HISTSEX ARCHIVES: May 2000
© Lesley Hall and list contributors
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 08:32:24 -0700
From: Eric Grace <ericgrace@home.com>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
Tim wrote:
It is the sexual politics of pornography's
>production, distribution, and consumption that makes it an
>issue. Moreover, they argue that it is the context that
>makes pornography "sexy." Only in the context of
>hierarchical gender relations would such endlessly
>repetitious photographs hold any great fascination.
Don't some of the feminist arguments about porn as power break down when
you include gay porn? How are men looking at men and women looking at women
using hierarchical gender relations? How do sexual politics apply to
individuals who may be both producers and consumers of porn - both voyeurs
and exhibitionists?
Eric Grace
___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 11:47:14 -0500
From: "M.E. Buszek" <buszekme@chickmail.com>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
On Sun, 30 Apr 2000 07:34:58 Tim Hodgdon wrote:
>you might be interested to know that John Stoltenberg, _What
>Makes Pornography "Sexy?"_ (Minneapolis: Milkweed Editions,
>1994), describes in great detail the workshop/theater
>exercise that he and members of NYC Men Against Pornography
>have developed to create a context within which men might
>become much more self-conscious of the ways they use images.
>Check it out!
Then afterwards, I would suggest taking a look at Carol Queen's book _Real Live Nude Girl:
Chronicles of Sex-Positive Culture_ (1997), in which she attends a Stoltenberg seminar and
argues for putting their workshop exercises into different contexts. (ie. Their public "shame
pose" workshop--in which they encourage men to pose like women in porn magazines in front of
the seminar attendees--can be viewed as a pleasurable experience by sexual exhibitionists, or in a
bedroom scenario.)
Maria-Elena Buszek
Ph.D. Candidate
Kress Foundation Department
of Art History
The University of Kansas
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 10:58:54 -0700 (PDT)
From: "A. G. McLaren" <amclaren@UVic.CA>
Subject: Re: Homosexuality and extortion
Many German and Fench commentators note the blackmailing of homosexuals in
19th century Europe. Has anyone come across references to similar shake
downs in 19th century America?
Thanks in advance.
Angus McLaren
___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 12:13:20 -0700
From: Eric Grace <ericgrace@home.com>
Subject: Re: sexual self-mutilation
Dear listmembers:
Very many thanks for those who responded both on and offlist. It is
instructive when academic ideas about gender and sexual orientation are
made so dramatically real. The website of self-castration (very hard to
read and look at) was especially helpful. I know my friend did a lot of
research online prior to his amputation and it's rather awful to think such
sites might encourage or help people do this.
I visited my friend in hospital yesterday and had a very long talk. It's
still a little surreal for me to imagine his experience. Anyway, he seemed
little different from before - rather happy and composed and logical. His
story is that he wanted to be a woman (I had no indication of this
previously) and thought that the "regular" (if there is such a thing) way
of going about it would be lengthy, impossible in our community, and/or
denied him. An important detail (for me) was that he apparently thought he
could achieve his amputation successfully with nobody knowing, and used a
scalpel and black-market local anaesthetic. He called the hospital himself
when he couldn't stop the blood loss. I still shudder, but it seems at
least less crazy than thoughts of a kitchen knife. The human mind is quite
extraordinary. He will be going for psychiatric assessment this week but,
as I say, he seemed to me little different than before. A constant of his
personality (and I don't mean to be flippant) is that he is not a very good
problem solver. He has often done unrealistic things with unhappy
consequences for himself.
Thank you all again, and continue to send any relevant ideas you may
encounter. I will keep you updated. And, Rictor, I understand people may
imagine this story is a hoax, but alas it isn't.
Eric Grace
___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 12:52:46 -0700 (PDT)
From: technotoy <technotoy@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Byzantium
John Boswell writes about at least some of these people in his book _Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe.
andrei-f <andrei-f@goplay.com> wrote:
Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
Hello,
One of the correspondents on the Androphile site has asked me about
sources on the male love habits of Byzantine emperors (Nicephoros,
Basileios, Constantine, etc.) This is a topic with which I am not at
all familiar. Can anyone here recommend source materials?
Many thanks,
Andrei
Robert Tobin
Conrad-Blenkle-Str. 58
10407 Berlin Germany
(030) 4280 3109
___________________________________________________________________ Date: Mon, 01 May 2000 16:34:07 -0700
From: Heather Lee Miller <miller.1438@osu.edu>
Subject: "hot lunches"
Hi everyone,
I just finished reading Christine Wiltz's <italic>The Last Madam
</italic>(New York: Faber and Faber, 2000), about Norma Wallace, a New
Orleans madam. In it, reference is made to a prostitute willing to
"bathe them [johns] in golden showers and serve up hot lunches" (127). I
assume that the phrase "serving up hot lunches" refers to the prostitute
defecating on the john (I don't think she's referring to Simone's
culinary capabilities), but have never heard this phrase used before (in
years of reading about "deviant" sex acts!). Has anyone heard this
hrase thus used?
Heather
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Fw: Please encourage lbg colleagues to send an entry for the E-Directoryof LBG Scholars
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 21:43:23 +0100
>
>Please consider submitting to "Louie Crew" <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>
>an entry form for the E-Directory of Lesbigay Scholars, described by
>CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION as "The best way to find out about new
>research on issues of sexuality." Over 1,000 scholars are listed. For
>more information, visit http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/lbg_edir.html It
>is not a discussion list, and you will normally receive a message no more
>than once a month.
>
> Entry Form for E-Directory of Lesbigay Scholars
>
>Name:
>
>Institutional affiliation:
> Department:
> Position:
>E-mail address(es):
>My www homepage:
>Snail mail:
>Phone(s)
>FAX:
>
>Life Partner's name (optional):
>Date of your union (optional): mt/dy/yr
>
>Keywords:
>
>Following 'Keywords:' above, on only that one line specify keywords that
>name your scholarly area. Use no spaces or punctuation within
>any one keyword, and separate keywords by a comma plus a space--e.g.
>'Keywords: historyenglish, linguistics, heteroStudies. politicalscience'
>
>Citations of a sample of yr. previous lesbigay scholarly projects:
>
>List/description of yr. on-going lesbigay scholarly projects:
>
>
>
>Indicate your preference: I understand that the directory itself
>goes only to listed persons. Other persons listed in this directory
>
>Have my permission to share my entry with others for scholarly purposes,
>
>( )at their discretion, including the publication of my entry on the
>web pages of the e-directory.
>
>( )only if they query me first
>
>( )Don't have my permission to share my entry with others.
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Homosexuality in Eighteenth-Century England
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 22:52:22 +0100
Apologies to the list for accidentally attaching my earlier posting on
sodomy to my further remarks expounding on Rocke's discussion of Florentine
sodomy. I meant that to be a *short* addendum, and not to repeat the
previous lot. Which I shall blame on a MS system hiccup. . . . .
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 22:01:10 -0700 (PDT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?daniel=20marshall?= <teague76@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Byzantium
what is the "Androphile site"?
--- andrei-f <andrei-f@goplay.com> wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
> http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
> Hello,
>
> One of the correspondents on the Androphile site has
> asked me about
> sources on the male love habits of Byzantine
> emperors (Nicephoros,
> Basileios, Constantine, etc.) This is a topic with
> which I am not at
> all familiar. Can anyone here recommend source
> materials?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Andrei
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 22:14:58 -0700 (PDT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?daniel=20marshall?= <teague76@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Introducing myself
could you explain a bit more about the Ovenden/Oliver
investigations, please?
--- Philip Stokes <philip.stokes@btinternet.com>
wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
> http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
> I'm a bit of a hybrid - a documentary photographer
> who's chosen to commit
> himself to academe, and am affiliated as Hon
> Research Fellow of the
> Nottingham Trent University, where until my
> retirement in 1997 I taught
> photographic practice, history and theory of
> representation.
>
> All my life I have despised censorship [as a
> teenager I composed dog-Latin
> epigrams against it], but it took a fortuitous
> ringside seat at the
> Ovenden/Oliver investigations to truly radicalise
> and activate me, and move
> the study of censorship to the centre of my research
> interests. I write and
> do conference papers and other things in UK and
> overseas universities, and
> expect to produce a book centered on the issues
> around the photographic
> representation of children.
>
> So, if you want a set of keywords that encompass my
> relationship to the
> topics that might appear in your list, then:
> censor; child; pornography; puritan; law
> would be reasonably comprehensive. There are of
> course other subsets. I
> shall sit around now and see what the list threads
> are, jump in as it seems
> appropriate and pick the archive over when I've a
> spare moment.
>
> I look forward to participating.
>
> Regards,
> Dr Philip Stokes
> Honorary Research Fellow
> The Nottingham Trent University
> philip.stokes@btinternet.com
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 22:38:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?daniel=20marshall?= <teague76@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
hey,
i was wondering if anyone knew of any sources looking
at internet porn, and specifically gay male net porn?
thanks,
Daniel.
___________________________________________________________________Date: Tue, 02 May 2000 03:41:53 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
On Mon, 1 May 2000, Eric Grace wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
>> Tim wrote:
>> It is the sexual politics of pornography's
> >production, distribution, and consumption that makes it an
> >issue. Moreover, they argue that it is the context that
> >makes pornography "sexy." Only in the context of
> >hierarchical gender relations would such endlessly
> >repetitious photographs hold any great fascination.
>
> Don't some of the feminist arguments about porn as power break down when
> you include gay porn? How are men looking at men and women looking at women
> using hierarchical gender relations?
Eric: For a detailed answer, see Christopher N. Kendall,
"Gay Male Pornography/Gay Male Community: Power Without
Consent, Mimicry Without Subversion," in _Men and Power,_
ed. Joseph A. Kuypers (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1999),
195-213; and John Stoltenberg, "What Is 'Good Sex'?" in
id., _Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice,_
(Portland, Ore.: Breitenbush, 1989), 101-114. Then, apply
the ideas in those essays to the material in Martin P.
Levine, "The Life and Death of Gay Clones," in _Gay Culture
in America: Essays from the Field,_ ed. Gilbert Herdt
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1992), 68-86. You'll see what I
mean!
> How do sexual politics apply to
> individuals who may be both producers and consumers of porn - both voyeurs
> and exhibitionists?
