| Dr Abigail Bray, whom I mentioned in my article on the Drum yesterday, left the following comments on Sheep last night:
Mr Wilson, having skimmed your prolific … blog… I find some of it …… I was struck by your recent opinion that opposition to hardcore porn is a tyrannical middle class plot to censor the internet. What are you trying to say here? That working class people dig hardcore because they are working class and that as a champion of the oppressed one should defend the bent lusts of the lower orders ? Try knocking on the doors of a council estate in the UK and ask the women if they agree with you. As someone who grew up in a council house I have to warn you that they might greet your ideas with a short, succinct: ‘eff off you pervy pratt’. On the other hand if you go knocking on the doors of some well-heeled champagne socialists who have done lots and lots of expensive psychotherapy, studied Foucault (but skipped the bit about how the discourse of ‘choice’ operates as a dominant strategy of neoliberal governance) they might greet your ideas with a lot of ‘baaa baaaaa baaaaa’. (Which is the sound someone makes when they are eager to agree with correct displays of upwardly mobile neoliberal tolerance. It is also the noise a sheep makes btw). But of course this is ‘no place for sheep’. Sheep place for no, place no for sheep, for no place sheep, place for sheep no. There, I’ve done a little cut up to give you further proof of my hysteria. Now you can write a whole new blog about how MTR is associating with a cut up artist of dubious sanity. OMG!!! Of course I have no scientific data to support my hypothesis that you will be greeting with a eff off or a baaa baaa which might make my hunch seem anti-intellectual or rapid, or even worse, like I am not as sexy as you. But please, do try a door knock and report back. Try Paulsgrove council estate. Dear Dr Bray, Thank you for taking the time to look me up and respond to my article. You and I apparently share the experience of growing up on council estates – mine was in North Yorkshire, where I was raised until I was seven by my grandfather who was a coal miner, and my grandmother who had been “in service” prior to her marriage. I was then transferred to a professional family and educated. Having established that my working class credentials are as solid as yours, let’s move on. I have indeed read Foucault on the discourse of choice, and a range of feminist opinion on his theories. Because I don’t necessarily agree with a theory or count it as relevant at the time, does not mean I am unaware of it. I recall an earlier article of mine on the Drum where you left a comment claiming that I had never read Helene Cixous. You seem to want to engage me in some kind of intellectual pissing contest, as well as to trump me in a class war. I made no mention of a working class in the latest article. I suggested that middle class anti porn activists are engaged in creating a deviant class, to whom they attribute a lower social status than they hold themselves. In my experience, “deviants” can emerge from any class, not least of all the middle, however when they embark on their “deviations” their class is likely to abandon them. I have nowhere claimed that “opposition to hardcore porn is a tyrannical middle class plot to censor the internet.” This is a deliberate conflation on your part. I have no doubt that your opposition to such porn is founded in genuine concern, and I respect that concern. I do, however, oppose your beliefs that the way to address these concerns is to censor the internet. I have asked, many times, how you propose to put a stop to people profiting in any way from hard-core porn if you aren’t planning to censor the internet. Nobody has yet answered this question. To return for a moment to the question of “choice.” I wrote the following in a post a couple of days ago: If you want people to stop engaging in self-harming behaviour you don’t go about it by first shaming and marginalizing them. You first acknowledge their inalienable right to their subjective experience, however vastly it may differ from your own. It’s a matter of respecting the human being without having to endorse her choices, and respecting her right to make those choices on the basis of her life’s experiences. Anti porn activists totally fail to appreciate this. Instead they frame women in porn as a deviant underclass exploited by other members of that same class. They make them “other,” outside of what is considered mainstream “normality.” They construct women in porn as victims, brutalized, and incapable of choice and they seek to appeal to them as such. In this they are completely misguided. It doesn’t matter how damaged one might be, human beings still desire and need recognition of our inalienable right to totally fuck ourselves up, and unless we get it, we’re unlikely to hear anything else. However conditioned our “choices,” and I agree that none of us escapes conditioning unscathed, they are still the choices we make within the parameters of our individual lives, and as such, they are to be respected as the decisions of a human being with the human right to act. Even if other people don’t agree with our actions, think they are destructive, or don’t consider them choices at all. I seem to recall that Foucault also made some interesting arguments about power that might be well be applied here. I must point out that I’m not a medical doctor or surgeon, I hold a PhD. Therefore I haven’t earned the right to the title “Mr,” but thank you all the same. You are “not as sexy” as me? Isn’t that a reference to some kind of patriarchal sex contest designed to make us envy and hate one another as we fight for male attention? |
Related articles
- Dangerous or a rite of passage (theage.com.au)
No Place For Sheep 
Fabulous,
Thanks for such a measured response to Dr Bray. I am really enjoying reading your posts and articles. Regards
Fiona
LikeLike
I’m glad you’re finding things here to enjoy – I’m on a bit of a mission against repression!
LikeLike
It would be really interesting if this dialogue could continue, please Dr Bray. Now that Dr Wilson has done you the courtesy of respecting your choice to express yourself in the manner in which you do, perhaps if you return the favour you may find that you have a sympathetic ear with whom you can have an open and honest debate about pornography – and real progress could be made – rather than your having to simply talk into the ether as per usual.
LikeLike
Dear Mr/Mrs/Ms/Dr/Lord Sam Jandwich, and you are? someone who hides behind a fake name and makes insincere comments about ‘open and honest debates’ while you do not even have the courage or integrity to tell anyone your real name.
LikeLike
Hi Abigail, thanks for the reply. Actually I’m quite impressed and a little surprised that you have responded, because as far as the Australian contingent goes we don’t have much direct contact.
I can assure you that I’m neither insincere nor lacking in integrity, and I would welcome the chance to have an open and honest debate with you, however in deference to the interests of the kids who have been subjected to abuse and neglect who I work with in my professional life I prefer to keep my identity hidden, and to let my ideas speak for themselves… including the satirical ones.
