Feminist Current

Yesterday, The Nation and Tom Dispatch published an epic, historical look at the successes of the feminist movement over the past fifty-odd years and the long road ahead. In the article, Ruth Rosen points to various male “behaviours” like rape that, while once were viewed simply as “custom” were redefined, thanks to the feminist movement, [...]

If you haven’t yet heard about revenge porn, you’re lucky. Notorious dickbag, Hunter Moore, is big into the revenge porn game. He can be credited with mainstreaming the concept of punishing your ex by posting their nude photos online without their permission via his website, IsAnyoneUp.com. Doesn’t take much to get rich these days, just [...]

No surprise here. The adult entertainment industry has followed through on their promise to file a suit against Los Angeles County, challenging Measure B, which passed in November, mandating condom-use on porn sets in L.A. The suit, filed Thursday at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of Vivid Entertainment [...]

On December 1st 2012, Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter held their annual Montreal Massacre Memorial event at the Vancouver Public Library. This event remembers the 14 women who were murdered on December 6, 1989 in Montreal by a man, simply because they were women. The event also seeks to address the fact that violence [...]

Well this is it. The end is upon us. By now you’re probably near-bald from tearing your hair out over the effed-upedness that we are subjected to every time Breast Cancer Awareness Month rolls around. Suddenly we’re inundated with pink crap as every company around tries to glom on to the breast cancer epidemic in [...]

This episode of Feminist Current features an interview with communist, atheist, feminist, activist, and writer, Sunsara Taylor. Sunsara co-hosts a radio show called Equal Time for Free Thought on WBAI, writes for Revolution Newspaper and and sits on the Advisory Board of World Can’t Wait. She recently initiated a call to action at stoppatriarchy.org and participated [...]

According to a recent article in The Daily the new hot thing for marrieds or soon-to-be-marrieds is porn. Ha! Obviously right? But this isn’t just any porn, it’s fiancée porn! Starring you! It’s called boudoir photography and the idea is that, supposedly, gifting your husband with his very own wifey porn will stop him from [...]

A few weeks ago, on July 7, 2012, Melissa Harris-Perry hosted a discussion of pornography. The guests she brought on to talk about the American porn industry included: feminist pornographer Tristan Taormino,  Zephyr Teachout, who is an associate professor of law at Fordham University, Jaclyn Friedman, and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson. Apparently, Gail Dines [...]

On pornography: And interview with Robert Jensen August 30, 2011 Podcast: Play in new window | Download

We could feign shock at recent reports that members of the Vancouver Police Department were busted for sharing and watching pornography while at work, but are we really all that surprised? Certainly many feminists are not. The connections between pornography and violence against women are understood by many feminists, though perhaps not so much so [...]

Michael Laxer is a Canadian bookstore owner, a political activist and one of two spokespersons for the Socialist Party of Ontario. This post was originally published on Michael Laxer’s blog and was reprinted with permission from the author.   There is a debate that exists among leftists and feminists as to pornography. This, as a [...]

A common response to critiques of pornography is “it’s just fantasy….people can separate fantasy from reality.” This beloved delusion allows for a defense of sexist, violent, degrading, and, really, dishonest imagery, based on the idea that the images we see on the screen have no impact on our actual lives. There has been a recent [...]

Oh y’all, it has been a magical week for the menz. And in case you’re wondering, they are right and we are all very, very wrong. About everything. Especially the sex industry. Because you see, men are ‘normal’. Everything they do is ‘normal’. If they do it, it’s ‘normal’. And who can argue with ‘normal’? [...]

The Pervocracy published a post on Friday, intended to set all us feminist critics of ‘sex-positive’ discourse, language, and arguments straight. According to the author, who, strangely, avoids referencing anyone or using any specific quotes to back up many of her claims, argues that feminists who critique ‘sex-positivity’ A) don’t understand what the term ‘sex-positive’ [...]

Last week Newsweek published an article covering an extensive study on men who buy sex done by Melissa Farley, director of Prostitution Research and Education. The study revealed that which is known by many feminists, critics of the sex industry, abolitionists and even, I would go so far as to speculate, that which is known [...]

Last week, Feministing linked to a news story about a 21 year old prisoner in Michigan who filed a lawsuit against the State of Michigan because, get this, he had been denied access to pornography. Yep. The nerve! I mean, isn’t objectifying women the God given right of every man in America? AND, don’t civil [...]

I wanted to call this post ‘Well, that was a big waste of time’, but am working on presenting a semblance of professionalism and making an effort against cynicism. I’ll keep working at it… While the purpose of these conversations was to, somehow, engage a civil debate between liberal and radical feminist strains of thought, [...]