Pornography

Just read a post [from 2003] on the subject on a site I visit fairly regularly. It was more than a relief to read the words of a man denouncing pornography without reservation. If you'd like to read it, click here.

Around this time last year, I was told about a certain brand of feminism which holds that pornography is empowering of women. Below is my response to that conversation.

STRAW-MAN
17 September 2005, 6:24 PM

Empowerment as subjugation,
one sex to another-
a familiar story with an eerie twist,
placing man beneath femininity;
making him less than
you; making you less than
you were before.

Progress as regress,
mocking evolution-
a 360 degree revolution,
now we’ve taken up
weapons both have wielded
for centuries,
reclaimed our bodies
by hurling them like hand grenades,
making Woman nothing
but body parts to lure; entice;
give some false sense of hope
that we control something
ultimately, outside of self.

And so we are violated twice-
once by men, then by ourselves.

The body of a woman holds much
power; has been misused in myriad ways-
illustrious, imaginative, ingenious-
impudent, insolent... ignorant.

You make the sacred an asylum;
beauty, ashes;
personhood a thing to wield;
womanhood, political fodder.

Empowerment becomes a straw-man,
and it matters not if you win the debate,

for the givers of life have sold
their birth-right
in order to sate their pride.