**very intimate stuff

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Posted by semi-tangential [SpudMama] on November 15, 1999 at 23:08:19 {AS5l1tybL6LnU7DNQgZIPGEmg6dhnA}:

In Reply to: *very intimate stuff posted by d'art on November 15, 1999 at 18:21:00:

Rick, please don't delete this at once, ok?

Before I start, please bear in mind that I rarely look at pornography because I think most pornographers have terrible taste in women and don't understand what women find sexy. Yet I regularly attend strip shows. Strip show manners (I'm talking about the audience) are respectful, strictly look-don't-touch, and, yes, strip shows, like pornography, are about sexual glamor.

Also, please bear in mind that I am not addressing issues of coercion or sexual slavery this time. Onward:

Pornography presents the idea that women are for one thing, and one thing only. In truth women are much, much more.

True — on both counts. But I think that "one thing" should be celebrated, not pushed off in a corner. I don't see why I can't be my husband's sex toy and then be his confidant, advisor, mother of his children, fellow-comedian and sometime breadwinner.

Pornography propagates insecurities in women who have to constantly look young and be the most sexually provocative and desirable being on earth

One thing I learned as I drifted into middle age is that you don't have to look young to be sexually provocative. What it means is that I have nothing against clear-skinned young women with boob jobs and teased hair. I salute them as I salute drag queens -- they look that way so I don't have to.

(Sigh) OK, I know I'm weird.

While we have children who need to be educated and nurtured we are throwing our money and souls into staying or becoming beauty objects simply to satisfy the ideals of a male culture.

Now I think this is valid. My own response was to opt out. Cultivating the brain is a heck of a lot more fun that calesthenics or having your back shaved in a beauty parlor (or whatever it is they do there <wink>). Looking like that is a full-time job.

I see a parallel between porn actresses, strippers and beauty contestants. Their job is to be icons of beauty and sexual glamor. It can be a public service. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to live real lives.

I say, beyond sufficient good grooming to maintain self-respect, leave the tartiness to the strippers and the porn actresses. They earn their money.

exuberant potato grrrl

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