So what do you have to say? because I’m still a bit unsure about what you’re up to. I am as skeptical about psychobabble as you are, but I still think we need to do whatever we can, and whatever we think is a good idea.
LikeLike
I can’t believe she called you Mr. Wilson. PhDs don’t just fall out of the sky. I’d be a little angry if someone disrespected me like that.
Although my favourite part about ordering tickets from QPAC is the GINORMOUS list of titles you can affix yourself with. Everything from Reverend, to Sir, to the ubiquitous and enigmatic ‘The’. I think The Randall suits me, don’t you?
LikeLike
I do, and I also think witcheemon is pretty good!
They always refuse to acknowledge my credentials, it’s their way of trying to put me down. It’s a bit sad really, because it means they don’t have substantial arguments against what Im saying.
LikeLike
Ha! it’s not just QPAC, but also the tax office… I’m just Mr, but my partner is a Baroness!
Yes it is rather sad. I’ve noticed though that there is a large contingent of academics who do what they do primarily to bolster their fragile egos, rather than to engage in useful research and argument to make the world a better place. I’ve also noticed that, thankfully, these people usually get found out and rarely get tenure.
LikeLike
it was a typo among other typos
LikeLike
Sam Jandwich says:
October 18, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Well I still think she just needs a good, oh, you know…:-)
well, that’s just charming isn’t it Lord mysterious. What a bovine, or rather sheepish, comment.
And then I read your comment after this Dr Wilson:
‘I do occasionally fleetingly wonder about the private lives of these people – and then I move on real fast. The trouble with trying to get inside some people’s heads in order to understand them is that one might have great difficulty getting out again.’
Tell me Wilson, what do you mean by this comment exactly?
LikeLike
Surely it must be obvious to you that someone who publicly takes up arms against expressions of sexuality they disapprove of is inviting speculation about what their sexual lives consist of? If you are willing to expend so much time and energy on the sexual practices of others, why should you consider yourself immune from reciprocal speculation? I don’t think the comments were about you, were they?
Tankard Reist has made a name for herself in her criticisms of sexual expression in popular culture, I believe this is what was being referred to, not hardcore porn.
I can’t believe you don’t know what I meant by that comment. You sound like an imaginative woman.
LikeLike
If research on any damage of porn is available, let’s have a gander at it. I suspect most damage might well be ennui with staring at images that can easily be gleaned, with some imagination, from any display of plucked chickens. I don’t see any obvious signs of porn damage in public such as in the trains or on footpaths. No sperm smeared shorts or dress dribbles on the Hornsby-Sydney line as yet, or in George Street, Victoria building.
Of course, the damage might express itself by some confessing they ‘use porn’, meaning they might well make cupboards or bookshelves out of it or use it as a sandwich filling. Perhaps it requires an Allen key. That would be good usage.
I think porn is over-rated, you can only watch it so much. It’s just so often ‘accidie’ waiting to overtake a cheerful mood into despair and Weltschmerz.
LikeLike
Dear anti-repression activist and associated fans. Well Mr Ooosterman it might strike you as totally bizarre but there has been some research done on the damage caused by porn over the last few decades which goes beyond shrieking about cum splattered clothes. There was a book published recently on the subject. I will leave it to your fertile and juicy imagination to trawl the internet at night for it.
It’s basically impossible to censor the net for numerous technical and legal reasons and it’s also very hard to police a cloud or p2p without the right resources. For example, they struggle to police child porn. Maybe ISPs should face heavier fines for breaching international human rights law. But then assuming that a profit driven machine is going to self-censor in the name of corporate social responsibility is probably naive so there would have to be an international organisation which enforces it, then there would be endless debate about what is and is not a human rights violation, even what is and is not child abuse material, and how can human rights law be applied globally when not every government agrees and when some can be bought, fear of Big Brother, etc etc. Which is probably why Anonymous thinks, stuff it, let’s just hack and expose child porn websites and users.
About your accusation that all ‘anti-porn activists’ think all women in porn are a ‘deviant underclass exploited by other members of that class’. Where did I say that exactly? Thou shalt not call hardcore pornographers ‘deviant’ or else one risks buying into oppressive psy-complex constructs which are grounded on sexually repressive heteronormative middle class ideals of social purity. And thou shalt not insult the criminal pimps in the hardcore porn world with words that have been deconstructed by celebrity academics in the 70s. Let’s just skim over the fact that the global sex industry is involved in trafficking and that new forms of shock and awe austerity capitalism will mean that more economically ‘vulnerable’ (oppressed to the point of being in the gutter) young women will have to sell themselves. Because that doesn’t fit the anti-repression agenda. And the idea of repression – and all it’s individualistic psychobabble ahistorical appeals to a libido that exists outside history or culture – is far more exciting than thinking about socio-economic ‘oppression’. Which does not really exist in advanced neoliberal governments because after all we are all ‘free’ to ‘chose’ to do whatever we want and there are no ‘victims’ of structural oppression only individuals who made bad ‘choices’.
And this: ‘human beings still desire and need recognition of our inalienable right to totally fuck ourselves up’. Who are you speaking for here? Hey there street kid wrecking your brain with petrol sniffing and 20 dexy pills a day, I respect that you have an inalienable right to totally fuck yourself up. Sure, you might be in this position because you live in a racist culture that has driven you to self-destruction because the welfare system is stuffed, you live in abject poverty, you might have been raped and bashed as a kid, thrown out of home etc but hey, sister/brother, who am I to violate your ‘choice’ to die an early and miserable death. Deliberately using an extreme example, of course, but one which lends itself to what I see as a fairly vacuous appeal to extreme individualism in the name of human rights. If you are really into Foucault, then why are you invoking the individual all the time?
Monty Python 101 ‘You are all individuals’, ‘we are all individuals’ baa baaa baaa.
LikeLike
In acknowledging that we have an inalienable right to fuck ourselves up, I’m refraining from imposing my personal judgement on another’s situation.
