Apparantly, my Pandora is set to "Jilli" - I just got Siouxsie followed by Bowie.

I win!

What I win, I don't know. But I win!

And now it went to The Cure. Jilli totally wins!!

What I win, I don't know. But I win!

Fudge!

Or if you don't like fudge, then cupcakes.

Granted, some of it is horrible, but some of it is even made by women.

There are many women in the world who are actively anti-feminist - the two statements above are not mutually exclusive.

I'm completely fine with any partner looking at porn, and I pretty much assume that anyone who tells me he isn't is lying (and just embarrassed). I have two rules: no underage and no voyeur. Every single person in the porn has to be of age and consenting. I am REALLY creeped out by the hidden camera porn.

Kyriarchy – a neologism coined by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza and derived from the Greek words for “lord” or “master” (kyrios) and “to rule or dominate” (archein) which seeks to redefine the analytic category of patriarchy in terms of multiplicative intersecting structures of domination…Kyriarchy is best theorized as a complex pyramidal system of intersecting multiplicative social structures of superordination and subordination, of ruling and oppression.

Patriarchy – Literally means the rule of the father and is generally understood within feminist discourses in a dualistic sense as asserting the domination of all men over all women in equal terms. The theoretical adequacy of patriarchy has been challenged because, for instance, black men do not have control over white wo/men and some women (slave/mistresses) have power over subaltern women and men (slaves).

From here: [link]

Basically acknowledging that shit is complicated, yo.

The argument being, of course, than no woman can make such a choice because the patriarchy has already warped our ideas of sexuality.

(That's a conundrum, though, because wouldn't the SAME patriarchy have warped the worldview of those who decry BDSM? I mean, let's all start from the same spot, okay? If I'm a tool of the patriarchy, so are they.)

We're all soaking in a similar sauce, so to speak. Some don't know they're in the sauce b/c that's all they've known. Some are aware of the sauce and prefer a different flavor, some don't mind the original flavor (abandoning strained metaphor here). It influences everybody and I certainly don't agree that there's anything wrong with BDSM. You can't make sweeping assumptions about why people like BDSM anymore that you can about why they are gay/straight/any permutation (all gay men were mama's boys, all lesbians were abused/raped).

I pretty much assume that anyone who tells me he isn't is lying (and just embarrassed).

Huh. I didn't look at porn at all until I reached my late-20s. (Mostly because back then I'd only heard feminist 'porn is bad' arguments.)

Well, I'm 41, Tommy, and I am not dating 21-year-olds. Men have pretty much figured out that porn exists and that they like it by the time they start dating me.

Yeah, I've read that as an argument for the assertion that a woman can't be a feminist unless she's a lesbian.

@@ and the finger to that. Can I ask, do you remember where you read that and who said it?

I have a good friend who is a Feminist, CapitalFthankyouverymuch (her words). She's is currently getting her PhD in Women's Philosophy or summat. She once spent a year working as a stripper - the gets totally naked kind. I looked at her and said, "Pardon me for generalizing, but ... don't Capital F Feminists generally hate the adult industry?" She said, in general, sure. But in her opinion, if she was going to hate it, she had better know the ins and outs of the industry and know why it's degrading and how it objectifies women. She admitted that one establishment was not a "study", but that in general, the women made most of the decisions as to how to dance, what songs, what outfits, hours, etc and that she felt more empowered at that job than most of the other ones she'd had. So she finds it hard to hate the adult industry in general as a Feminist.

Then she showed me how to spin on a pole in my basement. It was good times.