruised the sites and eyed up thousands of girls from every nation and in every position. When broadband arrived, I thought, "This is it, Utopia, a constantly refreshed supply of beautiful women, naked and performing for our pleasure." Now we are all sultans.

(Some talk about his nephew and how his nephew'll never have to buy a porn magazine from a shop because it's just a click away on the internet. Also mentions that the nephew in question is 13)

But slowly it has become clear to me that I'm the lucky one after all, not him. In fact, I regard anyone who watches porn these days as being incredibly unfortunate. Why? Because it's going to poison your mind, mess up your relationships and ruin your sex life.

That may seem like a sweeping statement, but I know it's true because it actually happened to me. Nothing I'm about to confess is based on bland statistics or boring surveys or government research - it's based on the fact that, in bed with a woman one night, I did something which caused her to feel fear and pain. I practically became a sex offender. And porn was to blame.

My transformation from nice guy to near-rapist began when I got into the habit of kicking off each working day by watching a bit of hardcore. I thought of it as my equivalent to a cup of coffee. A pick-me-up. Five minutes of online ogling before settling down to the grind of earning a living.

(explanation that 'hardcore' in this case wasn't referring to anything underage or illegal, so it's not as though he was watching 'the shit with animals and torture and dungeons', but the regular stuff often watched online)

The participants seemed to be clean and willing, and their activities appeared innocent enough. Certainly, I never felt I was being perverted by them, especially as my favourite one, called "Her Sweet Hand", was entirely devoted to women giving hand-jobs. In my view this was only "second base" and therefore hardly pornographic at all.

If you'd asked me back then if watching these clips was affecting my sex life, I'd have said, "Yes, but in a good way." The way I saw it, my libido was getting charged up like a car battery, so when I pulled a girl I would be raring to go. She'd get better sex, and I'd get a chance to act out some of the scenes I'd watched. Everyone's a winner.

After a while, however, I noticed I was getting much more dominant in bed. Previously, I had been a pretty democratic lover, happy to share the workload in the three classic positions, but now I found I was doing a lot more doggy style. I would do it harder, too, and while I did it I would pull the girl's hair and think, "Yeah, you're getting it now, you dirty little bitch." If sufficiently emboldened by drink, I would actually say those words, and plenty more besides. Then, after showering her who was boss for half-an-hour or so, perhaps pinning her down by the wrists for variety, I'd climax. But whereas in the old days, I was happy to come into my Durex or on her tits, now it had to be all over her face and neck like a white volcano.

(the segment preceding this is mostly just reiterating what's been said before and not that interesting)

I can only guess how far down that track I'd have gone if I hadn't been snapped out of it. But luckily - for me, anyway - I pulled a girl at a party and then went too far. Far too far. We got pissed, cabbed it back to my place and then I gave her the full Beast of Hammersmith treatment. I remember talking filth, going at her like a merciless jackhammer, when she first asked me to stop.

I didn't stop. In fact - and this is the hard bit to confess - I gave it to her even harder. One... two... three strokes, riding the wave as she squirmed underneath me. I was engorged with power, my cock a weapon. But then she wrenched away from me, and I could see by the look on her face that A Bad Thing had happened.

It took a lot of fast talking and soothing hugs to calm her down. At one stage, I thought she might actually report me. When she left, I shivered under the duvet, shocked at what I'd done.

What had I become? And why? I had never acted like this before, so I deduced that it might be due to the internet porn I'd been feasting on. The next day, I visited some of the sites I'd used regularly. And slowly, just as a secret image used to emerge if you stared at those old fractal pictures long enough, the truth became clear.

Modern porn... it's not about sex at all. It's about cruelty to women. Almost all of it, especially the most popular "gonzo" king, is built on their humiliation. Again, let me stress that I'm not talking about the extreme stuff here, I'm talking about the mainstream. Your basic, entry level porn.

The problem stems from the fact that porn gets stale very quickly. There are only so many ways a man and woman can make love, so the adult-video makers have to up the ante constantly to maintain sales. Once, you never saw penetration. Then anal sex was a taboo. Now it's pretty common to see triple anal penetration. As one porn director put it, "People want more. They want to know how many dicks you can shove up an ass. It's like Fear Factor meets Jackass."

