It looks like I got under the skin of @cathcincotta. Trolls aren’t normally worth feeding, but the remarks they make are sometimes indicative of a certain mindset and, when these ideas take root across large (and influential) portions of the populace, the ideas they betray deserve analysis. I encourage interested parties to read through the examples shown here and then look for similar instances in the language other anti-porn feminists use.

This particular troll has the blessed habit of deleting her own posts, so I’ve taken a few screenshots to respond to, instead.

Firstly, let’s look at the first tweet (of this second volley):

@maymaym you wrote an hysterical rant about me - I’m ridiculous because I don’t like the prevalent theme of feminine abuse in porn?

This is interesting because the response is so personal, so offended, so emotional. Taking personal offense to the ideas of others is a hallmark of pro-censorship ideologies, such as much of what the anti-porn contingent advocate.

One of the things that I wrote in my first post is that the takeaways I took from my first exchange with @cathcincotta, such as the idea that masturbation isn’t sex, are “so ridiculous it doesn’t warrant consideration.” Rather than address my rejection of the concepts she put forth, @cathcincotta took the sentence very personally.

Next (even before I noticed I was being spoken to):

@maymaym so two women have ‘power’ in the porn industry, so that justifies it. It’s like saying u don’t hate women cause you love your mum.

I think this was a response to my tweet linking to this video of Tristan Taormino, Shine Louise Houston, Rachel Venning, and Jackie Strano (feminist pornographers and founders of sex toy retailers Good Vibrations and Babeland) discussing their views on pornography, particularly why it’s important that women are part of the sex industry. They make the case that the presence of assertive and empowered women participating in the production of pornography and other sex industry outlets like sex toy manufacturing is a key requirement for the realization of women’s sexual pleasure as a birthright. Like most industries dominated by men, male-centric viewpoints disproportionately influence the sorts of images that are mainstream.

Good on them. Like these women, that’s something @cathcincotta and I don’t like about most pornography today:

#proporn. On the rare occasion I have seen a woman also receiving pleasure in porn, I liked it. Otherwise it’s just rape with a ‘smile’

To which I said:

@cathcincotta On that we agree. #Proporn women & men advocate pleasure+consent for all participants—consider helping us promote that nuance.

Yet @cathcincotta is willing to discount (and ignore?) the places where she and I and women like the ones in the video agree in order to vilify “the porn industry.”

So, if one loves one’s mother, one can still “hate women.” Evidently, one can have the same goals as women in the porn industry do, but still “hate porn.” @cathcincotta’s argument is two-faced.

She is unwilling to advocate for what some women want for themselves and go through the effort to create. Nevermind the fact that what these women advocate—a focus on women’s genuine sexual pleasure, economic power, and autonomy—is the same thing she (ostensibly) advocates for. In @cathcincotta’s model of “the porn industry,” you’re either “with her” or “against her.”

According to her, there is no way for parts of “the porn industry” (not even the parts comprised of women) to advocate for women’s rights. So I guess in that model, there would be no way for a man to hate his mother, but love other women. Men either hate all women, or love all women. Porn is either entirely bad, or it’s not porn. Hmm….

@maymaym prostitutes? You want to base your opinion of female sexuality on a small minority of women whose job it is to get PAID to fuck?

No, I don’t want to base my opinion of “female sexuality” on the assertions of prostitutes and porn actresses about their own sexuality. I want to base my opinions of these individual prostitutes’ and porn actresses’s sexuality on the assertions they make about their own sexuality. (Is that wrong?)

Here, again, is a striking divide between anti-porn and “pro-porn” mindsets. On the one hand, @cathcincotta vehemently wants to see women who are pleasured in porn. On the other hand, she opposes the view of women who are in porn on the basis that they are in porn. The objection here is not to women, or to pleasure, but to the exchange of money for sex.

This echoes the previous sentiment: there are no gray areas, nuances, or differences. The view @cathcincotta expresses here is that pleasure is only pleasure if @cathcincotta says it is. It is a totalitarian mindset in which one’s own definitions are treated as the only valid definitions and rejects on its very face notions of diverse representation, experience, or value.

This anti-porn trope is troubling because it undermines the moral importance of diversity. It perverts the Golden Rule (treat others as you would like to be treated) with the omission, whether knowingly or unknowingly, that others do not like to be dictated to. In this worldview, there are valid and invalid definitions of “sex,” “pleasure,” and “porn,” but the only valid ones for others to hold are the ones you hold.

In such a system, you can never be wrong. That is a truly comfortable (and comforting) worldview.

To wit:

@maymaym if anti porn feminists believe something, who are you to dismiss that belief with ‘supporting arguments’ because they mirror yours?

Who are you to do the same?

Here’s a screenshot of (most of) the full conversation.