"50 Shades of Grey": Bad for Women! Bad for Sex!

Discussion...

Tuesday, June 26 at Revolution Books in NYC
7-9:30 pm
146 West 26th Street, NYC
hosted by Sunsara Taylor and the project to
End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement & Degradation of Women


50 Shades of Grey: Bad for Women! Bad for Sex!
50 Shades of Grey portrays a virginal college grad falling for a stunningly wealthy, controlling, powerful and troubled man who insists on totally owning her and getting off while hurting her with riding whips, chains, paddles and violently degrading sex. Despite her tears, deep isolation and confusion she comes to find this fulfilling and enjoyable.

Millions of copies of this book have been sold and everyone has been buzzing about what it means that women are attracted to this fantasy.

In reality, the attraction to this "fantasy" is not shocking. It's only different by a matter of degree from the common romance novel or fairy tail that women have been indoctrinated with their whole lives: a young, virginal and insecure woman somehow attracts a man who she "doesn't deserve." He is powerful, jealous, moody and controlling. She is frightened, but the more she submits the more she sees abuse is just how he shows his love. Finally, she is made "worthy" because he wants to possess her. 

The only thing new this time is that she has to sign a contract that refers to her as "The Submissive" and he buys her platinum and diamond jewelry to cover her bruises.

This is harmful!

It is bad for women - at a time when, under the guise of "post-feminism" women are once again being pushed to embrace the role of "breeder" or "sex object," this book reinforces and makes appealing the idea that women should be owned and controlled by men.

It's bad for sex - at a time when more space needs to be opened up for people to imagine and experience the full richness of what sex can be between mutually respectful and equal partners, this book pushes people to get over their discomfort and wallow in sex as degradation and enslavement.

NOTE: You do not have to have read the book to participate!

The name “bikini” given to the bathing suit comes from comparing “the effects of a scantily clad woman to the effects of an atomic bomb.”

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#8

Recently I was reading an essay called "Disarming Images" about an exhibit of art for nuclear disarmament which was held in the early 1980s. And I noticed that the author of this essay points out that according to the dictionary, Webster's Third International Dictionary, the name "bikini" given to the bathing suit comes from comparing "the effects of a scantily clad woman to the effects of an atomic bomb." When you think about this, and you think about the horrendous death, destruction, mutilation and suffering alive before dying that was caused by the atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Japan, and what would result from the much more powerful nuclear weapons these monsters have today—when you think about all that, and you think about the reasons for naming the bikini after all that, and what kind of view of women this promotes—do you need any other proof about how sick this system is, and how sick is the dominant culture it produces and promotes?

Bob Avakian 

Chairman of the

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

BAsics 1:17

Out of Denial and Into the Streets – International Women's Day 2012

Women the world-over are facing a growing assault on their lives, their rights, and even their recognition as full human beings.


In the U.S., Catholic Bishops have turned women's basic right to birth control into a national controversy. At least twenty percent of U.S. female soldiers are sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers. Every moment we are bombarded by images of women's bodies, half naked and half starved. And strip clubs, which serve up the subordination of women to men in the living flesh, have become so mainstream that annually men spend an estimated $16 billion dollars on them (as compared to the $4 billion they spend on baseball).


In the Congo, tens of thousands of women have been so brutally raped they can no longer hold their bladders or bowels. From Moldova to Thailand and beyond, millions of girls and women are sold as sex slaves. Throughout the world, fueled by the massive dislocations caused by imperialist development as well as imperialist wars, Islamic fundamentalism is rising with its “honor” killings, forced veiling, and hatred of women. And from China to Honduras to Silicon Valley, the near-slave labor – and sometimes outright slave-labor – of women and girls has disproportionately fueled the growth in cheap manufacturing.


These are not “just a bunch of different bad things happening to women."  These are but a few of the many fronts in an all-out war on women. While the forms this takes may appear different – or even unrelated – a common rope is tightening around nearly every dimension of the public, social, political, and intimate lives of women.

