Apr 24 2009
A New Masculinism?
A new essay in the latest issue of Adbusters Magazine by Douglas Haddow paints a scathing critique of pornography: not as a moral diatribe but from the perspective of a modern man deeply concerned with the negative effects of pornography on men as a result of isolating over-consumption, and lacking any significant analog to feminism. The essay called “Pornocalypse Now” opens with a well-known quote by George Orwell, “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” Haddow imagines what if Orwell, instead of having written a novel called 1984, had been born in 1984 and a young man today? According to Haddow, “Orwell would probably not be a down-and-out journalist, but more likely a disengaged copywriter – his dystopian prose taking on an entirely different shape and form: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a woman’s face.” The increasing prevalence of “abuse-porn” coupled with a decline in male sexual health paints a bleak future in Haddow’s essay. He muses that “what needs to occur now is the genesis of a new ‘masculinism’ – a philosophy of man that embraces the achievements of feminism and strives to reconnect with the real.”
GUEST: Douglas Haddow, writer and creative consultant with Adbusters Magazine
Read Haddow’s article here: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/83/pornocalypse_now.html
Haddow’s blog is www.pblks.com.
2 Responses to “A New Masculinism?”
Intriguing piece. I really wish Sonali would have Michael Bader, PhD on instead of merely repeating the same tired meme. Much of what Haddow “observes” deliberately excludes a completely different take on pornography, consumption and masculinity, a view that Michael Bader wisely gives voice to in his own research, practice and books. It’s very telling that haddow’s own choice of language in this interview selects only that which he wants to see about men and unfortunately Sonali chose only to focus on those males who have reacted from a place of frustration, fear, and passivity to feminism. The net result is those of us who have done the work with each other and ourselves and have taken feminism’s sage lessons for us to heart remain obscured and muted by Haddow’s analysis. Frankly, that sucks.
This was great, thanks!