The real root of gender violence

Tags: Pornstar , Valentina Nappi , YouTube

That violence against women is a edgy theme.

It is such a sensitive issue that, for fear of falling into the politically incorrect, often ends up sterilely repeating the usual banality.

Some will laugh at the fact that a pornographic performer - which is this writer - feel the need to say about it. And it is true that many males - and many females - would do better to remain silent on the subject.

We talk with excessive ease on men's violence against women. We forget that words can not describe aseptically reality, but presuppose ways of seeing. Who speaks of "men's violence against women" presupposes an ontology, ie a well-defined way to crop the world, categorize it. The categories, including that of men and that of women, they are not in the things themselves, but in who looks at things, take them into consideration, talk about it. They are not neutral from the point of view of values, since they play a decisive role in determining the theoretical and ethical approach to a given issue, from which descend the practical solutions. Let's take an example. Only a few fanatics would justify apartheid against Roma in case of a greater frequency of violence on the part of this one than the average; yet many, even of progressive ideas, are not shocked when we talk about pink railcars, ie railcars that are denied to males. The difference between pink railcars and apartheid depends solely on the fact that you do not assign any ontological value to the ethnic groups (races do not exist), but evidently it is considered ontologically legitimate male-female categorization. But this is not the real crux of the matter.

The real question is: if races exist - and if they were statistically dominant, for example, the rapes by one race over another - would be apartheid lawful?

Hardly a progressive, a Democrat, a liberal would say yes. Probably would feel more sense to focus on causes (never to be considered natural!) of the differential of violence, because the only alternative to this approach would be to assume that there is a different propensity to violence - structural type - between groups of humans. The last possibility, which would be abhorrent even if races exist, ie if it was a sensible way to divide up all of the humans. Similarly, it should be considered unacceptable on principle - regardless of relevance or otherwise of a breakdown of humanity on the basis of sex - any discourse on violence that has as its terms the male and the female or any other biological datum. Moreover, the only way to account for all the differences between individuals, without privileging some arbitrarily, it is to refer to the good old liberal concept of abstract (and asexual) individual. Conversely, every thought of the difference - especially any difference feminism - is actually thinking of identity, since the difference is or what makes us differ substantially all (and then we go back to the liberal concept of an individual), or is the difference between classes that must be represented in the identity (more or less characteristic). You should stop, then, to talk about men's violence against women (note, inter alia, the ease with which are used the definite articles...), violence is always human beings on human beings.

Without this premise, it is not right to try to redefine, in not more sexist terms, the concept of gender-based violence. So, it is wrong to talk about gender violence, but we can talk about violence driven by a gender logic. In other terms: it is the gender logic that makes possible that kind of violence which consists in the assertion of masculinity (or femininity) by prevarication. But what is behind this logic? Strategies for survival and reproduction. In other words: interest. Here is the raison of the widespread desire for conservation of gender differences (read: privileges). The males do not want to give up the privilege of control females, even at the cost of conducting a harder life and possibly having to make material sacrifices. The females do not want to give up the privilege of obtaining material benefits for the simple fact of being female, even at the price of having to adapt to the stereotypes of feminine virtue. This is the logic that makes it possible that a father (honest person! worker!) kills his libertine daughter, with the complicity of the mother (holy woman! always been devoted!). But how can we overcome this? Abandoning the roles. Males and females - in fact: humans and humans - no more must not have the usual pre-established roles. The male does not have to be that one who metaphorically wears pants. Homosexuality should be told to children - and encouraged - in the same way heterosexuality, in a completely equal. And so on. Conservatives will say, for example, that it is already true that men do not wear pants metaphorically. They will say that all this has nothing to do with the violence, that men and women can be respected without abandoning the roles, etc. Those will come even more unreasonable to deny that in past centuries gender-based violence was the norm, much more today. A fake version gradual and seemingly more reasonable - but just for it most insidious and dangerous - of that gender conservatism is the difference feminism (or, worse, "female thought of the difference"). It tends to deny the universality of the concept of abstract and asexual individual. To argue with such a feminism, this writer, though convinced of the absolute necessity of abandoning all forms of sexism, it is jokingly referred to as "macho". Why? Because it is a way to meet the other (not go against other) sex, a way to make people understand that we are friends, we are equal, we have the same problems, not all females are there to sentence lapidary against the evil male gender "guilty" by definition.

The jokingly defined as "female chauvinist", this writer understand it primarily as a stance against women who - often in the name of the ideology of difference, diversity of roles and way down - seek to keep their privileges. The lowest and vulgarest of which is, perhaps, the marketability of sex. It's really disgusting that females can gain advantages by virtue of their sexual "potential". And it's demential to think we can combat this problem with repression. If we ban cigarettes, it does increase - certainly not decrease - the "price" (and the power of those who have them). Ditto for sex. The more you act in a repressive way, the more you will increase the market value of the female sexual potential. Conversely, if males and females have truly equal opportunities with regard to casual sex, the female sexual potential would be much more difficult to sell, and could spend it only that females (or that males) who have particular quality (natural or acquired with the exercise), as in other areas. This writer tries to give her small contribution in this direction living casual sex as something normal, everyday, to be practiced with the same ease and nonchalance with which you drink a coffee. But it's not enough the private dimension: is also required public disclosure, the cultural representation of these patterns of behavior. This should be, after all, one of the tasks of pornography: to spread a model of sexuality without superstructures, in which the females are equally likely than males to have fortuitous sex. It is the repetition of instances led to several decades ago, but remain relevant because in fact have not been achieved, or have not been fully achieved. This writer, while having the need to earn the minimum necessary to live, try to do this battle without even achieving projects for profit: one thing that enrages some females "competitors". Obviously it is not entirely correct to define as macho the position of the woman who desires that we are serious about equal opportunity and justice, from all points of view, for males and females: in effect, it is a provocation. But it is a provocation that makes sense, given that in the United States, a country that calls itself a bulwark of democracy, women sentenced to death and executed from 1976 to date are less than one percent compared to men. One could hypothesize that the greater propensity to commit a crime by males depends in some measure by their being generally lacking, unlike females, possibility of relatively easy, and not too risky, to achieve advantages materials. The fact that, among the homeless in the U.S., single men are three times as many single women would lead us to think in this direction. At school, according to an OECD study, the same performance male students are generally penalized. The data on which you might think are endless. It therefore seems evident that be defined macho, by a female (and, in particular, by a pornographic performer), means to emphasize how the problems of gender logic (of which the thought of the difference, the subsequent justification of the status quo of different approaches to sex and so on, are unaware forms) are also problems of men. It should be considered, simply, human problems.

Valentina Nappi

May 22, 2013, http://www.funweek.it/lolnews/vera-radice-della-violenza-di-genere.php

Translation: Abigail Pereira Aranha.

Nice text, but this issue is worse than it. I will point out this in next post.