Hmm--The answer to this is so simple that it makes me wonder
if I understand the sense in which you're asking it. The
theory in question doesn't see producers and consumers as
discrete categories--individuals can be either or both, as a
function of their commitment to the politics of phallic
identity; they can also be either genitally male or female,
for that matter. Another way of saying this is that the
theory in question isn't a functionalist theory--i.e., not a
mechanical theory of how a few evil producers corrupt moral
men through publication of porn. Porn "works" for a mass
audience because the audience and producers share a
commitment to gender hierarchy, even if diverse audiences
interpret the images in ways unintended by the original
producer. (An example, though not strictly about porn, is
that certain famous TV evangelists keep getting arrested for
prostitution offenses. It's too easy to dismiss these guys
as mere hypocrites. Right-wing sexual conservatives and
sexual liberals both stand committed to gender hierarchy
enforced through gendered sexuality; prostitution feels
"sexy" to men in both groups. Where the groups disagree
politically -- and often violently, in the sense of
expending prodigious resources to enforce their points of
view -- is over how gendered sexuality should be practiced:
conservatives support a double standard and compulsory
heterosexuality to protect the legitimacy of male supremacy,
while sexual liberals advocate derepression, seeing the open
practice of all forms of gendered sexuality as a way to
legitimize male supremacy. Like General MacArthur, sexual
liberals believe that "the best defense is a good offense.")
Hope that that clarifies.
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________From: "PETER BARTLETT" <Peter.Bartlett@nottingham.ac.uk>
To: "Histsex:For historians of sexuality" <histsex@listbot.com>
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 12:48:25 GMT0BST
Hera wrote --
> Could you please explain what the statement below means. What is being
> 'like men'?
> 1. What are such characteristics?
> 2. How does one ascertain these and independently replicate such
> findings?
Good questions, Hera. When I was doing my Ph.D. research, I
shared accommodation with another research student whose field
was psychometric testing. As a lawyer, I was curious, and I took
the test used most frequently in court for evidential purposes (I
forget which one -- sorry!). I did *not* show that I'm neurotic,
obsessive, or otherwise bonkers (findings I would have found hard
to dispute). The only place I scored outside "normal" range? I am
apparently abnormally masculine. I've spent a good deal of time
since wondering what on earth this can be referring to, since as
those who know me on the list will attest, I'm a good deal closer to
"raging queen". Or are raging queens abnormally masculine?
What can they be thinking of?
peter
The University of Nottingham
Department of Law
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
Tel: +44 (0) 115 951 5709
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk
___________________________________________________________________Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 08:57:26 -0500
From: "Michael J. Murphy" <mjmurphy@artsci.wustl.edu>
> Wed, 26 Apr 2000, Michael J. Murphy wrote:
>
>> Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>>
>> The problem with questions such as what is or is not pornography is their
>> location of meaning with the image itself and not with conditions of
>> viewership. This is the most simplistic, flat-footed and reactionary
>> approach to imagery, especially photographic imagery, i.e. it is what it
>> appears to show. The undefinability of the pornographic image rests
>> precisely with this problem--any image can become prurient depending on
>> the viewer's use of it.
>
>Michael: Aren't you setting up a "straw feminist" here? It
>seems quite obvious to me that the feminist antipornography
>argument about sexual objectification is that _men_ do it,
>in the social context of membership in the dominant, reified
>sex-class -- not that meaning magically inheres in the
>photographs. It is the sexual politics of pornography's
>production, distribution, and consumption that makes it an
>issue. Moreover, they argue that it is the context that
>makes pornography "sexy." Only in the context of
>hierarchical gender relations would such endlessly
>repetitious photographs hold any great fascination.
Hmmm. I think I was referring more to the legislative attempts by
MacKinnon/Dworkin to define the pornographic image. But it seems to me
that their larger critique was not so much against men and their use of
pornography, as it was against pornography itself-as if eliminating the
image would eliminate the sexist practices they associated to it? They
don't seem to have allowed for any alternative use of the images--say by
lesbian feminists or women in general. In short they don't seem to have
been able to separate sexual fantasy from physical sex, or sexual
difference.
Anti-pornography feminists seemed to not have considered the image as a
visual field within which meaning is contested: that many of the models
volunteered and enjoyed porn, that many women as well as men enjoy it,
that sexual fantasy is to many an important part of physical sex, that
there is a difference between sexual fantasy and sexual objectification,
etc...
Images which *appeared* to encode oppresive and asymmetrical gender
relations were presented as inevitably producing those relations between
real, physical people. As though male (or female or ?) viewers
reflexively and un-consciously reproduce the contents of imagery in their
everyday life practices. This to me smacks of good ole liberal
progressive paternalism: the masses consist of an unsophisticated and
passive presence before the programming of mass-media. It is the job of
the liberal orogressive intellectual to save them from themselves, made
helpless before mass-media.
The real danger, IMHO, is to read photography as a mirror of the real; to
encourage a passive viewership which reproduces that which photography
(and film) presents. To my mind the liberal's homogenization and
pacification of mass-audiences only further serves that which it purports
to resist. If we want to mitigate the effects of image content on human
relations we need to start by empowering people to engage critically and
resistively with mass-images; to reveal them for what they are, and not
for what they purport to show. This is especially crucial with
'realistic' media like photos, film, TV and advertising.
Michael J. Murphy, M.A.
Graduate Student, Dept. of Art History and Archaeology
Washington University, St. Louis
mjmurphy@artsci.wustl.edu
"In episode #228, who or what is 'Foucauldian'? We have enclosed a
self-addressed stamped envelope for your convenience."
-Letter to Alison Bechdel, cartoonist of Dykes To Watch Out For
___________________________________________________________________
From: DrkHeavenX@aol.com
Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 12:14:06 EDT
Subject: Re: "hot lunches"
In a message dated 5/2/00 1:15:47 PM !!!First Boot!!!, miller.1438@osu.edu
writes:
<< . I
assume that the phrase "serving up hot lunches" refers to the prostitute
defecating on the john (I don't think she's referring to Simone's
culinary capabilities), but have never heard this phrase used before (in
years of reading about "deviant" sex acts!). Has anyone heard this
phrase thus used? >>
Yes, unfortunately.....I have heard that phrase used, and you are quite
correct in what it means, except that it isn't just defecating ON said john,
it's in their mouth, specifically. At least in the situations I have heard
that phrase used.
Not really the greatest thing to think about as I have my morning coffee, but
I live to serve. :)
Cheers...
Amy Forsyth
___________________________________________________________________Date: Tue, 2 May 2000 23:22:36 +0100
From: Ianthe <ianthe@duende.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Introducing myself
In message <20000502051458.23615.qmail@web3402.mail.yahoo.com>, daniel
marshall <teague76@yahoo.com> writes
>Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
>could you explain a bit more about the Ovenden/Oliver
>investigations, please?
Philip will no doubt be able to provide other info on these two
UK cases, but here are two press-cuttings. Both cases were seen
as the "last stand" of the Obscene Publications Squad, a police
unit which had taken a lead in harassing lesbian and gay bookshops
for a more than a decade. The OPS was disbanded by Scotland Yard
soon after the Ovenden debacle ended. Some say the Ovenden raid
was the "final straw" that broke the OPS.
--
ARTISTS IN EXILE
Genesis P.Orridge & Ron Oliver
Historically, western Empire builders have sought to destroy
the cultures they discovered by removing as many aspects of
the 'native' culture as possible. Frequently this meant
destroying thousands of years worth of treasures, and
killing or silencing the 'native' artist. The current
dictatorships of Asia and Central America followed the
West's example and today similarly silence dissenting
artists. Here in the civilised world things have changed;
but only a little. On the rare occasion that a modern
artist challenges the accepted reality tunnel, the
establishment cannot have their throat cut - but they will
act with alarming efficiency to silence the transgressive
voice
On the 15th Feb. 1992, 23 officers of the Obscene
Publications Squad entered the Brighton home of Genesis
P-Orridge, artist, musician and founder of Thee Temple Ov
Psychick Youth. At the time the P-Orridge family were in
Katmandu working to assist Tibetan refugees. The police
were acting on evidence of organised ritual child abuse
consisting of a video and the testimony of a witness who
claimed to have been involved in the making of the video.
In the next few days the Observer carried a piece on the
"first evidence of ritual abuse" and Channel Four's
Dispatches aired edited highlights of the video and
interviews with a woman who claimed she had sacrificed her
daughter and undergone an abortion for the sake of a
Psychick Youth Ritual.
While TOPY were never directly mentioned, the artwork and
logo were displayed on the screen. Within one week the
origins of the video were exposed in the press. It was, in
fact, part of a film, commissioned by Channel Four in 1980,
featuring Derek Jarman, and designed to explore the power of
editing the visual image. The female witness was exposed as
a "professional victim", born again Xtian, and ex-member of
a charismatic Xtian sect. She had no conscious memory of
the ritual events, the murders and abortions, they had been
conveyed to her,(from her subconscious memory I presume), by
one of the Fundamentalists. Her testimony was shown to be
factually incorrect. The programme makers were a Xtian
company, the presenter had just published a book exposing
the Satanic network in Britain. Independent doctors agreed
that those featured in the video were not children.
Shortly after the raid, the police returned most of the
items taken in the Brighton raid, however Social services
implied that if the family return to the UK their two
children may be taken into care. The pair moved to
California and separated soon after. Genesis has been
working with Timothy Leary, who claims that the raid was
partly a method of examining Gen's archive, the authorities
copying and confiscating what they consider dangerous.
Genesis ceased to be involved with the Temple in 1990 and he
is now organising "hyperdelic" rave and lecture events in
California. He does not feel that he can bring the family
back to Britain and receive a fair hearing. He knows his
family will be split up, and that the accusations will
distract from what he is trying to achieve.
After over 20 years of challenging establishment, exploring
control, communication and sexuality, he and his family have
been effectively exiled from this country. His right to
free speech has been removed. He has not been charged of
any crime.
Ron Oliver is a photographer; he does not exhibit, or sell
through galleries, he takes photographs of children on
commission from their parents. Some of the photographs he
takes are of naked children. Oliver's work has been praised
by the Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris for its freshness and
purity. Rich doting parents pay around 4000 pounds for a
portfolio of his work and he agrees with the parents and the
children the situation of the photograph.
Ron Oliver currently lives in Holland, he cannot return to
Britain, as his negatives, files, invoices and computer were
all removed from his home and studio. Over 20,000
negatives, 16 years of work are still in the possession of
the police. The Child Protection Act of 1978 has been
interpreted to criminalise the photography of a naked child
under the age of 16. Parents taking snapshots of children
playing have been criminalised. There is no definition of
indecency in the Child Protection Act, allowing the
interpretation of police and Crown Prosecution to decide
whether Ron Oliver will be charged. Oliver does not set out
to challenge the establishment, it is not his intent to
expose the culture of control. However his photographs do
challenge the reality tunnels of the pack leaders,
(politicians, churchmen and other tribal elders), they
"know" that children are not sexual. (Freud was similarly
condemned when he was eventually brave enough to announce
his identification of children's sexual identity.) They
know that nudity is disagreeable and dirty. (Some will even
understand that nudity is a powerful, magikal, symbol not to
be encouraged in any social group).