I’m acknowledging that even if by my “standards” the individual may have lost much of her dignity, she still has and always will have the human right to act as she believes she decides to act, and what I think doesn’t matter, unless she wants it to matter.
If the action is illegal, then she has to face the consequences. If it’s self destructive then those consequences have to be faced as well. However, none of that means I would refuse assistance, or that I believe the person involved in some way “deserved” their situation.
I know that everybody, no matter who they are or what they have done, shares a common humanity with me, and for me to deny that by treating that person as nothing more than the object of someone else’s violence and exploitation further dehumanises her, and it dehumanises me.
The street kid in your example is not in a space where he or she gives a flying fuck about anybody’s theories on why their life is as it is. Neither is he or she likely to be interested in someone treating them as completely helpless victims, without any agency in their own lives and therefore as lesser beings. They’ve already had way too much of that. So you acknowledge what agency they do have, you show them some fucking respect because they are human beings, and then, if you’re really lucky, they might be interested in whatever assistance you’re offering. This is not “extreme individualism.” It is accepting and working with reality. It’s recognising someone’s inalienable right to fuck themselves up and still be worthy of my respect and care.
I’m actually far more “into” Levinas and Derrida on the subject of hospitality and ethics, than I am “into” Foucault, though I find the latter contradictory and fascinating.
LikeLike
So you are into the ethics of the Other. I take it I am one of ‘these (Other) people? The great big Borg collective of anti-porn activists who your mate the mysterious sand wich thinks need a you know titter titter nudge nudge wink wink blah blah.
You say: ‘I do occasionally fleetingly wonder about the private lives of these people – and then I move on real fast. The trouble with trying to get inside some people’s heads in order to understand them is that one might have great difficulty getting out again.’
Is your insinuation here that you have been speculating about my private (sex?) life, albeit occasionally and fleetingly? Slightly weird. And along the lines of the Sandwich person? And that when you try and get inside my head in order to understand me you freak out because you imagine all sorts of terrible things and think you will be trapped inside my head forever so you kind of quickly recall your projection? Too strange!
LikeLike
Ummm, I don’t think I’d actually even heard of you when I made that comment, and I can swear that I have never tried to get inside your head in order to understand you, or for any other reason.
I do find it funny that you spend such a lot of time imagining and writing about other people’s “perverted” sexuality and see no elements of projection in that pursuit, yet anyone who imagines your private life must be projecting?!! 🙂
LikeLike
Yes, you are.
LikeLike
As you’ve acknowledged that censoring the internet is a futile goal, will you please now tell me how you and your colleagues propose to prevent people profiteering from hardcore porn, whether as producers or consumers?
LikeLike
“Maybe ISPs should face heavier fines for breaching international human rights law”
Bloody hell, do you know what an ISP is? Would you agree that we should charge Australia Post when people send illegal drugs through the mail, or Telstra when criminals defraud people via telemarketing? Give the police the right laws and funding to take down the material. Don’t expect private companies to do the policing. That’s not their job. They’re NOT cops. Plus filtering is a sham anyway. Optus has already said it can be defeated as easily as changing your DNS. No TOR or Proxies needed.
LikeLike
Sam Jandwich says:
October 18, 2011 at 10:00 pm
Well I still think she just needs a good, oh, you know…:-)
well, that’s just charming isn’t it Lord mysterious. What a bovine, or rather sheepish, comment.
And then I read your comment after this Dr Wilson:
‘I do occasionally fleetingly wonder about the private lives of these people – and then I move on real fast. The trouble with trying to get inside some people’s heads in order to understand them is that one might have great difficulty getting out again.’
Tell me Wilson, what do you mean by this comment exactly?
LikeLike
Minus the bit of nark and hurt feelings evident .. I’m not convinced by these comments that the two good Doctors are at significantly cross-purposes here.
LikeLike
I think you’re right, Vs.
LikeLike
Dr Abigail Bray:
Let me start of by reassuringly admitting I am not a doctor. However, I am from Holland. When it comes to porn and coming from Holland, it’s almost as good as being a doctor. A doctor of porn.(an MP)
The Dutch in all aspects, are still better known for tolerance and benevolence to others, as for being a civilisation that has knuckled under the sheer weight of deviant porn.
If porn is so bad and so corrupting of morals, it hasn’t shown up in the Dutch. In fact, the Dutch Nation is often held as an example for others to follow, especially in their enviable low rates of unwanted pregnancies, especially teen-pregnancies. They have sensible policies towards euthanasia and don’t try and foolishly keep alive premature babies of 21 weeks or less, prefer to spend available funds on preventing premature babies from being born in the first place..
The Dutch might not all feel equally enthusiastic about porn but nor do they think it is as harmful as commercial child exploitation from the likes of BigM Golden Arches, school tuck shops selling rubbish foods, the evil of diabetes II, or those dreadful US style child pageants. Of course, when it comes to tracking down child pornography, the Dutch are often advising the Aussies in catching the perpetrators.
So, what is it all about, Abigail. ? We all would like a better world, we would all like less rubbish being spewed into the atmosphere, we would all like to have nice sex and loving partners, nice children and nice books, and nice movies, nice grand-parents, no alcoholism, no drugs, no addiction to pokies. People on the Internet, fucking each other silly is all part of a maelstrom of activities that we can take or leave. I don’t like cricket and I never watch it. I do like broccoli but not Vegemite, so……..?
LikeLike
Wilson: Ummm, I don’t think I’d actually even heard of you when I made that comment,
methinks that is a load of bollocks given your ref to Cixous earlier.
‘and I can swear that I have never tried to get inside your head in order to understand you, or for any other reason.’
Oh phew! Because you wouldn’t actually be getting inside my head you’d be exploring your own projection.
I do find it funny that you spend such a lot of time imagining and writing about other people’s “perverted” sexuality and see no elements of projection in that pursuit, yet anyone who imagines your private life must be projecting?!! 🙂
I dont spend a lot of time imagining other peoples ‘perverted’ sexuality. What do you think I do, thrash around in bed muffling screams as my head fills with images of giant apes groping virgins and then leap onto the computer and frantically write hysterical diatribes while the sweat pours off my sexually repressed body?
