Thursday, April 08, 2010

And Even More Questions



From the post below on male studies:

Rocco Capraro, an associate dean and assistant professor of history at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, said that "men are both powerful and powerless." Though men and boys as a group may be powerful, "today's discourse on individual men is not a discourse of power -- men do not feel powerful in today's society."

Instead, they feel ashamed of their masculinity. While women may perceive pornography as degrading to their gender, men consider it to be a manifestation of "sexual scarcity, rejection and shame," he said. "Porn falls into a larger structure of masculinity as a shame-based existence."

This is such an odd statement. Who is it who FEELS powerful in today's society? Women? And does the statement about men's and women's supposed reactions to porn mean that we should regard them as equally valid or equally true?

What is it that Capraro would like to have done about porn? Should it be regarded as a great thing, something men are entitled to and deserve, with no problems about the woman-hating aspect of some porn? Or should women stop rationing sex so that all men can have porn in real life? Or what? I really don't understand this.

And I'd be willing to bet that femininity is also a shame-based existence, yes, my precious, it is.