165. Pornography (extended)

We are really looking forward to talking more about porn here in the bonus segment, because I feel like, David, this was a complicated and in some ways really messy episode.

And I had a couple of moments where I was like, oh, my gosh, is this going to be.

the recipient of backlash because maybe we're like coming at the porn industry too hard by even voicing the McKinnon and Dworkin, you know, positions.

And so we, of course, like also brought in the voices of porn actors.

But I think this is just like a really challenging and messy topic.

So I don't know how you're feeling after recording, but just wanted to kind of start there and then see where you head.

Well, so my reaction, my fear about that was that when we were talking about the feminist sex wars of the 1980s and 90s, we mostly voiced the anti-porn camp without giving it like anywhere near the same attention to the pro or to the critique of that camp.

Right.

And so I'm sure there will be people who say, like, you didn't talk about X, Y or Z.

But as we said, this is a really, really vast space with a lot of positions in it.

And it was impossible for us to cover all of them.

So it comes with the territory.

Yeah.

I mean, but I also think I might be kind of getting this wrong, but I feel like the quote unquote pro sex camp there is often relying on really unfair straw man caricatures of the opposite position.

And so it felt a lot more important for me to voice that position that tends to get caricatured.

I also think that that quote unquote pro sex position doesn't tend to be quite as explicitly defensive of porn.

The porn defenses mainly come from the sort of First Amendment free speech stuff and tend towards like a little bit of a sexual libertarian or sexually liberal approach, which I find like, you know, important in certain ways, but a little bit less philosophically rich and interesting.