LikeLike
Re your last para: I did just write that I don’t think about your sexuality at all.
I hadn’t read anything of yours, and I knew nothing at all about you, other than that you’d left a comment about Cixous on one of my Drum articles when I made that comment.
The paragraphs of yours I quoted in Tuesday’s Drum article do indicate that you spend at least some of your time considering other people’s “perverted” sexuality and that you have very strong feelings about it.
LikeLike
Wilson says: Surely it must be obvious to you that someone who publicly takes up arms against expressions of sexuality they disapprove of is inviting speculation about what their sexual lives consist of? If you are willing to expend so much time and energy on the sexual practices of others, why should you consider yourself immune from reciprocal speculation?
So what do you want from me Dr Wilson, should I lay myself down on your couch and confess my sexual history in detail in order to challenge the boring stereotype that anyone who speaks out against the porn industry must be sexually repressed? I am taking up ‘arms against expressions of sexuality’ I ‘disapprove of’? Hey why not write to Anonymous and ask them about their sex lives and if the reason they are hacking child porn websites is because they are sexually repressed. In fact tell Anonymous that you can’t take anything they do or say seriously unless they have confessed to having a sex life you personally think is sexy enough. Also write to the IWF and ask them similar questions.
LikeLike
I do think we are all entitled to a private life, however if we make a point of invading the private lives of others, and prescribing sexual behaviours as well, we leave ourselves open for a similar interrogation and I do think that’s fair enough. Feminists have always questioned where those who prescribe for society are coming from.
There’s nothing I want from you, Abigail. I’ve merely interacted with you as someone who has taken a very public and prescriptive stand on issues I also have an interest in, and with whom I disagree on some counts. You have made very public accusations of sexual perversion against those you consider deserve it. It’s inevitable that the same intense focus will be put on you.
LikeLike
I feel I have committed some thought crime and must now be placed under diagnostic scrutiny for symptoms of .. what exactly? I have offended people who are into bestiality and must now have my sexuality put on trial. hahahaahh!
LikeLike
Oh dear. I don’t know if you’ve offended people who are into bestiality. Does it matter if you have? (and please, if you’re reading this, into bestiality and offended, don’t feel you have to tell me about it) I’m just saying it’s impossible to be prescriptive or proscriptive about sexuality without people making inferences from your pre/proscripts about you. Look at the assumptions you’re making about me just because I’m a psychotherapist, and without knowing anything at all about the types of therapy I’ve practiced.
I really like your sense of humour, BTW.
LikeLike
Not as much fun… but this could be quite something.. dare I say revolutionary?.. why don’t you each find where you fervently (or at least proudly establish) agree? Start at the base; work up from there? Don’t want to make it public, email each other to set up a private blog; if you each feel it’s worth it, then let it be known? Wondering about concept titles.. “We are delighted to say…” no, ok. “We agree that…..”; no, ok.. “All yours now.. build on it”; nope yet? “This is as far as we got!…”
Best wishes.
LikeLike
Thank you Vs.
LikeLike
My pleasure, Jennifer. Respect to you both. May I quietly add.. that’s quite a confronting blog-post title to walk into, while it may also be innocuous to you. Kindnesses and kudos to Dr Bray for coming along, and considerations for meeting that confrontation. While here this moment; from a non-qualified person’s point of view, to see an opportunity where to educated and passionate minds as you both have, to work together in establishing common ground, must surely provide inestimable value, of its own, let alone what may grow from that. Why not? Isn’t it time?
LikeLike
Sorry Vs, I know things get a little frank and open here sometimes, but never gratuitously so!
I think Dr Bray and I have common ground, if differing ways of approaching matters. There’s always skirmishes in this area and usually something is getting worked out on both sides, even if it isn’t immediately apparent. 🙂
LikeLike
(‘time’ as in timely).
LikeLike
Wilson: ‘The paragraphs of yours I quoted in Tuesday’s Drum article do indicate that you spend at least some of your time considering other people’s “perverted” sexuality and that you have very strong feelings about it.’
I confess! I confess! that I did indeed spend some hours writing a very short newspaper article on hardcore porn which had a very tight deadline and I also confess to having said I think it is fascist.
And I confess that I hope child pornographers get what they deserve. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you to your snide twitter comments and exit stage left.
LikeLike
On the question of child pornographers we are in agreement.
I’m not sure about the “snide twitter comments.” They are in plain sight.
Thank you for the discussion.
LikeLike
Well, lots of faux anger and confected rage, which is a shame with Dr Bray, since she is capable of explicating on her views without ornament later in the thread, after about the fourth or fifth post of straight hot air, not the sort of c ampaign an alleged academic responding to a good faith exploration of thoughts and ideas to a common purpose, should be proud of.
But the sheer aggressiveness of the postings, embellished by the “exit stage left” retreat to the funkhole, indicates that hazing is this individual’s modus operandi and that an urge for meaningful discourse simply can’t trump the rage at being queried or contradicted on what is after all, only one view point of many. It bespeaks, “I can’t defeat you at straight debate so I’ll “shout” you off the page”, which is Murdochist and worse still defeatist.
So, in view of Dr Bray’s approach I will propose that for me the results of this conversation confirm my sense that pro-censorshippers are authoritarian and intolerant of alternative viewpoints, to the (usual) point of contempt prior to investigation. Re-read the first few posts of Bray’s braying, particularly the vicious adhominem directed at Sam Jandwich, I’m sure if he/she is looking for answer they’ll know where not to go for them, or anything else but a tubload of abuse, from now on.
Re Vs’s comment as to “cross purposes”; most of the “differences” are false oppositions developed by Bray to avoid a civil conversation.
So, I go back to Gerald Oostermann’s sensible comment that anti censorshippers and lefties in general do find the world a bad place for many and would also gladly wave a magic wand and end all the global suffering also.
