I'm a first year philosophy student and for the last couple of weeks we have been discussing the morality of pornography at the hand of the the philosophers Brison (a feminist) and Altman (a seemingly horny old man).

They speak specifically of violent pornography. In short, Brison believes that all it is is hate speech toward women (though, is there not just as much Femdom out there as Maledom??) and that it is the primary reason that our patriarchal system survives as well as being the cause of violence against women.

Altman sees violent porn as part of our right to sexual autonomy and that it has not been proven that it caused the things above mentioned.

Though they both believe that being turned on by violence (and, well, pretty much everything that can be classified under BDSM) is a moral defect.

I've been a sub for almost four years. If men who get turned on by violent scenes are supposed to condition them to treat women in general as subordinates, should I not be conditioned to see all men as my superiors? Though asking anyone who knows me, I am sometimes scarily feminist.

These are obviously not things I could speak openly of in class. So I ask you apparent defeciants:

Is being turned on by violence, degradation and humiliation really moral defects. And if not, why not?

Terribly vexed.

SM