[The above are stills of Lisa Diamond talking. Transcription follows: "Often, our fantasies involve things that are taboo, things that are forbidden, things that we feel that we can't express in everyday life. That doesn't mean you actually want it in your everyday life. But there's a lot of variability in sexual fantasies, and they don't tell you anything reliable about you. If you have fantasies that disturb you or scare you, and you wonder what they mean, they don't mean a lot. So, don't worry so much about them." ~Lisa Diamond, feminist psychologist.]
The thing is, the "criticism" the person in screenshots is talking about is not criticism. It's censure. They cherry-picked some of the kinks and fantasies that they knew would cause an immediate emotional reaction in their audience, that would cause a knee-jerk disgust, and relied on that to support their argument. They're appealing to your disgust.
Pornography is art, but they're not talking about art when they say "fantasies" and "roleplay". Those aren't art. Those are people's private thoughts and private bedroom activities--which are NOT, actually, open to criticism. You don't get to criticise what people do in their private homes OR the privacy of their own thoughts, because it doesn't involve you.
Be VERY attentive to the words here. Be very attentive to the motivations behind the choices this person is making in their word-choices. They're being VERY sneaky and using several tactics to make it seem like what they're saying is just common sense, that it's NOT fascist, because they've lampshaded fascism in the opening sentence to make you think what they're talking about is Different. They take care to be saying "art" and "pornography" several times to get you nodding along, before suddenly switching to "fantasies" and "roleplay", BUT using words that are an Easy No and immediately provoke strong disgust emotions in the target audience drawn in by the opening sentence, and so tries to get around you noticing they've switched from the word "art" to the words "fantasy" and "roleplay". Pay attention! Do not let your emotions drive the car and that includes Disgust!
This is sneaky and underhanded and it's how the whorephobic Neo-Hays Code fascism pipeline starts! You are being recruited!
Your FANTASIES? Private thoughts that affect only you.
Your ROLEPLAY? Private activities that affect only you and other consenting partners.
These are not "pornography" these are not "art", and therefore other people who are not involved do not get to have an opinion. It does not matter how "uncomfortable" you are with the idea that literally anything and everything is someone's kink--that's a you problem.
Once something becomes art that is public, you are allowed to offer up criticism, analysis, and commentary. But merely offering moral censure--because to be clear, that's exactly what this is--is not even all that valid to do on art. You can, of course; it's just you getting angry at the art, and saying it offends you and then sometimes it means saying it SHOULD also offend everybody else. But that's just your opinion at that point. Until you actually do real criticism, "this is bad and you should feel bad" is still only at the level of analysis as "well I hated that picture". Okay you're allowed. But it's not critical analysis, it's not commentary, it's not applying any kind of actual real critical thinking to the art.
Stay vigilant, especially when you feel outrage, disgust, or someone starts off a rant with the line "I know it's fascist to attack porn but" or anything similar.
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