But even this commonality of concern is not sufficient for Bray, who continues in adversarial “othering” tone, before picking up bat and ball and running off home sulking.
Because as Dr Wilson says, writing paid articles for the capitalist press which works for its objective of dumbing down back to theocracy, superstition and feudalism on behalf of its right wing owners and sponsors, can hardly help society to evolve out of the historical zietgiest of puritanism, ignorance, repression, class structure and violence that perpetuates it in its current offensive form.
No use of sexual censorship please, when this is only a blueprint for general censorship of ideas and thinking- Please rethink and attempt communication rather than abuse, pro censorshipper!
LikeLike
ahhhhahahahha!!!
LikeLike
Down with Dr Bray, down with her!!
LikeLike
At least you engage with opposing POV, unlike your colleagues. That’s much appreciated.
LikeLike
Stop Braying or you’ll go blind. The only doctorate you’re likely to have is one specialising in pig-ignorance.
LikeLike
I can see this strange picture of a square brown triangle with eyes on stalks, four wobbly legs and a smiling mouth replying to a lumpy green cyclops with a strange red mouth with teeth, fat legs, bent arms.
peace
LikeLike
Peace* to you too, and merry christmas!
Well I’ll always be here if you feel like talking. I am in fact a real person and if I ever chance to meet you then I would certainly introduce myself, but at the same time I have good reasons for protecting myself on the internet. Do you have locks on your doors? A pseudonymn is kind of the same thing. If someone is really intent on getting inside then it’s not going to stop them, but at least it keeps out the naughty kids.
Nobody wants to take you down Dr Bray. If nothing else then you’ve certainly given me an interest in reading further into your work. One of the reasons I enjoy Jennifer Wilson’s writing is that she is one of very few people I’m aware of who is willing to acknowledge that the darkest sides of humanity can co-exist with the more pleasant elements, and that despite the bad things that happen there are still plenty of reasons to have faith in humanity, and that everyone is capable of taking responsibility for themselves – and so what we need to do is create a situation where people can explore their dark sides without harming others.
There will always be people who have a fetish for violence. What would be great is if mutually agreeing adults (I don’t like the word “consent” because that implies that sex is something someone “does” to someone else – but that’s not what sex is) could be enabled to do the things that are important to them, through not being made to feel ashamed of their own thoughts, and being sufficiently empowered to know, and control, exactly what it is that they’re getting themselves into. To deny people that opportunity would I think be entirely the same thing as to ban homosexuality, for example. So instead of repressing violent sexualities I think we have an ethical obligation to ensure they can exist safely.
But if other people have vastly different views on this then I’m sure they have a pretty damn good reason for doing so, so I’m off to look up some of your journal articles. Any reccommendations?
*actually, I think I’m in for a very peaceful and meditative afternoon of contemplating the idea of a square triangle.
LikeLike
I feel like I’m missing some cosmic joke. I will argue that this Abigail Bray is not the REAL Dr. Bray. Mainly because the interactions on the forums have lost their civility. And she has too many associates to damage her reputation like this. Plus, Edith Cowan U will have a fit when they find out she’s behaving so scholarly. Though I’d be happy to be proven wrong.
LikeLike
I hadn’t even thought of that. A troll? I don’t know how to find out one way or the other, but our civility seems to have returned in the last few hours! Is the real Dr Bray at Edith Cowan? Maybe I should contact her and alert her to the possibility that her identity’s being used. Then again if it really is her things will only get worse!
LikeLike
Email her and just ask if it is her. That’s the best way to go.
LikeLike
Oh I think it’s the real Abigail Bray.
LikeLike
Well, we’re no closer to solving the mystery, Beste. I think she, whoever she is, is toying with us!
LikeLike
You should read some of her past articles for Online Opinion
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9344
LikeLike
See, that could easily be a cut-paste job from a Gail Dines blog. And I doubt someone like Dines or Bray would (for lack of a better phrase) stoop to a pissing match with another Dr. on a blog where everything is permanent. Here’s why.
A certain academic related to the Big Porn Inc project (who will remain nameless) chose to make false statements about Prof. Alan Mckee on a public and well read journalism opinion site. I asked him about it and he’s called the academic’s university to make a formal complaint, and asked that they be disciplined. Said academic has been pretty quiet online since the incident.
Academics have to be mega careful what they say, because universities freak out. They worry that whatever garbage is spewing from the mouth of any associate will be interpreted as the university’s point of view. All of which I’m sure Dr. Wilson knows quite well.
LikeLike
Perhaps she was drunk?
Witcheemon, have you been toasting my relatives??
LikeLike
I hereby solemnly swear that all satirical comments made under the name ‘abigail bray’ are not the opinion of any university entity in the known universe
and i hereby humble plead with any corporate body, police agents, lawyers, doctors, politicians, psychiatrists, bankers, pornographers or members of organised crime to please excuse the way i defended myself in ‘no place for sheep: Politics, Society, Satire, Fiction, Fun Stuff’ and not punish me
and i vow never to again to represent myself with images of green blobs with strange red mouths, fat legs and a punky palm tree hairstyle in case such images tarnish the reputation of any corporate body associated with me
bowing before the wisdom of the ‘witcheeeemon’ i hereby censor myself and in this way make a pre-emptive strike against my own loud mouth before the state takes up arms against me for exercising what i thought was….
freedom of speech.
LikeLike
Well, the real Abigail Bray or not, you are pretty damn good with words.
“a pre-emptive strike against my own loud mouth…” love it.
LikeLike
See? What did I tell you, ‘The’ suits me really well as a title.
Like I said, if you really are Dr. Bray then I’ll be the silly one with egg on my face. But if it walks like a troll and quacks like a troll, then I just can’t help myself. I like to make assumptions. And you know what they say, about you and asses.
LikeLike
“The” is probably the most imposing title there is, implying as it does a one and only as in, I am The Jennifer, all other Jennifers are ephemeral as dust bunnies, even Jennifer Aniston, who would likely still be a dust bunny no matter what her name. The Witcheemon is unbeatable.
