I Blame The Patriarchy

Metal Teapot, in the comments to a recent post, sez:

I have grown up to believe that if a man says he doesn’t watch porn he is lying to you. I think, I’d rather a partner didn’t watch porn, but I’d also like several million dollars and to never have to work again. I certainly get the impression that men just tell you what you want to hear then continue to act the same. I guess that is where trust comes in but once again my cultural programming tells me that I’m not meant to see a guy lying about porn use as a violation of trust because I was being unreasonable.

Convincing women that they are being unreasonable, that dudely porn use is natural, normal, and even necessary-for-his-health behavior, and therefore you should support his porn use, and by the way you’ll never even find a dude who doesn’t use porn — this is one of the most successful misogynist campaigns of the modern megatheocorporatocracy.

The truth is that if you’re with a guy who uses porn, you’re with a guy who at his core believes that women are subhuman fucktoilets.

Women never want to believe this, for about 386 reasons. The idea of being objectified by the entire ruling class of default humans is too awful to contemplate. The implications are unthinkable. Women disdain to consider that life under the auspices of a culture of domination inexorably taints all relationships. But mostly they just don’t want to have to confront the porn-usin’ dude they love, the dude who will think they are being unreasonable, the dude they know will dump them before he’ll give up his porn.

So they think maybe their Nigel is different. A dude who believes that women are subhuman fucktoilets would have to be a mean, nasty sociopath, right? But their Nigel isn’t that guy; their Nigel is nice and smart and funny. He’d never dream of being violent. He makes great hummus. People like him. He’s a progressive. Sometimes he even does housework. He voted for Hilary. Yes, this Nigel uses porn, but he’s a great guy, so his porn use cannot possibly indicate that he eroticizes misogyny. And even if he does eroticize misogyny, that must mean that the eroticization of misogyny is no big whoop, or possibly even a swell thing for all concerned, because a guy as great as Nigel would never do anything to hurt anyone.

Nope, sorry. I will now unleash the aphorisms.

Pornography is the graphic representation, not just of violence against women, but of male supremacy. It degrades all women. It erodes the humanity of all women. Porn use fetishizes violence and supports male supremacy. Porn is the expression of patriarchy. Porn use is the practice of patriarchy.

You get the gist.

Nigel, in other words, gets off on practicing patriarchal oppression. He is actively antifeminist. He is actively wielding privilege. I don’t give a shit about this Nigel’s feelings, so I am free to assert that his indulgence in this entirely voluntary behavior somewhat mitigates his greatness. Proceed with caution.

Many women would sooner run me through a cheese grater and call me a man-hating prude who is too ugly to get laid than consider this: that global patriarchal oppression has effected between Nigels and women an intransigent opposition of interests. Women’s health and well-being depend on our acquiring fully human status, whereas male privilege depends on confining women to the sex underclass. For women to achieve human status we must dismantle male privilege, not acquiesce to the mania that celebrates pornography as awesome health-giving fun. Sex can never be a politically neutral interaction as long as the interests of one party are by universal decree prioritized over the interests of the other.