This is where Ron Oliver and Genesis P-Orridge meet. They
are exploring and exposing symbolism and language that does
not fit in with the current tribal taboo. They are part of
a unorganised, unconscious counter culture of those who see
beyond the realities presented to them, who have chosen to
find out for themselves, and then show to others, that
sexuality, power and social relationships are not strictly
defined by nature or "God", but are a creation of your own
mind.
If a Ron Oliver photograph is taken in an atmosphere of
trust and innocence, then it must be the mind of the viewer
which imposes the pornographic label. The concept of free
speech is rapidly abandoned by all but a few when the ogres
of pornography and child abuse are waved under their nose.
This is what the establishment hope to achieve when they
attack transgressive artists. It is up to us to ensure that
we examine our own reactions to such art, supporting those
who challenge accepted reality, who search for alternative
truths and perhaps find a little beauty.
With thanks to Rapid Eye, Variant, i-D magazine, The
Independent newspaper, and Station 23.
Since this article was first published Genesis P.Orridge
announced that he was dissolving The Temple Of Psychick
Youth. Many activists in the UK have moved on to other
projects. Some U.S. Stations are still active. Temple
Press still operate at : PO Box 227, Brighton, BN2 3GL.
The more positive aspects of TOPY are maintained by John
Eden at TURBULENCE, BM Box 3641, London, WC1 N3XX.
Latest on Genesis P. Orridge at:
http://www.genesisp-orridge.com/
--
Graham Ovenden:
_Obscene Publication Squad Fumes Over End to Investigation_
December 1995
A decision by the U.K.'s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not
to prosecute artist Graham Ovenden "incensed" officers of
Scotland Yard's Obscene Publications Squad (OPS), according
to Britain's Daily Mail. The CPS decided in July of this year
to take no action against Ovenden "after months of often
heated talks with detectives." Sgt. Michael Platt of the
OPS, who announced to the press in 1992 that all images in
which children were posing nude were criminal in the U.K.,
said he believed that a jury should have decided Ovenden's
fate. The CPS disagreed, stating that "it would not be in
the public interest" to prosecute the case. Before any
prosecution is initiated in Britain, the CPS must decide the
chances for success and whether it serves the public good.
Ovenden, who has been painting and photographing young girls
for over 30 years without any complaint or incident, was
arrested in the Spring of 1992 over rumors started by the
Obscene Publications Squad itself that Ovenden was involved
in an "international" child porn ring. Lacking any evidence
of such involvement, the case langoured for three years in
order to give the OPS a chance to develop a case. Not only
did the OPS fail to do so, but Ovenden began receiving
considerable public support for his plight, including from
his alma mater, the Royal Academy of Art. The CPS was also
advised during this time that the material seized and
suspected by the OPS of being pornographic was nothing more
than Ovenden had been exhibiting and publishing throughout
his career.
Speaking of similar arrests in the U.K. of late, Ovenden
recently told Britain's Sunday Telegraph (Nov. 12, 1995,
12) that "the problem is that police looking for child porn
or paedophile rings just seem to have no conception that the
nude or a child in a state of grace is an integral part of
our Western civilisation. One of the officers told me that
as far as they were concerned any posed picture of a child
was indecent. It is an opinion you can have, but you have
to be spiritually bankrupt to believe it's inherently
indecent. I suspect too that the police are far too uptight
to accept that there is a play aspect in this too for the
children. Children are innocent of their sexuality but they
are also aware of it. Most of the children I have
photographed have loved every minute of it."
Ovenden's 19-year-old daughter, Emily, added: "My earliest
memories are of being photographed. I remember my best
friend, Maude, and I would beg my father to take pictures of
us. We were always an open household and as young children
we would often run around naked. It was like a little Eden
here and no one had any inhibitions about their bodies at
all."
Ovenden's photography depicting young girls came into
question in the United States in May of 1992 when the United
States Department of Justice claimed that one image in
Ovenden's book, States of Grace, pictured a "lascivious
exhibition of the genitals." The government relinquished
its claim and permitted publication of the book after the
subject of the alleged "lascivious" photo testified on the
image's behalf. Supporting Ovenden in that case was a broad
coalition of artists' groups, critics, and museum and
gallery directors.
--
Since then there have been further attacks on art books and
artists. Most notable was a 1997 police raid on a British
university library to seize a Robert Mapplethorpe book:
http://www.uce.ac.uk/mapplethorpe/
--
Ianthe Duende
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 16:33:30 -0400
From: Sheila McManus <smcmanus@YorkU.CA>
Subject: CFP: torquere
>Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested. Our first issue
>is now in print and contains articles on "The Blood Libel" by David
>Townsend, "Lesbian Citizenship" by B.J. Wray, AIDS writing by Jorge
>Calderon, "Male/Male Sexual Iconography at London's National Theatre" by
>Piet Defraeye, and "Parody of the Gay Games: Gender Perfomrativity in Sport"
>by Debra Shogan and Judy Davidson as well as creative pieces by Norm Sacuta
>and Darrin Hagen.
>
>We are looking for both creative and academic material (not that there's
>necessary an enormous chasm between the two).
>Thanks,
>Rachel
>~~~~~~~~~~~
>Rachel Warburton
>rachel.warburton@ualberta.ca
>
>TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
>
>*torquere*
>
>Journal of the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Studies Association / Revue de la
>Société canadienne des études lesbiennes et gaies
>
>Call for Submissions
>
>Issues 2 (2000) and 3 (2001)
>
>torquere warmly invites submissions of completed scholarly papers or
>creative writing to be published in our forthcoming issues
>
>Aims and Scope
>
>torquere seeks to publicize scholarly and creative work on topics
>concerning queer aspects of Canada and its social, political, material, and
>textual culture, or on queer topics outside Canadian Studies by scholars
>conducting queer research in Canada. We welcome a diversity of approaches
>from a wide spectrum of areas from Sociology, History, Political Science,
>Anthropology, Education, the Sciences, Business, Law, English, French,
>Modern Language Studies, Cultural Studies, Native Studies, Women's Studies,
>Philosophy, Drama, Film and Media Studies, Religious Studies, Religion,
>Music and the Fine Arts. torquere also welcomes previously unpublished
>creative writing and visual art by and about Canadian queer, lesbian, gay,
>bisexual, and transgendered people. We are particularly interested in work
>that seeks to play with conventional forms and genres in ways that are
>innovative and challenging.
>
>Information for Contributors
>
>Submissions may be written in English or French. Please send scholarly
>submissions in triplicate to the editor (John L. Plews, Editor, torquere,
>Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, 200 Arts, University
>of Alberta, Edmonton AB, Canada T6G 2E6 / e-mail: jplews@ualberta.ca).
>Essays should follow the MLA format outlined in the MLA Handbook for
>Writers of Research Papers (Fifth Edition). We require footnotes, not
>endnotes. Preference will be given to manuscripts between 15 and 25 pages.
>Please send creative submissions poetry, short prose, photography,
>cartoons in triplicate to John L. Plews, Editor, torquere, Department of
>Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, 200 Arts, University of Alberta,
>Edmonton AB, Canada T6G 2E6 / e-mail: jplews@ualberta.ca). Creative
>submissions must not exceed 12 pages. Manuscripts should not have been
>published previously. Authors of accepted manuscripts will be expected to
>forward a copy of their work saved to disk (WordPerfect 8 or 9, IBM
>formatted) along with one hard copy. Because all submissions are refereed
>blind, please include a cover note giving your name, address, telephone and
>fax numbers, email address, and the title of your work. Please include an
>SASE.
>
>Subscription Information
>
>torquere is published annually. Members of the CLGSA receive torquere with
>their membership. Subscription rates are as follows: $40.00 (CDN) per year
>for regular members; $20.00 (CDN) per year for students; $75.00 (CDN) per
>year for institutions. For more information about membership with the CLGSA
>please contact the association's treasurer (Robert W. Gray,
>Secretary/Treasurer, CLGSA/SCELG, 354-1755 Robson Street, Vancouver BC,
>Canada V6G-2B7 / e-mail: rwgray@ualberta.ca). torquere is a member of CELJ,
>the Conference of Editors of Learned Journals, and CALJ, the Canadian
>Association of Learned Journals. torquere is also able to offer reasonable
>advertising rates.
>
>John L. Plews (University of Alberta)
>
___________________________________________________________________From: "docx2" <docx2@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography: Michael Murphy on antipornographyactivism
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 17:45:51 -0700
Dear Tim and the rest of Histsex,
I could not let point below to go unanswered. Without taking sides on
the pornography debate, the Dworkin/Mackinnon plan to support the civil bill
and not the criminal bill has nothing to do with their faith in the
individual. If the criminal bill passed, then the state could sue once. If
they lost, the video/film/magazine would be legal in that jurisdiction. If
the civil bill passed, anyone could sue. Even if the the producers won in
court, other individuals could still sue. Thousands of suits would require
the producers to spend all their time in court (rather than producing other
media). Any profit would be consumed by the legal costs of defending the
film and probably bankrupt the producers. The result would be a chilling
effect on free speech. However you feel about pornography, I think that
burying those you disagree with in civil legislation is appropriate and it
has a great potential to be abused.
Take care,
Charles Moser
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2000 1:35 AM
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography: Michael Murphy on
antipornographyactivism
<much snipped>
> But by way of bringing my participation in the thread to a
> close, I would urge you to reconsider your characterization
> of Dworkin, MacKinnon, and their proposed ordinance as
> "liberals" and "paternalism." After all, had they held such
> a dim view of "the masses" as you impute, why, then, would
> they have gone to all of the trouble to _oppose_ the U.S.
> criminal law of obscenity (they testified _against_ a
> revision of the existing obscenity ordinances of Minneapolis
> at a City Council hearing) and _propose_ a _civil_ law?
> Under criminal law, only the state can prosecute, after
> deciding that a crime has been committed; under civil law,
> it is the individual who alleges _harm_ who brings suit --
> then, and only then, invoking a claim on the state's duty to
> protect the civil rights of those persons belonging to a
> civilly subordinated class. That would seem to imply greater
> faith in individuals' capacity to recognize harm than you
> imply, and it would also seem to recognize the state's long
> investment in reinforcing gender hierarchy for the benefit
> of the phallically-identified, despite the U.S.
> constitution's equal-protection clause.
___________________________________________________________________From: Kazetnik@aol.com
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 18:11:47 EDT
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
A couple of points, prompted by Rictor's last.
