A Not So Feminist Kitty.

  
-Mary Beth

           "The Prime of Miss Kitty Mackinnon," is an article in which "sex-positive feminist, Susie Bright, criticizes the views and writings of feminist activist, Catharine Mackinnon, and argues that she is really not so feminist at all. She describes the context of Mackinnon's writing as one that "rams my vagina and chills me to the bone." Needless to say, Bright does not sensor herself when it comes to speech and imagery. Her foremost criticism of Mackinnon is her lack of knowledge on the subject of what pornography is all about.
         Mackinnon stresses that porn is something full of "poor desperate women who were sexually abused as children." I find this statement to be downright ignorant. It is an overgeneralized and stereotypical statement that is largely untrue. There are many financially comfortable women who enjoy sexual liberation in the form of film, with no prior history of abuse of any kind.
         Mackinnon also relates killers and psychopaths to men that engage in pornographic activity. She makes sex into a form of women's suffering, "every erection a threat." She claims to be a feminist. Yet, what is liberating about the refusal to acknowledge women as being capable of experiencing the same feelings of pleasure and arousal as men? "
       Apparently, Mackinnon finds the idea that women masturbate, perhaps even using sexy words and pictures, altogether unbelievable or yet another symptom of a pimp's brainwashing." In today's world, her views are more anti-feminist than not. One does not liberate women by denying them the sexual freedom that men commonly enjoy on a day to day basis.