We seem to have made no progress at all in our investigation into the Bray as genuine or troll question.
Very interested to read your little titbit about the Big Porn academic and feel fairly sure I know who you mean. If I’m right she also attacked me on the Drum claiming I was pitiful because I used a quote Susan Sontag made about porn in the 70’s. I’m puzzled by this – what is the cut-off point for quotations? 2009? All else prior to that date is irrelevant? But hardly anybody has said anything memorable since 2009.
LikeLike
Yes, I’m very familiar with universities’ little ways. Oh, the stories I could tell! And probably will one day. About how I was once refused funding to a conference in London because I refused to sign an undertaking not to refer to a particular matter whilst I was at the conference. Ah, yes, it all comes flooding back!
LikeLike
Well I certainly have a long and distinguished history of being duped. but whoever it is they’re doing a pretty good job of channeling Abigail Bray. Great hairdo as well. Hopefully we haven’t heard the end of this.
LikeLike
I dunno. Maybe it’s because I’m 22 and a little jaded, but trolls stop being funny after the first five posts and just get a bit dull.
Speaking of trolls, I found this little ‘gem’ on MTR and it made me gag a little. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/05/women-bloggers-hateful-trolling
LikeLike
Thanks for the link, I think… It’s horrendous to realise what goes through some people’s minds. There was an article about this on the Drum the other day as well: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3655654.html
I love Laurie Penny though: http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2011/10/pornography-children-sex.
Still, there’s probably something deeply unwholesome about reading about the politics of pornography on a Friday night. Goodnight internet land!
LikeLike
That Laurie Penny piece on censorship is terrific. Thanks for the link Sam.
I’ll try to find the link to the blog of Marieke Hardy’s cyberstalker – it is truly awful. The contempt and hatred expressed is frightening.
As Laurie Penny says this is nothing new, it’s just that the internet offers far more opportunities for sad people in lonely bedrooms, as she so eloquently puts it, to express their dark side.
LikeLike
Thanks so much for the Laurie Penny piece. I forgot that the UK were considering similar filtering systems to what Sen. Conroy is looking at.
My research focus was on how BDSM practitioners use the internet in adolescence and young adulthood, so I have a keen eye on all things to do with filtering and censorship. In Australia BDSM is completely legal between consenting adults, but the UK have prosecuted consenting adults for performing sadomasochistic acts upon each other (see Bill Thompson’s ‘Sadomasochism’ and any other article regarding the Spanner case). I met a PhD candidate from Leeds who told me about Britain’s restrictions of BDSM porn online, I’d just completely forgotten until I read that article by Penny.
LikeLike
http://jvmck.blogspot.com/
The really despicable loser who stalks Marieke Hardy
LikeLike
Sam, it takes a strong person to admit to a long and distinguished history of being duped. 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks Jennifer! Um, I guess I just think that those who dupe me probably need whatever it is they dupe me for more than I do. I like to make assumptions too – it’s just that they’re often too optimistic for my own good!-/
Rebecca your research sounds really interesting, but I’m amazed to hear the UK would place restrictions on BDSM. I’ve always thought that, if the UK had one defining national symbol it would be the cane… Kate Middleton starring in a TopShop advertisement coming a distant second.
LikeLike
Well, don’t people always try to repress what they feel most guilt about desiring?
LikeLike
Whoops I just woke up with my head full of irrepressible thoughts. I find it difficult to explain the power Marieke Hardy has over me(n). A couple of well-placed sentences from her and I want nothing more in the world than to clamp my mouth between her two legs, and to stroke and caress until she wants me to do something else. Keeps me awake at night – and I get the impression that a lot of other guys have exactly the same experience. Just so you know…!
LikeLike
Marieke looks like a woman who enjoys her beauty and sexuality, and she’s smart and funny. I think her stalker demonstrates the risks women sometimes take in being frank about our sexual desire and experiences. I don’t know how she feels about the effect she has on strangers such as those described by you Sam Jandwich! I hope she’s OK with it, as it seems a normal reaction to her invitations to share her sexuality, in the abstract.
You realise of course that Marieke and your reaction to her would be considered pornographic in some circles? 🙂
LikeLike
Yes, unfortunately I know… I apologise if that comment of mine early this morning caused offence to anyone. I feel I’m guilty by association, because thanks to the trolls there is now such a suspicion surrounding men’s motivations that saying anything about any “touchy” subject becomes a minefield.
Again, I’ve always thought the concept of “consent” is unhelpful. Sex is intrinsically something that two people do together, by mutual agreement. Anything less isn’t sex, it’s exploitation. I would only say something like that about someone whom my intuition tells me would take it precisely in the way it is offered and who would be amused by it – and if I get it wrong, I’d like her to tell me, or clobber me with the nearest high heel, or whatever.
I think Marieke Hardy is well aware of the effect she has on people, and it seems that’s partly why she has been comfortable giving back as good as what she gets. It’s great that she’s outed her stalker, and I really hope she’s happier being in a position where she can’t be subjected to that sort of thing any more.
More than anything i yearn for a world where we can all be open with each other without fear of attack. But I envisage a future where the internet becomes more controlled, and where people aren’t given so many opportunities to stalk and harrass. Perhaps the move towards disallowing anonymity isn’t necessarily such a bad thing, and perhaps comments pages will become invitation-only. Best not to let anyone in until they’ve proven themselves. Isn’t that how friendships operate out in the real world after all? Maybe there are good reasons for that.
LikeLike
Sorry I’ve been gone for a couple of days.
