Sent to you by redcliff via Google Reader:
If only pornography was just dirty pictures. That would still be bad, but not as bad as the real actual truth. Pornography — that is, the graphic representation of violence against women — is in fact like unto a thick, noxious gas percolating through every conceivable stratum of human culture.
Take this example of multi-tiered pornography from the Huffington Post: a blurb noting the death of a 23-year-old woman named Carolin Berger.
The headline:
"Carolin 'Sexy Cora' Berger Dead: Porn Star Dies After Sixth Breast Enlargement Surgery (PHOTOS)"
[Arguably, one may even perceive an element of perpetration in the very act of critiquing this article. That's because pornography leaves a putrid grease on everything and everyone it touches, including spinster aunts who clamor for its eradication. But, onward.]
On one hand, this HuffPo item supports the anti-porn mores of Savage Death Island: Young Berger has died of extreme femininity. Her heart stopped during her 6th breast augmentation surgery and she never regained consciousness. The patriarchy blamer naturally recognizes a familiar narrative: desperate to appease the oppressor through rigorous adherence to deeply internalized pornographic beauty standards, Berger undertook multiple self-mutilations, and paid the ultimate price. Femininity kills.
But … that headline! It is the spinster aunt's duty to expose what at first blush appears to be the announcement of a tragic accident for what it is: a titillating squirt of micro-porn to whet the insatiable appetites of typical prog-liber-o-prurient HuffPo readers.
This headline's got it all. "Sexy." "Dead." "Porn Star." "Breast Enlargement" "PHOTOS." Who wouldn't click on that? It's an opportunity — one of the hundreds, or perhaps thousands, presented daily to the average media consumer — to ingest sex, to taste the greasy juxtaposition of sex, mutilation, and death, to check out some hottt pixxx, and to pass smug judgement on another blonde bimbo — Marilyn Monroe, Anna Nicole Smith — who failed to get it just right.
As the story progresses, we discover that Berger's porn star name was "Sexy Cora." Naturally, the sex name is the one used throughout the remainder of the article. Porn stars are not human beings, they are a brand of consumer sex receptacle. Thus are the dimensions of Berger's breasts, both pre- and post-op, more germane to the announcement of her death than, apparently, the detail (omitted by Huffpo) that her surgeon-butchers are now up on negligent homicide charges. To find out about that, you have to go to CBS News' lurid true crime website, where Berger's humanity is of little importance compared to her value as a sensationalized dead TV slut. If you doubt this, you have only to observe the 38-page wealth of "Sexy Cora" images available in a CBS online photo gallery, and compare it to the amount of CBS discourse relating to Berger as a human person (barely any), or to the instances of broader CBS discussion of the murderous effects of institutionalized misogyny on the quest for human enlightenment (zilch-o).
[Thanks, Jessica]
Related posts:
Things you can do from here:
- Subscribe to I Blame The Patriarchy using Google Reader
- Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