1. Are sexual devices 'pornographic'? ie do they depict in themselves certain
acts and power relationships?
2. If they are (and I would certainly see some as porn) then aren't the power
structures of the acts they will be used for embodied/reified in them? And
thus the female sex workers who bring them out for use are participating in
the power structures defined by those toys?
Anecdotally, in a sex shop a while ago (on professional business you
understand <g>) the man serving told a tale of how many male customers,
having been granted consent by their women, buy the biggest dildo in the shop
only to return the next day to exchange it for something more modest after
she has laughed uproariously at the purchase. What this proves, I have no
idea. Except possibly that men aren't as paranoid about size as one might
expect....
Chris W
___________________________________________________________________From: "Rikki Wilde" <rikki.wilde@student.adelaide.edu.au>
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 02:05:39 GMT
Subject: critical writings on HIV/AIDS
Hello, My name is Rikki Wilde. I am a PhD candidate in the English/Cultural Studies
department of Adelaide university, Australia. My thesis concerns how AIDS is
represented in cultural forms particularly as regards the gay male body, I have
found critical material written about HIV/AIDS and writing/film etc to be rather
scarce recently. Would the readers out there be able to inform me of any critical
studies or journal articles that have appeared recently or are forthcoming.
I thankyou.Rikki Wilde.
___________________________________________________________________From: Kazetnik@aol.com
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 17:52:45 EDT
Subject: A gardening query ?!
Hi all
I've drawn a total blank in trying to answer this question. Any assistance,
pointers or clues would be pathetically gratefully received.
Q. Is there a species of rue (a plant belonging to of the ranunculae family)
which smells of semen?
Cheers.
Chris W
___________________________________________________________________From: Kazetnik@aol.com
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 08:40:58 EDT
Subject: sociobiology, the politics of rape, TS/TV
Rictor writes <<if most of the "female rapists" one can cite are lesbians who
follow masculine patterns of behaviour or women with biological masculine
characteristics,
then this data would support the biological model rather than the
constructionist model....I acknowledge that they are also *culturally*
conditioned to follow male patterns of behaviour: here is one instance in
which the biological and
constructionist model agree with one another! >>
I take your very good and interesting points about records of assault from
the 18th century from what is obviously extensive research. But I still have
significant problems with the collapsing going on here of the socio-cultural
and the anatomical. Why is there such a wedded commitment to the notion that
gendered patterns of behaviour are biological? One can perform a wide range
of gender roles and behaviour (dress, body language, speech patterns) without
there being any hormonal or anatomical contribution to the performance. I am
inclined to see gender as basically a theatrical matter, which varies across
cultures. (Is it provocative to declare oneself "an inveterate cultural
materialist/social constructionist"? I thought I was in the mainstream.....)
To displace the subject from violence, I am endlessly intrigued by men with
gender dysphoria who declare that they 'feel like a woman'. I have not the
foggiest notion what they mean, but maybe by being biologically female I am
at a disadvantage in my rational comprehension of such things.... But neither
TS/TV males nor biological females have yet to offer me a satisfactory (ie
any) explanation of what this means. And this seems to me to indicate that
gender is a long way from being biological. Why is it that TS/TV males always
attire themselves in the most stereotypically feminine manner? Is it a way of
demonstrating publically their 'inner truth' or is that how they know they
are 'really' a woman, in which case it is tending towards the theatrical?
In short, I'm highly sceptical about the possibility of detaching anatomy
from social meanings. We experience our bodies, desires and urges in the
context of what a plurality of dominant and oppositional cultures offer us as
truths, beliefs, roles. Lesbians can be sexually passive or sexually
aggressive or both by turns, but they/we operate within and/or against a
complex set of discourses about gender roles. I simply do not see any way of
understanding or even perceiving gendered or sexual behaviour from some
impossible and non-existent position outside of such discourses.
(Also could someone remind me which finger designs indicate which sexual
orientation? I need to know for sure what I am.)
Chris White
___________________________________________________________________From: "Alejandro Levis" <ancient-andean@almapintada.com>
Subject: The Dobu Ju/'hoansi - Rape Free Culture?
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 01:52:27 -0400
Thought someone might be interested in the newest page at Almapintada. A
review of Richard B. Lee's now classic ethnography of the Botswana "Bushmen"
with special reference to children's sexuality and child marriage.
http://www.almapintada.com/sexuality/dobuju.htm
You may be interested in Lee's conclusions as to the lack of oppression of
women in a rape-free culture. Of course, Europeans may not agree with the
Dobe Ju's definition of rape. I've always felt each culture should be free
to define it for themselves.
I'll be putting up a number of new pages in the coming days, including the
Copper Eskimo, the Kwoma of New Guinea, the Lepcha of Sikkam, the Vedda Cave
Dwellers of Sri Lanka, and the dormitory cultures of Assam and Bastar,
India. These are ethnohistorical vignettes focused on the understandings
different cultures had of children's sexuality.
Alejandro Levis
___________________________________________________________________Date: Thu, 04 May 2000 10:13:21 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography: Michael Murphy on
antipornographyactivism
On Wed, 3 May 2000, docx2 wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
> Dear Tim and the rest of Histsex,
>
> I could not let point below to go unanswered. Without taking sides on
> the pornography debate, the Dworkin/Mackinnon plan to support the civil bill
> and not the criminal bill has nothing to do with their faith in the
> individual. If the criminal bill passed, then the state could sue once. If
> they lost, the video/film/magazine would be legal in that jurisdiction. If
> the civil bill passed, anyone could sue. Even if the the producers won in
> court, other individuals could still sue. Thousands of suits would require
> the producers to spend all their time in court (rather than producing other
> media). Any profit would be consumed by the legal costs of defending the
> film and probably bankrupt the producers. The result would be a chilling
> effect on free speech. However you feel about pornography, I think that
> burying those you disagree with in civil legislation is appropriate and it
> has a great potential to be abused.
>
> Take care,
>
> Charles Moser
>
Charles: Can you cite evidence in support of this line of
argument?
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 18:23:24 +0100
Chris White asks:
>
>1. Are sexual devices 'pornographic'? ie do they depict in themselves
>certain acts and power relationships?
>
>2. If they are (and I would certainly see some as porn) then aren't the
>power structures of the acts they will be used for embodied/reified in
them?
>And thus the female sex workers who bring them out for use are
>participating in the power structures defined by those toys?
>
Well, Yes and No. I would certainly agree that there is a lot of power
imagery in sex devices, and in the gay leather world the rituals of bondage
and discipline are not uncommon. It seems to me that a large category of sex
devices (in straight sex as well) are used to reverse the roles, to subvert
"normative" hierarchy and "power structures". The Dominatrix with her whips
or birch canes is a common reality (as well a a cliche books and videos),
and it appears that a lot of men want to be spanked and humiliated. This
seems to be particularly true in England (which has a vast historical
literature on flagellation), but is not
matched in other countries despite the fact that other countries have very
similar ideological structures of power. So this needs historical
contextualising, in ways that usually are not offered by universalizing
analyses that foreground the ideology of power rather than the physiology of
pleasure.
Mainly I would caution against reductionist analyses, especially
the implied definition of penetrative sexual intercourse as a power
structure. There is a wide range of sexual devices that can be used in a
wide variety of ways, not just one universal category of "sexual devices"
having one single univeral "power structure".
There are lot of sex toys that are in fact *toys* and I wouldn' attach too
much ideological importance to them. They are devices to be played with,
perhaps to rouse flagging interest in a 20-year-old monogamous relationship,
and then set aside. Handcuffs, for example, obviously evoke a set of
power structures, but after a short period of playing with them, and
often assuming alternate roles with them, they don't usually dominate the
relationship thenceforward, but go into the cabinet with other discarded
toys.
There are also a lot of sex devices that really do not fit into a binary
power structure, but have a straightforward, practical, non-ideological use.
For example, cock rings and similar devices can maintain erections longer.
Rimming chairs hold one at a safe height to avoid smothering the partner on
whose face one is sitting. Certain devices that cause pain ostensibly work
within a power structure, but they also serve to heighten the sensitivity of
the flesh. Certain sensory deprivation devices and practices ostensibly work
within a power structure, but they also serve to focus the mind on a single
body part and to heighten the experience of pleasure of the supposedly
"subordinated" partner. Love beads and anal probes have a long history of
being used to enhance the
pleasure of orgasmic contractions, rather than to serve as symbols of power.
When we ask of a specific device, Now what do you suppose this is used for?,
I think the first line is to look for what Pleasure it enhances rather than
what Power it enforces. And whether the answer is physiological or
ideological, it is also quite often farcical, as one tries to determine
which clips attach to which straps and how to put the damn thing on while
trying to appear worldly-wise.
___________________________________________________________________From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Re: A gardening query ?!
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 18:14:06 +0100
Chris White asked:
>Q. Is there a species of rue (a plant belonging to of the ranunculae
family)
>which smells of semen?
According to Van de Velde in _Ideal Marriage_ 'the characteristic seminal
odour' of healthy males of the 'Western European races' is 'remarkably
like that of the flowers of the Spanish chestnut (Marrons)' - 'sometimes
quite freshly floral, and then, again, extremely pungent and quite
disagreeable'
Nothing about rue!
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Philip Stokes" <philip.stokes@btinternet.com>
Subject: Ovenden & Oliver [was: Introducing Myself]
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 17:16:00 +0100
In response to Ianthe's prompt:
Rather than try to give elaborated, comprehensive accounts, which would in
any case not be appropriate to this context, I'll look at and comment on
aspects of the investigations, in the hope that they bring some light to
motivations [and also the quality] of the events.
Both Ron Oliver and Graham Ovenden were raided with a great show of strength
at unsocial hours. Force and sometimes violence are common to police
interventions of these kinds in both UK and US; the Sturges raid in US is
one of the worst instances that I'm aware of. This is odd, since given the
social position and cultured, non criminal dispositions of the protagonists,
an invitation to take sherry with the Chief Constable would have been
sufficient and appropriate to the airing of any difficulties the police
might have envisaged.
But it was not like that. Police raiders at Ron Oliver's premises found, it
is said, three images which they saw as problematic. Yet they removed vast
quantities of material which by their own definition was uninvolved with any
possible offence; to the extent that he could no longer pursue his
professional life in UK. He therefore left, first for Holland, and then more
permanently for France, where he works untroubled and well-regarded. Indeed,
some of Ron's photographs are in the collection of the BN, and have been
highly praised by the Curator of Prints there.