@Sam: From the reading I’ve conducted, BDSM isn’t specifically illegal in the UK. But the Spanner case was pretty unique. Back in the late 80s the police were conducting raids on properties and turned up videos of (what they thought was) sadistic torture. It soon came about that the video had been made at a gay SM orgy, where there had been genital piercings, candle wax, and I think some insertion of household objects in not-so-household orifices. What’s important is that all parties consented to having the crap kicked out of them for pleasure. And they told this to the police. But the police and the Crown both insisted on pressing charges against sixteen men involved. There was an attempt to appeal the guilty verdicts in 1997, but it failed because “A person does not have the legal ability to consent to receive an act which will cause serious bodily harm, such as extreme activities of a sadomasochistic nature.” (Wikipedia, the most legitimate source in the world >_< http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spanner )
There's actually an argument that the ruling was the result of heterosexist opinion. Richard Green writes about this in (Serious) sadomasochism: A protected right of privacy? (If you have access to ProQuest databases, you can read the article). Lord Jauncey (of the House of Lords at the time) made a public statement about the appeal. He finished this statement with a reference to a participant in the activities who was under the age of 21: "It is some comfort at least to be told, as we were, that (he) is now it seems settled into a normal heterosexual relationship." Additionally, there have been other cases of BDSM related injury brought before the courts, that have either been dismissed or overturned on appeal. These example cases took place between a man and a woman.
The BDSM pornography however is being restricted online for the same reasons that would be used in Australia: because BDSM opposes the moral decency of a rational person. Which I feel is a terrible cop out, that I addressed in my public submission to the ALRC.
LikeLike
Well, I had a look at Beste’s link re Bray.
I don’t disagree that there is a fringe culture of the sort described in the piece, that elements of global organised crime are deeply involved and that sadism is involved. We were only talking about this just recently in relation to the Melbourne sex slave episode on 4 Corners covering similar ground.
I did agree with a couple of rustic early commenters that there ought to be sufficient grounds for police to move against this, were the violence to be as gratuitous as described, before it should ever be a problem on the internet.
I thought her conflation of sexual activity involving teenagers or young women as some how “Paedophilic”, to be so much emotive hot air. Paedophilia refers to prepubescent sexual activity, which is a categorical difference.
I guess for me the problem seems over simplified. You won’t get a change in cultural mindset by merely tweaking a few dials on a black box,
Instigating a Prohibitionist internet filter would merely drive the pathology underground even more. If there would come even a minor change in a global configuration of hard porn and associated violent activity, if a filter were introduced in a place like Australia, I’d say great.
But I think far better to continue investigating what sort of social, cultural, biological etc, mix of factors cause the pathologies that disturb
Dr Bray and quite frankly me, too.
Perhaps that would involve organs like Fairfax, who publish folk like Bray, to consider their vested interest in reinforcement titillation, junk culture and show bizz sleaze within their own journals, in place of real news that might indicate the need for more social infrastrucure spending, at the cost of a few bucks of corporate profit.
LikeLike
And as Matthew has pointed out many times, an internet filter is technically useless. I don’t know why someone as smart as Clive Hamilton can’t get his head around that reality.
LikeLike
Because he’s a control freak.
LikeLike
I found this link in an article on ‘The Vine’, the original article itself being critical of Victoria’s Secret for grooming of prepubescents, if you want to look for it. (I reluctantly clicked on it because I couldn’t resist a close-up of Miranda. Bite me.)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-sunny-side-of-smut
Not so much about industry workers, but it does cast doubt on the theory of porn influencing antisocial behaviour.
LikeLike
http://www.abc.net.au/iview/?series=2955479#/view/853750
Don’t know if anyone caught this interview with Melinda Tankard Riest
LikeLike
Jane really gave it to her, but should have questioned some of her dodgy answers and claims early on. Her claim that the reason boys see porn for the first time at the average age of 11 is because the porn industry make websites using cartoon characters in sexual situations, or the porn industry buys up domains of using common misspellings of websites boys like and direct them to porn sites, is just laughable. The fact that the average of puberty in boys is also 11 must just be coincidence, Huh Melinda? Also hasn’t been connected with WFA for five years? Bullshit. There’s WFA media releases with her name as the contact person on them as recently as 2009. Plus they promote her pretty heavily and sell all her books. I’m glad Jane Hutcheon didn’t give her a free ride and questioned her about her abortion stance and how her religion effects her work. I don’t think anyone has question her like that before. She called it an interrogation rather than an interview in one of her tweets.
LikeLike
Well, it answered at least one question for me. That is, where real journalists like Houchen have been warehoused since they dumbed down auntie. I suppose I’ll have to re jig my teev gear, never mind..
Houchen is one of the few journos with the experience and mettle to deal with someone like Melinda Tankard Reist and what emerged was actual quite good, honest real television.
The interview was intense and you saw the sparks fly at times, such as on the occasion when Houchen challenged Tankard Reist on “choice”; also when Houchen, in effect, suggested that Tankard Reist was carrying a little too much ideological/religious baggage for true objectivity, that some of her terminology was a bit “loaded”.
Personally, I didn’t need to walk away feeling the need to demonise MTR, her sincerity or views, but I was left with the impression of someone who needs to listen as well as talk, a bit domineering. Maybe the tolerance will come later, as she matures.
Her heart is in the right place. There is much that seems wrong and rotten in the world and a sense of sympathy and empathy is good and rare, but you can’t just ride rough shod over legitimate concerns over your ideas and plans or just spin like a politician if a contradiction is exposed. She needs to check herself and her approaches and ideas out, as well as others.
Btw thanks, Beste.
LikeLike
Ahah! glad to see I haven’t left an embarrassed silence in my wake.
Nice synopses Paul and Matthew, and thank you Beste for the link. Yes I agree MTR’s heart seems to be more or less in the right place, just a shame it’s bigger than her brain. So much doubt, confusion, and self-loathing betrayed by her eyes – and it was interesting how she offered no response at all to the question of what it was in her background that motivated her stance. She was quite clearly out of her depth in that interview… best stick to the shallow end. And why on earth isn’t Jane Hutcheon doing the 7.30 Report??
