Submitted by John G. Spragge (not verified) on 6 December 2007 - 3:55am.
You can't expect pro-sex feminists to accept hostility to women. Pro-sex doesn't mean pro-degradation. It doesn't mean pro-exploitation. Pro-sex doesn't mean you have to like Joe Francis, Seymour Butts, or the BangBus. I believe that it will take two things to answer Robert Jensen:
1) First, make sure actors on dirty movies want to work there.
Yes, I know, the argument that pornographers kidnap women off the street and serially rape them to make movies has long and not very good history. Let's dispel it now. We have laws to make sure nobody under eighteen works in porn, and the industry can live with those laws; I suggest we find a way to make sure they all want to work there. The same thing goes for health and safety issues.
2) Make the issue about controlling what we think.
Taking a position in opposition to pornography doesn't have to mean wanting to control what and how other people think, and what emotions they experience. But taking the positions Jensen does definitely does mean wanting to control other people's (other men's) thoughts and emotions. Ultimately, Jensen's arguments come from a perspective that blends the therapeutic with the political, that not only wants to prevent us from harming one another, the traditional role of government, but wants to make us happy and good. If you want a strong answer to Jensen, an argument based on freedom of thought probably works better than anything else.