In some ways, the raid on Graham Ovenden was even more bizarre. For when
they found little for even their fervid imaginations to batten on, they
filled up the binbags with whatever items came to hand, including
photographs of the Royal Family, and pieces from Graham's collection of
Titanic memorabilia, amongst much else to amaze the reader.
The children who sat for both Ron and Graham were, so far as the Police
could manage, sought out and interviewed. Anyone wanting - and I think
everyone needs - a first hand account of how such interviews are experienced
by innocent parties, should seek out a copy [try your nearest
University/College library] of the C4 film "For the Sake of the Children"
broadcast in 1997 as part of their Films of Fire series. There one may see
Emily Ovenden and her friend Maud still hurt and angry at the efforts made
to get them to claim the photographic sessions were abusive, and at the way
the police had converted images of joy and beauty into pornography by
sticking black paper across the faces and bodies in the photographs; I
believe in the sincerity as well as the stupidity of the reported remarks by
the Police that they were thereby protecting the children's modesty.
The Police can be seen as following a crudely formulated methodology which
embodies the Puritan rejection of all that is beautiful or Arcadian, and
moreover, assumes the right of the State to intervene in the wholly private
lives of any who think differently from themselves. And in practice, Police
attitudes seem to reflect a belief that it is they who have the right to
assign guilt before the matters have been tested in court.
A very disturbing corollary of my investigations here and elsewhere has been
the discovery that Police have minimal understanding of the evidential
status of a photographic image: what I remarked above in connection with the
Ovenden case has been multiplied time and again elsewhere and in many
aspects. But that is not perhaps surprising, given that even at legislative
level, understanding is such that it is possible for our 'betters' to find
grave significance in something called the "pseudo photograph," which by
definition must show a non-existent subject. Only persons innocent of
knowledge of images and the way they work could even imagine it as a fearful
thing; the rest of us would shrink from definition, but allow ourselves a
little wry amusement. I am sorry, though not surprised, that my offers to
impart enlightenment have received minimal attention.
But then, Puritans, Police and Legislature alike have a vested interest in
maintaining the world cloaked in fear and ignorance, especially of sexuality
- if that were to be dispersed, they would all have a lot less to do, and -
dread thought - more people would be free to lead happier and more
constructive lives, and real criminalities could be better addressed.
Finally, may I commend an article by Lawrence Stanley, in The Cardozo Arts
and Entertainment Law Journal, Vol7 No2, 1989, pp295-358 and entitled "The
Child Porn Myth." In my view it is a paradigm of legal and philosophical
argument around the topic, and at the same time demonstrates the prurience
and inadequacy of the law as it intrudes into matters of visual
representation. A longer piece, published [privately?] by Stanley as a book
in 1995 is "Regarding Proposed Changes to Article 240b of the Dutch Penal
Code."
Philip Stokes
philip.stokes@btinternet.com
___________________________________________________________________From: "Philip Stokes" <philip.stokes@btinternet.com>
Subject: Re: Ovenden/Oliver [was: Introducing myself]
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 00:24:12 +0100
I am sorry that when I wrote the other email at Ianthe's prompt, I had not
picked up on Daniel's request. If there is anything omitted from my first
posting, or some point that should be returned to, then do please return to
it.
Philip Stokes
philip.stokes@btinternet.com
----- Original Message -----
From: daniel marshall <teague76@yahoo.com>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
Sent: 02 May 2000 06:14
Subject: Re: Introducing myself
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
> could you explain a bit more about the Ovenden/Oliver
> investigations, please?
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 16:46:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: =?iso-8859-1?q?daniel=20marshall?= <teague76@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Introducing myself
Thank-you, Ianthe, that was quite helpful.
Daniel.
___________________________________________________________________
From: MillerJimE@aol.com
Date: Thu, 4 May 2000 20:10:32 EDT
Subject: Re: critical writings on HIV/AIDS
In a message dated 05/04/2000 10:34:10 AM Central Daylight Time,
rikki.wilde@student.adelaide.edu.au writes:
<< My thesis concerns how AIDS is
represented in cultural forms particularly as regards the gay male body, I
have
found critical material written about HIV/AIDS and writing/film etc to be
rather
scarce recently. Would the readers out there be able to inform me of any
critical
studies or journal articles that have appeared recently or are forthcoming.
>>
This isn't scholarly material, but you should be aware of a San Francisco
publication called Magnus with regular articles and editorials critical of
received wisdom on AIDS. For instance, the paper attacks the connection
between AIDS and HIV infection. Their website is www.magnusnews.com. The
paper receives both paid and free distribution across the USA.
Jim Miller
___________________________________________________________________From:
"Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Finger pattern study
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 09:34:15 +0100
Lesley Hall is mistaken in her description of the finger length study, which
she appears not to have read. The phrase "like men" was introduced by Sheila
McManus in her critique of the study, which she had not read. The main
author of the study, Marc Breedlove, in responding to that section of her
critique, picked up her phrase "like men" and used it but carefully retained
the quotation marks to show that it was not his phrase.
The main object of the study was finger length. No assumptions or
definitions were made about the masculinity or femininity of the
participants in a wider context of behaviour. Lesbians were not defined with
reference to any patterns of behaviour such as engaging in masculine
occupations or whatever, other than sexual orientation; the word "lesbians"
was not used in the study, just "homosexual women".
Participants were given a five-point scale along which to identify
themselves ranging from heterosexual to homosexual, and this was
supplemented (counter-checked for consistency) with questions about the
gender of the people they had sex with, and the gender of the people they
fantasized having sex with. (This scale and questionnaire were not published
in detail in the study as reported in _Nature_, but Marc has explained it
elsewhere.)
The main finding of the 700-word study reported in _Nature_ was that there
was a statistically significant
correlation between finger length ratios and sexual orientation among women,
specifically, that lesbians (largely self-defined, as indicated above)
possessed finger length ratios more typical of biological men than of
biological women (including self-identified heterosexual women in the
study). It was speculated that this biological sex atypical feature
"suggests that at least some homosexual women were exposed to greater levels
of fetal androgen than heterosexual women."
The study did not find that the finger length ratio of homosexual men was
different from that of heterosexual men. It did, however, find that the
(self-defined) homosexual men who participated had a significantly higher
number of brothers than men in the general population, which confirms
previous reports that the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he
is to develop a homosexual orientation. (For a summary of these studies, see
R. Blanchard, _Annu. Rev. Sex Res. 8, 27-67 (1997)).
Taken together, these studies suggest that prenatal androgens may influence
adult human sexual orientation in *both* sexes. That is, homosexual women
are androgenized, and homosexual men are hyper-androgenized. Other studies
(plus the birth-order studies) support this latter unusual finding, such as
the finding that homosexual men have larger genitalia than heterosexual men
(A.F. Bogaert and S. Hershberger, _S. Arch. Sexual Behav. 28, 213-221
(1999)).
The study itself (as distinct from its review of other studies) was
specifically and solely a study of physical measurements of the hands, and
the only behaviour it covered was the self-reported sexual behaviour of the
participants. The large suite of sex atypical behaviour with which lesbians
have been associated, rightly or wrongly, as mentioned by Lesley, did not
form a part of this study, nor did its author employ the series of
"therefores" that Lesley grotesquely ascribes to him.
Reference: T.J. Williams, M.E. Pepitone, S.E. Christensen, B.M. Cooke, A.D.
Huberman, N.J. Breeklove, T.J. Breeklove, C.L. Jordan and S.M. Breedlove,
"Finger-length ratios and sexual orientation", _Nature_ 404, 455-456 (30
March 2000).
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
-----Original Message-----
From: Lesley Hall <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
To: Histsex:For historians of sexuality <histsex@listbot.com>
Date: 04 May 2000 09:04
Subject: Re: Finger pattern study
>Histsex:For historians of sexuality -
http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
>Hera Cook asked
>> Could you please explain what the statement below means. What is being
>> 'like men'?
>
>It seemed to me that this particular research was being somewhat
>one-dimensional in what it defined as 'like men' about women (apart, that
>is, from their finger-length) - i.e. they were lesbians, therefore they
were
>sexually attracted to other women, therefore they are 'like men' in other
>ways. Since there's a long-standing folk phrase 'she wears the trousers in
>that house' referring to married couples, it seems to me that there are
>characteristics which tend to be defined as 'masculine' such as dominance,
>assertion, ?promiscuity, etc which could equally be manifested by women
>within a heterosexual framework. (and not to mention all those female
>athletes who had to undergo chromosome testing... )
>
>Lesley Hall
>
___________________________________________________________________Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 14:17:22 -0500
From: Bob <suannschafer@earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Introducing myself
Ianthe, would you happen to have the citations for these
press-cuttings available?
With thanks, B
>ARTISTS IN EXILE
>
>Genesis P.Orridge & Ron Oliver
>
>Historically, western Empire builders have sought to destroy
>--
>
>Graham Ovenden:
>
>_Obscene Publication Squad Fumes Over End to Investigation_
>
>December 1995
>
>A decision by the U.K.'s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) not
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Finger pattern study
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 19:21:57 +0100
Hera Cook asked
> Could you please explain what the statement below means. What is being
> 'like men'?
It seemed to me that this particular research was being somewhat
one-dimensional in what it defined as 'like men' about women (apart, that
is, from their finger-length) - i.e. they were lesbians, therefore they were
sexually attracted to other women, therefore they are 'like men' in other
ways. Since there's a long-standing folk phrase 'she wears the trousers in
that house' referring to married couples, it seems to me that there are
characteristics which tend to be defined as 'masculine' such as dominance,
assertion, ?promiscuity, etc which could equally be manifested by women
within a heterosexual framework. (and not to mention all those female
athletes who had to undergo chromosome testing... )
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
___________________________________________________________________From: "Rictor Norton" <norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 10:11:27 +0100
It seems to me that much of the feminist anti-pornography analysis of
pornography is too reductive to be of great use in the historical
understanding of pornography. The feminist analysis helps us to understand
the sexual politics of contemporary feminism more than the alleged sexual
politics of the use of pornography in the past. For example, although men
seem always to have been primarily responsible for the production of
pornography, female sex workers have often been the primary agents for its
distribution and consumption. As I noted earlier, the Drury Lane Ladies of
the eighteenth century used pornographic images to arouse their male clients
and to suggest to their male clients the kind of services they could offer.
Thus pornographic images were used by female sex workers as advertising
tools in a sexual marketplace whose transactions they often had great
control over. (Incidentally, they usually acted independently of men, for
pimps did not control this market until the nineteenth century.) Female sex
workers often controlled access to pornography until cheap printing made it
more widely available. Somewhat similarly, today, e.g. in Amsterdam's
red-light district, female sex workers will have a greater storehouse of
sexual devices in their workrooms than the average male will be able to
afford buying and keeping at home, and these women very firmly control the
fantasies that will be enacted with their use. This is not to deny that sex
workers (especially female) are constrained within the larger structure of
poverty: it is to suggest that pornography can function as a tool of female
empowerment and does not invariably reinforce the disempowerment of women.