Rebecca thanks for the reply. I have always thought that any study of BDSM communities would turn up just what safe, respectful, accepting microcosms they are ( in contrast with the mainstream that throws up Marieke Hardy’s stalkers etc etc). From my experience the vast majority of people who have enough self-awareness and confidence to pursue their kinks in a committed way are also extremely good at constructing safe, informed and highly ethical limits around their activities so that they can maintain just enough control to keep things interesting while not allowing to get them out of hand, or to interfere with their sense of self. Blogger Pandora Blake gave a good description of this recently: http://pandorablake.com/blog/2011/11/submissive-while-feminist/ (*careful, naughty pictures!*).
LikeLike
Quite right, it is Hutcheon, not Houchen. The second version has been something “nesting” for a while, even tho am a long term fan of the woman.
Sorry, Jane.
Btw, why isn’t that sort of current affairs on ABC’s main channel, instead of crap like “Rock wizz”, or what ever it is?
re Matthews’ other point, re marketing and media, I’d be a weeny bit closer to MTR than Matthew might feel pleased about. Advertising and marketing is an industry and it doesn’t really care where it gets its dollrs from. It could come as no surprise that the porn industry would resort to trickery, because that’s how its done for most other commodities.
It wouldn’t matter to them if selling Barbie Dolls came at the expense of a proper individuation process for girls, any more than if selling stick books to lads warped them.
Porn is only a small part of the sum total of media content, but main stream mass media and advertising manipulate as much if not more, given the sophistication of the practitioners advertising, am sure peoples heads are at least as “done in” in the service of the selling of a consumer fetish as anything the porn industry apes could come up with.
LikeLike
ABC has some great stuff on during the day. I highly recommend you watch Big Ideas. They air it at least four times a week and it’s a collection of talks and lectures on HUNDREDS of topics. On Tuesday they give quick exerts of all the lectures they’re going to to show, then the rest of the week they show them.
LikeLike
I guess what I’m saying is, the totality of media, culture and experience needs to be addressed, a lad looking at smut is also influenced by the rigid stereotying of Brady Bunch style tv and the advertising that goes with that- whether this reinforces experience-limiting gender stereotyping or not.
MTR and co’s main mistake is to select a small portion of the totality of peoples experience of media, but I agree with Jennifer’s point that human experience is much more complex than that- we wouldn’t have survived to be discussing this issue here and now, if it were not the case. The MTR approach comes maybe at the expense of a closer look at other forms of media and cultural production.
But if manipulation and its consequences is at the bottom of it, you’d have to come down on the whole phenomena, or learn to use media more skillfully for the good things it throws up, from good current affairs, satire, comedy and drama (erotica, even?), to alternatives like blogsites where people can come and discuss these things without the sort of interference and interruption you get from mass media.
But since the population is arguably atomised, where does the impetus for change come from?
The “Occupy” movement and the censorship of it by Murdoch demonstrates that any social movement that seeks a change in the terms of means and goals of production, ownership and control, is going to be crunched.
MTR and co think that by taking a cup of dirty water out of a barrel of it, the problem of contamination of the rest is solved? Having crime wars against the porn nasties might drive the stuff that is in overt out right bad taste out (occasionally), but it doesn’t solve the problem of social and cultural reproduction that create an environment that creates a demand for violence, including involving some types of porn.
So, we make what we will of such an approach and its rationality.
LikeLike
Actually I mostly agree with you Paul. Yes, some advertising and marketing is highly manipulative, but I think overall it’s pretty harmless. It has much less of an effect on people than peer pressure and general society. Certainly I don’t think any piece of media has harmed anyone. Perhaps it might have changed their outlook on certain things or changed their beliefs in something, but actual harm? I call bollocks on that (see David Gauntlett’s “Ten things wrong with the media ‘effects’ model”). If people are effected by mere images, sounds and words to point that it “harms” them, then they probably need help living day to day and are in need of a carer. In that case directing more funding to the chronically underfunded mental health programmes might be of more use than censoring and sanitising everything to make it as inoffensive to everyone.
One thing that gets me is how MTR and co get upset over obscure sexist adverts, but if you have a look back since the 1950’s to the 1990’s, the media was full of sexist ads and only the same old white middle class nuclear family was ever represented in these ads and in TV shows. And it was worse as there was only a few outlets for media and little choice (i.e. newspapers, magazines, only a few commercial TV stations, radio stations), whereas now media has completely diversified. Some Gen Y kids don’t look at TV anymore, let alone newspapers. They’re probably not even seeing the stuff that MTR sees, because they’re definitely not the same type of consumers of media as her generation. Methinks she’s not willing to understand this. As has been pointed out before, the media doesn’t exit and isn’t created in a vacuum. MTR either doesn’t understand this or doesn’t care.
Also Rockwiz is a highly superior show to Spicks and Specks and Julia Zemiro is a much funnier and sexier host than Adam Hills.
LikeLike
I actually prefer Spicks and Specks. I really want to love Julia, but I don’t find her as funny as Adam. I own Sex: an Unnatural History, and watch Eurovision religiously, and she makes me chuckle a little bit, but some of Adam’s standup has had me laughing so hard I cried. Plus the one episode of Rockwiz I saw just seemed so…GLOOMY, and awkward compared to S+S.
LikeLike
Agree in spades on the last para; most of rest.
LikeLike
Marieke Hardy IS fun. I emailed her at the Age about something she’d written once and got a quite good reply, a little blue, that had me laughing for a fair while.
LikeLike
I read a couple of pieces from that Marieke Hardy hate blog and it all just seems…unnecessary. While I don’t approve of cheating behaviour (I refuse to call it man stealing: men are not property.), he really went at her. That disgusting line about how she’s fucked so many men that you could stick a tree up her was odious. I would argue that if all of her sex partners were single, who really gives a fuck how many people she sleeps with?
LikeLike
Tell the truth (and off-topic) some vague mention of Hardy being stalked seeped through a day or two ago, but hadn’t been to her blog, mainly because it never occured to me that she had one.
As a bloke I feel ashamed, Marieke Hardy is a good, positive example of what an Aussie woman can be and even if she was just a pleb the abuse isn’t justifiable.
The idiot sounds like he needs a tree stuck up him.
LikeLike