Huffington Post
The boycott against Groupon has nothing to do with morality. It has to do with intolerance and sex-negativity. This blog is a direct response to “Groupon’s Latest Deal? Torture Porn,” by Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of Porn Harm and Morality. Hawkins takes a hard strike at Groupon, kink.com and the porn industry in general. My first question to Hawkins is, “Have you ever taken a tour of the Armory?” For a place she claims to know so much about, I don’t believe she ever mentions a visit to the home of kink.com. Since I have been to the Armory on many occasions, including taking said tour, I thought I would clarify any misconceptions.
Hawkins stated, “Pornography’s purpose is primarily the sexual exploitation of women and children for pleasure of men.” The purpose of pornography is not to exploit women and children for men. In the words of the great Nina Hartley:
“The most important thing about pornography is that it hosts our sexual dreams. Those dreams tell a lot about who and what we are. How we feel about ourselves, how we interact with the world, and most importantly, how we create intimacy with ourselves and others. We get to be who and what we want in our dreams. Everything is perfect in our dreams. It’s smooth and nice and runs along on greased rails. Porn as fantasy is really important, because that’s where we imagine our sexual selves and bring those selves out to play.”
Hawkins continually refers to the degradation and exploitation of adult performers, namely women. She even goes so far as to say women who make porn and find it acceptable are simply influenced by their male predecessors. I find it insulting that Hawkins is taking the position that women who do porn are doing so because of men and have no idea what, if anything, they are doing to themselves. That statement implies that women do not know how to think for themselves, which is an insulting and degrading statement. …