The view that male/male or female/female pornography reifies gender
hierarchies and hegemonic power structures just as much as heterosexual
pornography does, is also too reductive to be very illuminating of the
history of pornography. It is very common in gay pornography for the same
individual male to suck and be sucked, to fuck and be fucked, in the single
photo-shoot for a magazine or video. It is very common for the males in gay
pornography to "take turn and turn about". This is true even in Victorian
gay pornography such as Jack Saul's semi-fictionalized autobiography _The
Recollections of a Mary-Ann": mutual pleasuring is often the foundation of
gay pornography (and gay sex). And in modern times, a very common pattern in
the videos made by Bob Mizer and the Athletic Model Guild in the 1950s, for
example, was the humorous "tables turned" plot line, e.g. the Sheriff fucks
the convict but the gun is knocked out of his hand and the convict "gets his
revenge" (though the fucking was suggested rather than revealed in those
days), and this kind of story line is still fairly common in written gay
pornography on the net. Gay pornography is full of the binary images of
power, but far from being "reified", power is usually used in a very playful
manner to produce pleasure, and the "active/passive" roles are very
frequently reversed rather than rigidly enforced.
It seems to me that gay porn is demonstrably much more egalitarian than
straight porn. In terms of historical development, it seems to be becoming
steadily more egalitarian. With regard to gender hierarchies, men who dress
as women are far less common in pornography (and in life) than they were 100
years or even 30 years ago (although a very few websites displaying chicks
with dicks or shemales have emerged lately). An equality of masculine
identification among all participants has become the "norm" in gay imagery
since the 1950s. This runs counter to the reductive definition of the
essential political meaning of pornography as a reifier of binary hierarchy.
--
Rictor Norton
mailto:norton@rictor.freeserve.co.uk
http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/rcnorton.htm
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 01:35:18 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography: Michael Murphy on antipornography
activism
Michael: I'm not sure that it would really serve the
purposes of this list were I to respond in detail to your
latest post. These issues have been hashed out thoroughly
in other venues and, unless someone here on the list asks me
for a response to one or another point, I'll assume that
most list members have made up their minds one way or
another already.
But by way of bringing my participation in the thread to a
close, I would urge you to reconsider your characterization
of Dworkin, MacKinnon, and their proposed ordinance as
"liberals" and "paternalism." After all, had they held such
a dim view of "the masses" as you impute, why, then, would
they have gone to all of the trouble to _oppose_ the U.S.
criminal law of obscenity (they testified _against_ a
revision of the existing obscenity ordinances of Minneapolis
at a City Council hearing) and _propose_ a _civil_ law?
Under criminal law, only the state can prosecute, after
deciding that a crime has been committed; under civil law,
it is the individual who alleges _harm_ who brings suit --
then, and only then, invoking a claim on the state's duty to
protect the civil rights of those persons belonging to a
civilly subordinated class. That would seem to imply greater
faith in individuals' capacity to recognize harm than you
imply, and it would also seem to recognize the state's long
investment in reinforcing gender hierarchy for the benefit
of the phallically-identified, despite the U.S.
constitution's equal-protection clause.
By the way: women _already have a cause of action under law,
identical to that provided by the proposed ordinance:_ in
sex-discrimination cases, when pornography creates a hostile
work environment. Do you oppose these provisions of U.S.
law?
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________From: "Charles Moser" <docx2@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography: Michael Murphy onantipornographyactivism
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 07:24:35 -0700
Dear folks,
Tim Hodgdon asked for references to support my previous post. Since
this is a political (rather than scientific) argument, I am not sure what
would constitute acceptable proof. I remember this argument being presented
to Dworkin/Mackinnon and they ducked the question (I believe this was a
newspaper account). Admittedly, this analysis was put forth by opponents of
the ordinance. Nevertheless it is incumbent on the supporters of the
ordinance to craft it in such a way as to address these concerns. If the
proponents do not address these issues, it implies that there is validity to
the analysis.
Additionally, if you look at adult sites, they will often indicate that
they do not ship to certain states. Some of those states have a history of
suing in numerous localities, also leading to excessive legal expenses. I
know this from discussions with the owners of these adult sites. So this
strategy already has been employed.
And lastly, this is not my area of expertise, so I do not follow it
closely. Nevertheless, if Tim believes the argument is specious, then he
needs to present data to support the workability of the ordinance and the
Dworkin/Mackinnon analysis.
Take care,
Charles Moser
P.S. No matter how many times I proof my e-mail posts, I always seem to
make a stupid error. In my original post, the last sentence should read,
"...inappropriate and it has a great potential to be abused."
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Hall ,Dr Lesley" <l.hall@wellcome.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: 'man-like' as applied to women: was Finger pattern study
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 10:04:22 +0100
Rictor Norton attributes to me arguments I was not making. It would have
perhaps been better to split my question off entirely from the 'finger
pattern' heading and discussion. I was (possibly I was not sufficiently
clear about this) trying to ask what seems to me to be a wider question of
how and in what ways certain kinds of women and their behaviour are
perceived as 'like men', stimulated by the discussion around the finger
length study: i.e. what does it mean to be 'like men'? Is the object of
sexual attraction the only axis along which this can be plotted? The
question I was really trying to formulate - and perhaps did not - was
whether being heterosexual is so constituative of the 'normal womanly' that
even quite remarkable divagations/trangressions are not perceived as
'man-like' in the way that female homosexuality (and perhaps being good at
certain kinds of athletics? - or in the C19th and a substantial part of the
20th, pursuing higher education or careers) is. There must be considerable
historial and cultural variations.
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
___________________________________________________________________From: "Rikki
Wilde" <rikki.wilde@student.adelaide.edu.au>
Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 13:21:00 +0950
Subject: Re: A gardening query ?!
X-Mailer: DMailWeb Web to Mail Gateway 2.5e, http://netwinsite.com/top_mail.htm
Message-id: <391396a4.7658.0@student.adelaide.edu.au>
___________________________________________________________________From: "LJ Hall, Historical Studies" <Lisa.J.Hall@bristol.ac.uk>
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 17:19:10 +0100
Subject: Re: Sexuality and pornography
Re your 'anecdote': i would have thought it kind of demonstrates
precisely the opposite? that men are kind of touchy about size... or
at least perceive women as being so ... unsure about who designs these
things anyway..i.e. girl/boy ratio.
In a semi-related manner i was curious as to whether women have
demonstrated any kind of insecurity or rather 'pride' about the
'size'(either end of the scale i guess) of their genitalia...
particularly in prostitution 'advertisements'late 18th/19th c. - as in
was this used as a selling point? Certain porn stars of the 70s
mythological ability to ingest (is that the right word?) certain
overly large articles springs to mind ... as does the general vulvic
gymnastics found frequently today in all kinds of places of
entertainment ... looking particularly for historical precedence
though.
Belated gratitude to those who so helpfully answered my last query.
lisa.
LJ Hall, Historical Studies
Lisa.J.Hall@bristol.ac.uk
___________________________________________________________________From: Kazetnik@aol.com
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 12:56:07 EDT
Subject: Re: A gardening query ?!
Thanks Lesley. I'd come across the same idea in another place, the divine
Marquis having written a v short and 'funny' tale of semen-smelling marron
trees. But, no, nothing about rue! I can feel a question to Gardners'
Question Time coming.... D'you think Alan Titchmarsh would know? He did win a
prize for the worst sex scene in a novel....
Chris W
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Lesley Hall" <lesleyah@primex.co.uk>
Subject: Undergraduate/MA courses in lesbian/gay studies, UK
Date: Fri, 5 May 2000 21:57:45 +0100
Following a meeting with someone who's interested in producing a =
microfilm publication of various primary documents on the British gay =
and lesbian movements, I wondered how many courses there were which =
might use such primary materials as the basis for student dissertations. =
I know that there are increasing nos of postgraduates working in this =
area, but I doubt they would reach sufficient critical mass at any =
single institution (I may be wrong?) to justify the library purchasing =
this kind of thing, which can run quite expensive.
Replies to this might be better off-list directly to me, unless people =
think this info might be of more general interest?
I'd also be interested to hear of non-UK institutions which might use =
this kind of material.
Thanks
Lesley Hall
lesleyah@primex.co.uk
website http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
___________________________________________________________________
From: "anjoli bandyopadhyay" <monikanjoli@hotmail.com>
Subject: looking for info on genital surgery, viagra
Date: Sat, 06 May 2000 09:22:57 CEST
I am working on a documentary series about body image and surgical
procedures. Does anyone know anything about penis augmentation surgery,
designer vaginas or the development of Viagra for men and women?
Can anyone provide me with information about the relationship between
Erectile Dysfunction (ED), the medical corps, and modern corceptions of
sexuality and sexual enjoyment?
Thanks,
Anjoli Bandyopadhyay, Inner City Films, Toronto
___________________________________________________________________Date: Sat, 06 May 2000 02:38:48 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: RE: Moser on antipornography activism
On Fri, 5 May 2000, Charles Moser wrote:
> Dear folks,
>
> Tim Hodgdon asked for references to support my previous post. Since
> this is a political (rather than scientific) argument, I am not sure what
> would constitute acceptable proof.
You made a strong charge--one that questioned the personal
and political integrity of two prominent public figures with
whom you disagree. I asked you to provide us with the basis
for your charge -- how you _know_ that their "true" motives
contradict their stated aims. This isn't a scientific
argument, and so the ordinary rules for political debate, --
and the ordinary rules of evidence in nonscientific fields
of scholarly inquiry, for that matter -- formed the basis
for my request.
> I remember this argument being presented
> to Dworkin/Mackinnon . . .
In light of the nature of your evidence, you could have
saved yourself some trouble had you worded your original
statement more cautiously; the result being that your burden
of proof would then have been lower. But it appears to me
that your evidence isn't strong enough to substantiate your
original charge.
Now, lest one who lives in the glass house of political
debate be caught throwing stones, I can certainly speak from
experience and say that we all make mistakes like this --
and, hopefully, we profit from them.
> Admittedly, this analysis was put forth by opponents of
> the ordinance. Nevertheless it is incumbent on the supporters of the
> ordinance to craft it in such a way as to address these concerns. If the
> proponents do not address these issues, it implies that there is validity to
> the analysis.
