POSA™ Blog

This blogpost is dedicated to all women everywhere. The past and present Mothers of the world!

Every day, my POSA clients tell me horror stories about the myriad, ever-increasing ways that men act out their anger and feelings of powerlessness against women through their sexual exploitations. I hear stories that through and through, ring to me of the debasement of self and others.

And today I received an e-mail from a POSA client saying that the fact that it was Mother's Day only highlighted all the ways her sexually-compulsive husband has transmogrified her sexuality, that part of her that she had always kept sacred for him.

As red hearts and pink cherubic cut-outs dominate shop windows on Valentine's Day, I want to send out some Valentine's thoughts of my own to all POSAs.

My inspiration came from walking up Madison Avenue, passing pricey artisanal chocolate boutiques with customers in line paying for their lover's Valentine's Day chocolates and more than a few men shopping for jewelry along Fifth Avenue.

And not surprisingly, quite the line of men at Victoria's Secret, under the hypnotic glaze of the nearly un-dressed, GIGANTIC displays of models in silky lingerie, seduction-bombing every man on the street.

Since I tend to bring you news from the real world that isn't always the most uplifting as POSAs are concerned, here's something inspirational to add to the PoSARC mix:

This is a powerful video presentation by Jackson Katz, PhD whom I've been a big fan of since watching him speak in the excellent DVD documentary, Pornography: The Price of Pleasure. Hearing a heterosexual, married-with-kids, man speak out so eloquently and fiercely against pornography and it's egregious effects on society, I was an instant fan of his. So I was particularly thrilled to be able to find this video.

BY GAIL DINES AND ROBERT JENSENAnti-pornography feminists get used to insults from the left. Over and over we are told that we're anti-sex, prudish, simplistic, politically naïve, diversionary, and narrow-minded. The cruder critics do not hesitate to suggest that the cure for these ailments lies in, how shall we say, a robust sexual experience.

In addition to the slurs, we constantly face a question: Why do we "waste" our time on the pornography issue? Since we are anti-capitalist and anti-empire leftists as well as feminists, shouldn't we focus on the many political, economic, and ecological crises (war, poverty, global warming, etc.)? Why would we spend part of our intellectual and organizing energies over the past two decades pursuing the feminist critique of pornography and the sexual exploitation industry?

The answer is simple: We are anti-pornography precisely because we are leftists as well as feminists.