Pornography

by Andrea Dworkin

Book Overview

Andrea Dworkin's 1981 critique of pornography is an important and urgent document about how the culture consumes and manipulates images of women. Essential and discomfiting reading in a social media... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399505326
• ISBN13: 9780399505324
• Release Date: June 1981
• Publisher: Perigee Books
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Men's hatred of women...

is limitless and inescapable. Personally, I believe all men are really only hot for each other. Men love same-sex men only environments: the military, religious institutions, political organisations are cultures created by and for males giving free reign for men's hot obsession with males and hatred of women. No more evident is men's sexual fixation with men and hatred of women evident but in men's pornography. Men just love watching films produced by men and filmed by men where groups of naked sexually aroused males make a male-bonding high-five over the lonely woman lying down they've just watched each other penetrate. Men compare and admire the male genitals they idealise and vomit womanhating invectives over women males have invented to institutionalise men's hatred of women. Men's pornography is the most lucrative business in the world, because men's hatred of women is limitless. Dworkin's book analyses the psychosexual mechanics at work in the male brain and why women allow themselves to be used as sexual props in men's productions. When the woman screams in men's porn, gagging for more as males like to describe it, she reads from a script written by men to reassure the male viewer she loves his genitals as much as men do - however, 80% of women cannot experience an orgasm through the mechanical motions of male genitalia. It's all fake.

A book about loveless slavery

This book is a testimony to the awful misogyny that we are forced to witness every day. The specific form of misogyny that this book deals with is called porn, and if it makes you sick, this book sure ensures you that you are not alone. I'm a man and I feel ashamed of being so when try to understand how many victims men have used for their own purpose. Tracy Lords is one of those victims. She was a famous porn actress AFTER this book was written, which goes to show that the problem is getting worse. Why is it getting worse? Well, not too long ago porn was still considered dirty - the last resort for junkies - while today it is glamorized out of proportion. But ask your porn-buying friend if he or she would be proud over her son or daughter if this child wanted to make quick money by having sex in public, and you would see the double standard of morality. And there are reasons why sons and daughters are taught to stay away from that line of work (even while the parents contribute to its continued existence by consuming it). Just look at how Tracy Lords is doing today. She won't get any roles because of her past, as her participation in these films are all she is remembered for. That shame and endless anxiety and regret is her life. She admits that by having lived in a culture that endorsed porn, she was drawn into it and got spat out with a reputation ruining and ridiculing her name and image, leaving her empty and alienated from society. This book fights her fight, and it fights for all those defenseless and scared little girls who have been used like she was, a fight that hopefully will prevent little Tracies in the future to have their innocense stolen from them.

A stimulating read

Too many exposes of atrocity, whether from the humanitarian or exploitation angles, downplay the impact of the harm men cause men (and women). Happily, Andrea Dworkin is an exception. She spares no detail, leaves no stone unturned, to expose in vivid, lip-smacking prose every cry of pain, every broken bone, each bruise or scar. For conoisseurs of true misogynistic pleasure, Dworkin is nonpareil. She can always be counted on to deliver the goods.

Status quo attacked like never before

This is quite simply probably the best book ever written on the evil of pornography. It's a refreshing change to read on the subject from an author who's not from the religious right.Dworkin's shocking descriptions of the violence and abuse that pornography causes and depends on for its survival will have all but the most diehard users feeling physically sick in disgust.If there is any man out there who thinks that "softcore" pornography is okay and doesn't hurt women, you really need to read this book! It will change your mind, I know it did mine.

Brutally honest, shocking and brilliant.

Andrea Dworkin is not just unique among many talented, feminist authors - she is a woman with an exceptional command of the English language, and an exquisite talent for using words to make a point in an either brilliant or shockingly crude fashion. She simply will not allow the reader to make excuses in his/her mind for the basic lower value of females around the world which is the base of pornagraphy.This book is not for the faint-hearted, weak, or those who wish to live in a fantasy-land when it comes to male views of women's bodies and sexuality. Andrea Dworkin is a genius and, whether or not one agrees with any of her points, she will challenge the very foundations of our paternal societies and their implications for female sexuality, how women's lower social status is perpetuated through the condoning of degrading and violent sexual themes in art, entertainment, and literature, and how these repeating (and all to frequent) themes affect the zeitgeist of our culture.You are not a woman until you have carefully read this enlightening and liberating book, and you are not a man until you have faced up to the ugly and destructive side of male-dominated culture and sex explicitly exposed by Ms. Dworkin.