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Making Sexual Violence Against Women "Cool"... This Time from PETA

 was happy to see that Maura Judkis over at the Washington Post blogs picked up on my commentary on the Liquid Plumr Double Impact ad the other day.  I was significantly less happy, however, when she brought to my attention this ad from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) which makes light of violence against women and sexual violence:



This woman is clearly very injured.  She is in a neck brace, for Christ's sake.  Plus, the ad intentionally features her stumbling and seeming to wince from pain between her legs as she tries to climb the stairs.

Her injuries are supposed to have been caused by "TFWVAKTBOOM."  That is, "Boyfriend went vegan and knocked the bottom out of me."  As the ad goes on to say, her boyfriend "went vegan" and all of a sudden was able to "bring it like a tantric porn star."  Then, we see footage of her being banged violently against the wall (later he is seen patching the wall up with plaster).

The "capper" to the whole ad is that she seems to have stumbled through the streets, wincing painfully all the way, wearing her neckbrace and almost nothing else (why would she bother to get dressed, it would delay the sexual aggression she is portrayed as clearly craving) to go out and purchase some raw veggies for her newly vegan boyfriend.  All, as is spelled out with no room for subtlety or guessing, because she is so eager to be near-raped and battered again.

News Flash:

Women DON'T like being battered and beaten.  No one should want to have sex like a porn star -- porn is about dehumanizing and degrading, about getting off on the enslavement of others.  And if you want to make a case for "going vegan" -- especially if you claim to be doing so out of a desire to be "ethical to animals" -- then make a fucking argument for why that is ethical, don't do so based on appealing to ugly misogyny and machismo or by trivializing sexual assault and violent battery.

It is time this shit be opposed and called out for the woman-hating it concentrates and normalizes.  This is NOT something people should just laugh off or get used to.  The normalizing of violence and sexual assault against women is growing.  It will not stop if it is not publicly and massively resisted and challenged.  This is why one of the stops on our March 10th protest for International Women's Day is Times Square, where we will protest the objectification and degradation of women which saturates American culture.  We'll protest the way that women's bodies are displayed -- half naked and half starved -- and used to sell everything from cars to clothes to "American culture" to the world.

This is part of a larger march connecting up the many sites of the degradation and enslavement of women.  We'll be starting at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the biggest Catholic institution in New York for their role in the assault on birth control and abortion.  We'll protest the US Military Recruiting Center for the way it concentrates violence against women.  We'll protest one of the anti-abortion "Crisis Pregnancy Centers" and several of the strip clubs in the area.  JOIN US!


http://stoppatriarchy.tumblr.com/march10

March 10th -- for International Women's Day
Protest and March against sites of women’s oppression!


12 noon: GATHER NEAR ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL in New York City!

Two radical ruptures

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#4

"The Communist Revolution is the most radical rupture with traditional property relations; no wonder that its development involves the most radical rupture with traditional ideas."

 

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto



 

Liquid Plumr Porn Spoof: Making Female Degradation "Cute" and Normalized

Check out this new ad for “Liquid Plumr Double Impact.” As you will quickly recognize it is a spoof on a cliché in porn: the plumber shows up and really the housewife wants nothing more than to be sexually ravaged by him and all his muscular, musky masculinity. Further, this ad includes “double penetration,” (get it, “double impact”?). That is, the woman gets penetrated by two men at once (and indeed, two plumbers show up at her door promising to “snake your drain” and to “flush your pipe.”) During all this, the narrator (in the cliché porn voice) brags about how this “double impact” includes “a long snake to grab deep clogs... and a powerful gel to finish off the rest, baby.”

What is wrong with this ad?

It is further normalizing, and making “cute,” the notion that “everyone is into porn.” In fact, a lot of people are deeply offended by porn – and more people ought to be. It is very damaging to the way that all of society is trained to view the female half of the human race – as well as how people are coarsened and trained to view sex as conquest and domination. But this ad further alienates and silences those who might raise a critique of porn; already many are afraid to do so because they will be called “uptight” or lacking in a sense of humor.