And they have addressed these issues -- though, certainly,
not in a way that satisfies opponents of the ordinance,
since their response questions the political motivations of
those who defend pornography by conflating speech,
speech-acts, and conduct related to the making and
distribution of pornography, and thus claiming
constitutional free-speech protections for a variety of
actions that enforce women's social subordination. (For
those who'd like to read about the concept of "speech-act,"
see Rae Langton, "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts," Journal
of Philosophy and Public Policy 22, no. 4 [Autumn 1993].)
They further argue that, by curbing these violations of
women's civil rights, they are not "chilling free speech,"
but rather creating a social environment within which formal
protection of women's rights under the law (the "equal
protection" clause of the 14th amendment) carries some
_substantive_ meaning. As MacKinnon put it in a call-in
radio program over Minnesota Public Radio in 1983, "if the
First Amendment doesn't work for _women,_ the First
Amendment _doesn't work._"
If you'd like to see these arguments in their original form,
see any of MacKinnon's published work after 1982, but
especially _Feminism Unmodified_ and _Only Words._
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________Date: Wed, 03 May 2000 11:58:09 -0700
From: Heather Lee Miller <miller.1438@osu.edu>
Subject: Re: "hot lunches"
Amy,
thanks for the confirmation! It's lunchtime here, but I think I'll pass . . .
:-)
Heather
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 14:31:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: "David F. Greenberg" <dg4@is3.nyu.edu>
Subject: RE: Moser on antipornography activism
Probably the most important issue in regard to the anti-porn legislation
under discussion is the effect it would have had had it been allowed to go
into effect. Because the legislation did not go into effect we can't know
that for certain, but the possiblity that Charles Moser wrote about seems
to me to be a very reasonable one. As I understand the legislation, it
would have allowed anyone, anywhere in the country, to file a law suit
claiming injury. Whatever influence exposure to a particular piece of
pornography has on the behavior of viewers is likely to be subtle, and in
a world where people are exposed to a multitude of influences that defy
measurement, virtually impossible to demonstrate in almost all cases. One
might think that this would make it easy for the pornographer to defend
such suits, given that the plaintiff would have the greater burden of
proof. But juries are unpredictable, and the costs of fighting such cases
could be very high. Malcolm Feeley wrote a book about criminal justice
called "The Process Is the Punishment." This phrase would I think, apply
here as well.
Questions of motivation are usually much harder to prove. I am inclined
to think that Charles Moser is right in his speculation, simply because
MacKinnon is not stupid. Any lawyer would see the implications of this
legislation very quickly. I think that MacKinnon would hope for exactly
this development. It is this type of outcome that would effectively reduce
the distribution of pornography. - David Greenberg, Sociology Department,
New York University
___________________________________________________________________Date: Sat, 06 May 2000 16:24:46 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: RE: Moser on antipornography activism
On Sat, 6 May 2000, David F. Greenberg wrote:
> Histsex:For historians of sexuality - http://homepages.primex.co.uk/~lesleyah
>
> Probably the most important issue in regard to the anti-porn legislation
> under discussion is the effect it would have had had it been allowed to go
> into effect. Because the legislation did not go into effect we can't know
> that for certain, but the possiblity that Charles Moser wrote about seems
> to me to be a very reasonable one. As I understand the legislation, it
> would have allowed anyone, anywhere in the country, to file a law suit
> claiming injury. Whatever influence exposure to a particular piece of
> pornography has on the behavior of viewers is likely to be subtle, and in
> a world where people are exposed to a multitude of influences that defy
> measurement, virtually impossible to demonstrate in almost all cases.
I might add, here, that some cases aren't so subtle. As the
law stands now, there's very little that those harmed can
do. Is that just?
> One
> might think that this would make it easy for the pornographer to defend
> such suits, given that the plaintiff would have the greater burden of
> proof. But juries are unpredictable, and the costs of fighting such cases
> could be very high. Malcolm Feeley wrote a book about criminal justice
> called "The Process Is the Punishment." This phrase would I think, apply
> here as well.
As one who has served on a non-profit board of directors, I
can personally attest to the truth of Feeley's title-phrase.
Still, plaintiffs don't hold all of the chips; I don't know
enough about American law and procedure to know if this
class of civil litigation would qualify, but in some areas
of civil law (I think that libel law may be one of them),
plaintiffs who fail to win judgment become responsible for
costs of legal defense. Is there anyone on the list who can
explain which areas of U.S. civil law fall under this
principle?
Secondly, let's not forget that while some pornographers are
operating on tiny budgets, there are also many with very,
very deep pockets. The costs of _bringing_ such cases would
also be high, and women, as a sex-class, are _poor_ for the
very reason they need civil-rights protections: as a
consequence of being sexual objects in a system of gender
hierarchy. Access to the courts, like access to the means
of free speech, is heavily weighted in men's favor.
In a better world, there would be a much better system of
justice. But those who seek to change the status quo have
to work from within the conditions they seek to change. The
alternatives are fairly stark: to begin the long, ugly,
dangerous, and discouraging process of opposing phallic
identity as a political practice (which may take centuries),
or to opt for one of the options within phallocracy, either
already in existence (to enforce what B. Ehrenreich called
the "breadwinner ethic," which is the strategy of right-wing
women opposed to abortion, gay marriage, etc.), to claim
parity on the basis of a liberal interpretation of essential
gender difference (liberal feminists' focus on public
equality a la John Stuart Mill), or to seek to validate
women's claim to phallic identity through the application of
queer theory to women. In my judgment, each of the options
within phallocracy leaves some women at the bottom, since
the reification of phallic identity requires a degree of
certainty for its maintenance. Any volunteers for this
duty? Nope. To keep 'em down requires a willingness to use
force -- or, from the majority of the
phallically-identified, complacency in the face of someone
else's use of force, just as in the present day and just as
in the past. (An example: at the end of that godawful movie
_Pretty Woman,_ Richard Gere's character chided Julia
Roberts, "Some men don't hit." Well, some men don't have
to--especially if they're as rich as was the Gere
character.)
We inherited phallocracy from our parents. But we also live
at a time in history when alternatives can be consciously
contemplated. Those options may not be visible for
indefinitely. The choices we make will be our historical
legacy.
> Questions of motivation are usually much harder to prove. I am inclined
> to think that Charles Moser is right in his speculation, simply because
> MacKinnon is not stupid. Any lawyer would see the implications of this
> legislation very quickly. I think that MacKinnon would hope for exactly
> this development. It is this type of outcome that would effectively reduce
> the distribution of pornography. - David Greenberg, Sociology Department,
> New York University
Certainly, MacKinnon sees that one of the substantive
implications of this legislation would be to attach
financial consequences to the speech-acts of pornographers
-- which would, indeed, make the cost of doing business
without regard for the civil rights of others too expensive
for some pornographers. My point was that this position is
not ethically baseless, as her opponents frequently allege.
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
___________________________________________________________________From: "Charles Moser" <docx2@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Moser on antipornography activism
Date: Sat, 6 May 2000 20:26:18 -0700
Dear Mr. Hodgdon:
You have attributed to me comments and attitudes that I have not
expressed. I never questioned the personal or political integrity of Ms.
Dworkin nor Ms. Mackinnon (please reread my original post). I see no reason
why you should question my integrity, I gave a plausible scenario of what
would happen if the proposed ordinance went into effect. I hope you agree
that this is reasonable on a list such as Histsex. You are welcome to
disagree with my analysis, cite alternative interpretations, or express your
own opinion. You are not welcome to put words in my mouth. You should heed
your own words, "you could have saved yourself some trouble had you worded
your original statement more cautiously...we all make mistakes like
this --and, hopefully, we profit from them."
I hope you will refrain from questioning my motives and integrity in the
future. In addition, I do not think ad hominem attacks are appropriate for
a professional listserv. I will end by quoting my own statement which
neither you nor defenders of the statute have addressed. "Nevertheless it
is incumbent on the supporters of the ordinance to craft it in such a way as
to address these concerns. If the proponents do not address these issues,
it implies that there is validity to the analysis.
Very Truly,
Charles Moser
___________________________________________________________________Date: Sun, 07 May 2000 15:16:30 -0700 (MST)
From: Tim Hodgdon <Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu>
Subject: Re: Moser on civil-rights ordinance
Dear Charles Moser:
I've been giving your message careful thought since I
received it last night. I certainly agree with you that
personal attacks have no place on the list -- or anywhere
else in academic discourse, for that matter. Over the
course of my participation on the list, I've taken pains to
ensure, as far as possible, that my comportment matches my
principles -- even erring on the side of excessive caution,
in the eyes of some list members in a recent instance.
I think that in this case, we each have a point. In
reviewing your posts and my responses, I think that I owe
you an apology for saying that your reservations about the
civil-rights ordinance stemmed from your disagreement with
MacKinnon and Dworkin. You did say, in your original post,
that you intended your remarks to be read without taking
sides in the free speech/civil rights debate -- that, simply
as a matter of law and practice, the ordinance was open to
abuse. When I said that your comments were motivated by
your disagreement, I did, as you say, attribute views to you
which you had not expressed. I hope that you will accept my
sincere apology for, and my acceptance of full
responsibility for, that action.
At the same time, I stand by my assertion that your
statement that "the Dworkin/Mackinnon plan to support the
civil bill and not the criminal bill has nothing to do with
their faith in the individual" did indeed question their
integrity--though you may not have intended it that way.
Since they were the authors of the ordinance, to say that
their choice to approach the law of pornography as a
question of civil rights was nothing more than to take
advantage of civil procedure's potential for abuse through
the strategy of "process-as-punishment" is to suggest that
they were insincere in offering some hope to their
supporters that they, as oppressed women and, in some cases,
men of conscience, might gain some leverage on access to the
means of free speech and equal protection as individual
citizens. MacKinnon was born to a wealthy family and could
have had a lucrative legal career in some other area of law;
instead, she cut her teeth helping to defend the New Haven
Black Panthers and then, after encountering radical
feminism, went on to help create sexual harassment as a
cause of action under sex-discrimination law. Dworkin was
born poor and went to jail several times in the antiwar
movement before finding her way into radical feminism.
Enough said, I hope.
Lastly, I don't think that my responses were _ad hominem._
I did take care to say that I judged your assertion as one
based on insufficient evidence, and that this is the kind of
error that those engaged in political debate can, and do
make, and one I've made myself, many times. I wasn't
accusing you of bad faith or lack of intelligence, or any
other negative personal quality.
Again, I do apologize for not taking your statement of
neutrality into account in my responses, and I hope that we,
and all members of the list, can continue to engage these
issues that are so critical to the study of history in a
respectful manner.
