From: Tavia tavia@btinternet.com
Disagreeing with two such (metaphorical) heavy-weights,
<taken by surprise> Oh! Thank you!
I fear I must be barking up the wrong tree, but... I simply don't understand where this *one-sided* dependence comes in. If two people of different genders have sex together then why is it the *woman* who's suddenly dependent on the man for satisfaction of sexual needs?
She isn't, but IIRC it is in patriarchy's interests to control female sexuality, and so to perpetuate the myth that a woman needs a man (what I'm citing here is Mary Douglas' book *Purity and Danger* and Marilyn Strathern's article "Culture in a Netbag" --not to be overly intellectual but just so you know what's been influencing me :) ).
Surely the threat to patriarchy (assuming patriarchy exists in Western society) is simply financially and sexually independent women, regardless of orientation?
Yes, agreed, but also feel that it's more complex than that. IMO a financially and sexually independent heterosexual woman, bi woman and lesbian are all threats to the patriarchy, but in rather different ways. The lesbian because she is demonstrably living without men; the heterosexual woman because she is demonstrating that it is possible to live within the heterosexual norm and still be independent, and the bisexual because she has the best of both, as it were :). I'd say all three are also affected by m-o "lesbian" porn as well, but in different ways.
Surely what male-oriented porn chooses to depict has no relevance whatsoever to real-world women (who presumably don't on the whole choose to consume it)?
Well, I'd disagree with that rather, and actually because of something Kathryn and Shane both pointed out independently, which is that while neither of them consume slash, they're both a) aware that it exists and b) affected by its existence. As I said, I've encountered people of both genders whose stereotypes about lesbians were visibly informed by m-o porn, and this is at some point going to affect a lesbian, whether she consumes m-o porn (and some do, for whatever reason) or not. The images men see of women do, in my experience, affect how they respond to women-- note that I don't mean it's a one-to-one relationship (and also I'm not only talking about pornographic images), but that they can cause misjudgements and misapprehensions (incidentally, the reverse is also true, I've found-- some women can develop stereotypes about men and male sexuality based on the images they see of it).
Am I missing something?
No. I thought you made a good point, which is why I'm debating it :).
ObB7: harking back to the art thread, it's true that the Federation doesn't seem to make use of images for control in ways that you'd think they should. Monumental art, OK whatever, but it's surprising that we don't see more propaganda posters, comics, leaflets etc. like in *1984* and *Brazil,* if only in the Dome.
Fiona
The Posthumous Memoirs of Secretary Rontane Available for public perusal at http://nyder.r67.net
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