Precisely. It is like Jackass. Painful and demeaning things - like getting cornhold or throat-fucked - are happening for our pleasure. And the discomfort shows on the women's faces. They get hurt while we whack off. Looking back at my favourites with fresh eyes, I saw it clearly. Even in the "innocent" hand-job one, they worked without being pleasured themselves. They ended up been coated with spunk. They were, quite literally, sex objects.

You want to know the really worrying thing? Porn is a multi-billion dollar industry, famously bigger than Hollywood, and if the sight of women experiencing discomfort or humiliation was distasteful to the mass audience, it would have been edited out. Market forces would insist upon a correction. So the only conclusion to draw is that normal guys - not a tiny minority of perverts and weirdos, but you, your pals, your brothers, your colleagues - actually like seeing it.

Well, not me. Not any more. I've seen what they're selling and I don't want to buy it. And I warn you, everytime you watch a gonzo clip from "Meatholes" or "Exploited Babysitters" your subconscious is being bombarded with the same message. You won't so much get brainwashed as braindirtied. And then - like it or not - there's a chance you'll bring what you've viewed into your real-life relationships. Monkey see, monkey do.

Personally, I'm now only going to use the computer for e-mails and poker. If I want porn, I'll stick to the older kind where everyone appeared to be having fun. Say what you like about '80s porn movies, at least I know I'm never going to end up like the blokes who starred in them. Mainly because I hate moustaches...

(emphasis mine)

First off I'd like to point out that he's a rapist. No matter how many hugs or whatever he gave her and even though she didn't report him does not in fact mean that it wasn't rape. He admitted to continuing after she said no. He admitted that he thought she would report him. He is a rapist.

While he doesn't realise that all porn is dehumanising and degrading to women, he does come to a very real conclusion. Time and time again men tell the same story, but do we (usually) hear it in media other then feminist magazines or in forums other then the feminist blogosphere? A resounding NO. Many of the people Pamela Paul interviewed for Pornified said the same things, and about how they were no longer to sustain erections with a woman unless they envisioned the degrading images of pornography. However mush they want to sweep this shit under the rug, there are always people willing to tell their stories, be they women who escaped the industry (like me) or men who have come to the realisation that porn turns them into sadistic assholes. While I disagree with him continuing to look at porn, bravo for him for publishing this in a lads mag that glorifies the pornification of women. Hopefully more men will be brave enought to stand up to this.

The pornography industry exposed

“My whole reason for being in this Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don't much care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn't have when they were growing up. I strongly believe this, and the Industry hates me for saying it...so we come on a woman's face or somewhat brutalize her sexually: we're getting even for their lost dreams. I believe this. I've heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen. When I've strangled a person or sodomized a person, or brutalized a person, the audience is cheering my action, and then when I've fulfilled my warped desire, the audience applauds.”

and

"I'd like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women. I firmly believe that we serve a purpose by showing that. The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face. Men get off behind that, because they get even with the women they can't have. We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face."

- Ex-porn actor and Free Speech Coalition board member Bill Margold, quoted by Stoller and Levine.

Why am I anti-pornography?

I think Gail Dines does a great job of talking about the misogyny, normalisation of pedophilia, and racism in porn. This video is about an hour long, but I think it's a great introduction to the harms of pornography.

Pornography is to sex what McDonald's is to food.

This is exactly my response about porn

That's censorship!

No, censorship would be if the critic was heading a government body and inspecting each title before it came out, with the ability to prevent the publication of anything that violated the guidelines of that body.

Unless that is what the critic is doing, or proposing others do, what they are engaging in is critique, not censorship.

Personally, I’m not interested in censoring things. I want people to stop depicting women so poorly in comic books, but I want them to stop because they realise it’s fucking dumb, not because there’s someone with a rubber stamp hovering suspiciously above each page. If criticism contributes to people realising that depicting women so poorly is fucking dumb – and I have an inbox says they have – then that is awesome.

From Girls read comics (and they're pissed)