Sincerely,
Tim Hodgdon
Ph.D. candidate
Department of History
Arizona State University
Tim.Hodgdon@asu.edu
___________________________________________________________________Date: Mon, 08 May 2000 10:49:08 -0500
From: "jane e. larson" <jelarso1@facstaff.wisc.edu>
Subject: RE: Moser on antipornography activism
The point of civil law is that it allows individuals to determine when they
feel injured, as distinct from the criminal law, which lodges this power
and discretion in the hands of the state. Thus the civil law is powerfully
individualistic. I think Tim Hodgdon's statement to this effect is
indisputable.
What seems to be the disconnect between his claim and those who responded
on the list is that the right of civil action empowers the individual of
the plaintiff to force a defense from the maker/distributor. Thus it takes
away the defendant's power to ignore the plaintiff, and also denies that
power to disregard to the legal system and the larger society -- and this
was precisely the point of the ordinance, I think. (If the defendant fails
to answer the charge, she or he risks default judgment. If the claim is
answered, judges and juries have to consider the possibility that the
plaintiff has a point. Everyone in the process learns more than they
likely knew before about the nature of the porn and the ways that
individuals experience it.)
Several participants have said they are not experts in the field, so let me
take a minute to write about law and legal sociology as it applies to tort
cases (of which a civil claim under the ordinance would be one). Having
determined that one feels injured, the plaintiff then bears the burden of
proving that claim. Because a civil case, once proved, takes only money
and not liberty from the defendant, the burden of proof is lower than in
the criminal context. But proving the nexus between the porn and the harm
is not a mere matter of assertion. The law's notions of cause are literal
-- far more literal than many commentators to this list imagine feminist
critics of porn to be -- and there are venerable traditions of
victim-blaming that affect juries and judges. Where the plaintiff is
female, almost any aspect about the plaintiff that suggests she is a sexual
women is taken as universal consent to any act of sex; "consent once,
consent forever," seems to be the operative rule. Where the plaintiff is a
lesbian female, her "perversity" often reads in courtrooms as if she has no
sexual boundaries as the jury understands them, and so she, too, "probably
said yes to something sick, but maybe it got out of hand. But whose fault
is that?" I do not know that there is enough data on the experiences of
gay boys and men in sexual tort settings to know how they fare. But it
seems at least possible that they would play like lesbian females, with
perhaps an even heavier presumption of promiscuity. This, at least, is the
popular trope. I and other legal scholars have studied the ways in which
patterns we once thought were unique to criminal rape cases in fact recur
in any legal setting where the issue is who -- a man or a woman, a man or a
girl or boy -- is responsible for the bad consequences that follow on a
sexual act (broadly defined here to include consensual and nonconsensual
acts). Proponents of the ordinance feared this as the greatest barrier to
successful litigation, so opponents should take heart that the tidal force
of misogyny and homophobia in the culture would be on your side in the
courtroom.
IF the case for harm was proved (and there are lots of known cases in which
the nexus between the porn and the assault, battery, rape, child sexual
abuse, racially-cast attack) are not at all subtle (see the legislative
hearings for the ordinance in Minneapolis, Indianapolis, etc.), the
plaintiff still must cross the barrier of quantifying her or his injuries
in money. The law has long disfavored recovery for emotional pain and
suffering, and in the wake of tort reform laws many states totally bar
recovery for such injury or limit it significantly. Because sexualized
violence and humiliation tends to leave emotional scars far deeper and
longer-lived than physical scars, bruises and tears, much of the
plaintiff's injury would almost certainly be un- or under-compensated, even
if she or he was successful.
So the ordinance's real effect -- an the effect I think we should focus
debate on -- is the plaintiff's power to force the defendant to
answer. From any perspective, I think we must concede that has multiple
political implications. Certainly it causes defendants to fear
accountability/persecution (depending on the merit of the claim it could be
either; depending on your point of view, it could be either), and this may
cause him or her to be cautious or silent. Certainly it allows new social
knowledge about the plaintiff's understanding of her or his reality to be
produced and broadcast in the legitimating and authoritative context of
law. How do these things balance in the larger projects of equality and
liberty? Jane Larson
Jane E. Larson
Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin - Madison
975 Bascom Mall
Madison, WI., 53706 U.S.A.
(608) 262-7367 (o)
jelarso1@facstaff.wisc.edu
___________________________________________________________________
From: "Philip Stokes" <philip.stokes@btinternet.com>
Subject: The Walter programme and OG Rejlander
Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 10:40:27 +0100
What an excellently filmed programme that was.
I would though like to pick up on a minor issue in connection with Oscar
Rejlander's photograph, "The Two Ways of Life," and I do so not in the
spirit of technical nit-picking, but because in photography a component of
an image's signification is generated from what one might term physical
microcues. One might for instance refer to grain, to image colour or surface
texture of a photograph as contributing to its meaning as perceived by
viewers; and bearing in mind that "Two Ways" had a very mixed reception
based upon the interpretation of its sexuality, it seems to be worthwhile to
look at all aspects which might have contributed to that.
The one which I am wheeling up to confront here came into focus with the
programme's reference to "Two Ways" as being a collage. It is not. It is a
combination print, made from some 30 separate negatives by printing each in
turn, individually, with the rest of the print masked. Even with modern
facilities and materials, this would be a matter of daunting virtuosity. The
outcome is a print made without the physical sticking-down of its
components, seamless and imaginable as having been encompassed before him in
one gaze by the photographer's eye.
It had all the reality of the academic painting - indeed it is composed with
references to two; Raphael's "School of Athens" and Couture's "Romans of the
Decadence," which would in itself place the photograph within then current
conventions of represented reality, but with one vital exception: the images
were not filtered through the taste and artifice of a painter, but
channelled unaltered via the lens of a photographic camera to be written in
it by, as Talbot had said "the pencil of Nature."
In these more knowing days we would take account of all Rejlander had done
by way of arrangement and selection in his transactions with Mme Wharton's
[or were they Mme Laurant's?] models, and not think twice about the levels
of accuracy of his representation of their bodily surfaces. But then it was
different.
Whereas Victoria was happy to buy a copy for Albert, one Thomas Sutton
objected that "degraded females were exhibited in a state of nudity, with
all the uncompromising truth of photography," and he was far from alone in
that. While Mme Wharton and her like could and did happily pose without
objection for a painter, the reality of the photographed female body;
especially when that body might - in the imaginations of viewers, at least -
also be the body of a prostitute, the hawkers of public decency were
affronted; and the seamlessness and near accurate perspective logic of the
"Two Ways" composition most probably compounded that affront.
A search of journals will bring up further references to this topic. The
standard work is still probably Edgar Yoxall Jones' "Father of Art
Photography: OG Rejlander 1813-1875" [Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973].
Dr Philip Stokes
philip.stokes@btinternet.com
___________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 12 May 2000 16:44:48 -0700
Subject: FW: clgh
From: "David Robinson" <dmrobins@U.Arizona.EDU>
> Fellowship on the Persecution of Homosexuals Under the Nazi Regime
>
> Fellowship Deadline: 2000-08-15
>
> United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
> Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
>
> Fellowship on the
> Persecution of Homosexuals Under the Nazi Regime
>
> As part of its attempt to "purify" German society and propagate an "Aryan
> master race," the Nazi regime condemned homosexuals as "socially aberrant."
> Persecution was especially focused on homosexual men who were considered a
> particular threat to the Nazi goal of an increased "Aryan" birthrate,
> justifying the classification of homosexuality as a racial crime. This
> fellowship is offered to support scholarly research at the Center for
> Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
> on topics related to the Nazi treatment of homosexuals and its postwar
> consequences.
>
> Adolph Hitler banned all gay and lesbian organizations soon after coming to
> power on January 30, 1933. In the months and years that followed, gay and
> lesbian bars were closed; their organizations, publishing houses, and
> magazines were prohibited; and the Research Institute for Sexual Science
> was raided and looted. A special Gestapo Secret State Police division on
> homosexuals was established in 1934, and the number of prosecutions of gay
> men dramatically increased under revised Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code.
>
> An estimated 100,000 men were arrested as homosexuals between 1934 and
> 1945. Some 50,000 were actually sentenced. An estimated 5,000 to 15,000 of
> these individuals were incarcerated in concentration camps, where many
> perished due to harsh treatment by guards and other prisoners. Lesbians
> were persecuted to a far lesser degree, although they were still forced to
> go underground, sometimes even marrying to protect themselves.
>
> The Nazi persecution of homosexuals has been an underrepresented area of
> research. The Museum's library and archives, however, now contain a number
> of significant works and oral testimonies on this topic.
>
> Eligibility
>
> The Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies welcomes proposals for this
> fellowship from qualified scholars in all disciplines. The fellowship is
> designed for scholars who are Ph.D. candidates preparing dissertations,
> postdoctoral researchers with recent degrees, or senior scholars from
> accredited academic and research institutions worldwide. Candidates with
> equivalent terminal degrees or recognized professional status are eligible
> for consideration. United States citizenship is not a requirement for this
> fellowship.
>
> Application Procedure
>
> The application should consist of the following documents:
>
> * Curriculum vitae
> * Research proposal not to exceed five pages (single-spaced). Applicants
> must indicate prior research in this area and the research resources and
> methodology they anticipate using to conduct the proposed project.
> * Specific plan for disseminating the results of the project
> * Three letters of recommendation that speak to the applicant's ability to
> carry out the proposed project, to be sent directly to the Center for
> Advanced Holocaust Studies
>
> Please send these materials to: The Visiting Scholars Program, Center for
> Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 100
> Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW, Washington, D.C., 20024-2126. Postmark deadline
> for applying is August 15, 2000. The decision will be made by September 30,
> 2000.
>
> The project may commence as early as January 2001, but not later than
> September 2001.
>
> General Information
>
> Fellows at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies have access to the
> Museum's library, archival collections, oral histories, and other resources
> as well as an opportunity for research at other Washington, D.C.,
> institutions. Please refer to the Museum's website at www.ushmm.org for a
> description of the Museum's archival holdings. As some of the Museum's
> collections are available for research but not yet catalogued or shown on
> the website, specific inquiries regarding the availability of certain types
> of documents can be directed to the Museum's Reference Archivist at (202)
> 488-6113 or at email address akornblum@ushmm.org.
>
> The Museum will provide office space, postage, access to a computer,
> telephone, facsimile machine, and photocopier. In addition, fellows are
> expected to participate in the Center and Museum's broad array of scholarly
> and other programs. Outreach opportunities will be developed at
> universities, other academic institutions, and archives locally and
> nationally. Cost sharing by home institutions or other relevant
> organizations is encouraged to extend the residency of the applicant at the
> Museum or to make possible additional research at other institutions in