It is portraying this “fantasy” of being “double penetrated” as being the secret fantasy of women. In reality, this is a “fantasy” that was almost wholly created by the porn industry itself. Further, this “fantasy” has nothing to do with actual human intimacy or mutual respect or closeness and pleasure (and I guarantee this is NOT the “fantasy” that is occurring to most women when they are stuck with a backed up sewage system!) – instead, this “fantasy” is all about sexualizing the impersonal ganging up on and overpowering by multiple men of a woman who is reduced to a thing.

All this reinforces the notion – which is the dominant message in pornography as a whole as well as the broader cultural portrayal of women in general – that all women at all times exist to be (and long to be) sexually available to all men. When a woman calls a plumber, she doesn't really need help with her plumbing, she is really harboring a secret fantasy to be sexually ravaged. When a woman walks down the street, she is not really just trying to go from “place a” to “place b,” nor is she enjoying the sun or the atmosphere of the city, she is really seeking to be hit on and objectified by men. All this feeds the notion that any woman who rejects the sexual advances of men is really denying him something he is entitled to, thereby justifying his rage or violence in the service of reclaiming what is “rightfully his.”

Finally, a word to all those who are thinking, “Lighten up, its just a spoof.” Don't be stupid. I don't accept that you can possibly be that dense. The only reason this ad “works” is because it is very closely playing off the typical forms of porn that are very well known and has very broad meaning and impact in the world. I am not “stretching” to link this ad up up with the meaning – and the broad impact – of the very industry (porn) which it is closely mimicking and playing off of.

And let there be no unclarity here: that industry, pornography, is becoming more and more violent, more and more degrading, even as it is becoming more and more mainstream. The normalization of “double penetration” (and even “triple penetration” and more) as well as the mainstreaming of this into the broader public culture (which is exactly what this ad does) is very much a part of this. In the real world, this is having devastating and long-lasting impact on the lives of real women (as well as men). It has created and contributes to reinforcing and bolstering the fact that women cannot go through the world without being constantly reminded that they are viewed – by a very large percentage of men as well as other women and their own views of themselves – as nothing more than a physical object, valued and valuable only so long as it is sexually attractive to and available to men. That is a fucked up and enslaving culture. Rather the opposite of a funny, hah-hah, joke.

the burkha...the thong - what they have in common

Revolutionary Communism and the Liberation of Women -- WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!    

#3

"While they may appear very different, the burkha enforced by fanatical Islamic fundamentalism, on the one hand, and the "thong," widely advertised and promoted as "sexy underwear" for women, in "modern" capitalist society, on the other hand, are both hideous symbols and embodiments of the degradation of women. The fundamental thing they have in common is that they are both manifestations of a world marked by horrendous forms of oppression, both "traditional" and "modern"—a world dominated overall by capitalist imperialism—a world that needs to be turned upside down and radically transformed."

from A Declaration: For Women's Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity 

by Revolution Newspaper

"Human Barbie," Sexualization of Girls, and a Call for PROTEST

Just now someone sent this link to me with the subject line, “this is just obscene.” I had to stop and write something because, indeed, it IS obscene – on many levels!

'Human Barbie' Gives 7-Year-Old Daughter Liposuction Voucher

The worst part of this story is not even the fact the mother of this 7 year old would give her a voucher for a future “boob job” and liposuction, it is the fact that this young girl is already herself begging for these procedures.

Obviously, it is outrageous for a parent – or any adult – to give such a gift to a child, but lets not leave this story at criticizing her mother. Even as indicated in the “objective” coverage of this story, the idea that a female should be evaluated primarily in terms of her physical attractiveness (as defined by a dangerously narrow and unhealthy standard) to men is broadly accepted in society. That is not being indicted by the article. What is being called out is that this 7 year old is just too young to be objectified and surgically modified. I agree, she is too young. But just because a girl grows up into a woman doesn't make objectifying and commodifying her body okay (nor does it make it harmless for her to “choose” to objectify and commodify herself!). And this is what is not being called out in this article, or in most of the discussion these days about the very real and very dangerous phenomenon of sexualizing very young girls.

If we treat women like nothing more than sex objects then how is that NOT going to filter down into the psyches and aspirations of very young girls?

To be clear, sexualizing a 7 year old IS a fucking crime, but lets just step back a second so we don't miss the other crimes this is part of.

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