What Makes A Decent Man
For most of the eighteen years of ErosBlog’s existence, I have been waging a quiet war for a simple proposition: it’s possible for dudes to like porn and love sex without being assholes about it. There’s an irreducible fraction of porn fans who can’t seem to see or mention a porn performer (or any sexually-expressive woman) without denigrating her, using words like cunt and whore and slut and bitch. If this blog has a theme or a philosophy, it centers around having no need whatsoever to apologize for unabashed male-gaze appreciation of porn or of sexual women. Accordingly, I’ve always needed to moderate the comments. And I’ve never apologized for doing it. It’s just a chore, made necessary by the hostility of the world we live in to the point I’ve been trying to make.
Over the years I’ve tried different verbal formulae to explain the editorial policy. I’ve asked people not to act like dicks. (I’ve actually repeated that request a couple of different ways.) I’ve chided misogynist guys for being bitter and scared. I’ve written against sexual contempt. I’ve asked people not to crap all over beauty, and shared some outside perspectives on that notion. There’s been a lot more. But it all circles around this notion I have, that we dudes can love porn and celebrate sex without apology, as long as we’re decent about it.
All of which is a long way to explain why I’m posting this speech by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, sometimes called “AOC”, upon the occasion of her having been called a “fucking bitch” in public by an old white powerful Republican man, Representative Ted Yoho of Florida:
The speech is worth your time for many reasons. It has a lot to say about misogyny and the problem of lack of respect for women. But I include it here as accompanying material for this one line from it:
“Treating people with respect is what makes a decent man.”
Yeah, that.
Similar Sex Blogging:
