A Continuing Debate Porn Also Raises Concerns for Men

Author: Alex Rossmiller

In his April 16 article, "Dines' Message Alienates Rather Than Convinces Audience," Bryan Goldberg '05 demonstrated what is either total ignorance of the point of Gail Dines' lecture, or worse, purposeful distortion of the facts and its message. The contrast between the informed clarity of "Porn Perpetuates Sexual Violence" by Gillian Wood '03 and Goldberg's calamity of misinformation was stunning and should be addressed.
Goldberg claimed that Dines used "problematic rhetoric" that "alienated many of the people she was trying to convince." Her lecture may have alienated a few, but I observed an audience that was primarily engaged.
Goldberg tried to dismiss the entire lecture because "images of this nature have been relatively widespread for nearly a century, meaning that her presentation did not touch upon anything new." Surely Goldberg is not suggesting that the mere prolonged existence of something validates its appropriateness. The idea that a problem must be new in order to be addressed is horrifically illogical.
Goldberg furthered his assault on rationality when he scoffed at the images presented, suggesting, "Dines' ability to locate two dozen photos hardly qualifies her as a sleuth." One of the most important points of the lecture was that such images are omnipresent, and one need not be a detective to find them. Dines simply took mainstream images of sex intertwined with violence and put them in the context of the increasing sexual violence in society.
She certainly did not, as Goldberg asserts, condemn sexuality, and for Goldberg to euphemize pornography as "alternative forms of erotica" is simply laughable.
If Goldberg wants to pretend that a Hustler photograph of a naked woman hanging from a tree is an "alternative form of erotica," that is his business, but such a view lacks basic reason and should not be foist upon readers as anything approaching reality.
Goldberg introduced bondage and sadomasochism, an issue over which he and Dines shared marked conflict during the lecture. Contrary to Goldberg's assertion, bondage and sadomasochism are male fantasies, and male sexual subservience is just that: a fantasy. Pornographic images of these behaviors play on an inversion of the clear superiority of males in many or most sexual relationships, and it is a ridiculous argument to say that S&M pornography represents a victory against violence and the objectification of women.
I found the Dines' lecture to be poignant and disquieting. I did not agree with the entire presentation, and I do feel that Dines may have hurt her own cause by making strong anti-capitalist statements within the context of addressing pornography. But while I do not endorse the entire lecture, neither do I condone obfuscation of its facts. It would be a grave mistake to dismiss the very real and valid points that she made just because one does not agree with all her statements or perspectives.
Finally, I wanted to write about this issue in part because there were three articles about it in last week's Campus, and the two written by women, Wood and Chelsea Coffin '05, were generally balanced and accurately representative of the lecture, while Goldberg's piece, in my view, was neither. I hope that no one gets the impression that this is an issue that divides men and women. Rather, it is one that should unite the sexes.
No man wants to think of sexualized violence (or violence-ualized sex) with regards to our own sisters or daughters, but the statistics are stark. If there are things that I, as a man, can do to change that situation, I want to know about it, so I appreciate Dines' efforts to combat violence and objectification, despite our differences.

Alex Rossmiller is a political science/psychology double major from Harrison, N.Y.