Fiona wrote:
No, I'm afraid I'm with Neil here. IMO lesbianism, whatever its cause and manifestation, is a threat to patriarchy in that it suggests that women need not be dependent on men for the satisfaction of sexual or social needs. M-O "lesbian" porn effectively reduces this threat down to a wank, and also contains the additional message that lesbianism is something women do as a preliminary act to sleeping with a man, or because there's no man around. Which brings the patriarchy back into the picture.
Disagreeing with two such (metaphorical) heavy-weights, I fear I must be barking up the wrong tree, but... I simply don't understand where this *one-sided* dependence comes in. If two people of different genders have sex together then why is it the *woman* who's suddenly dependent on the man for satisfaction of sexual needs?
Surely the threat to patriarchy (assuming patriarchy exists in Western society) is simply financially and sexually independent women, regardless of orientation?
Surely what male-oriented porn chooses to depict has no relevance whatsoever to real-world women (who presumably don't on the whole choose to consume it)?
Am I missing something?
Tavia