This post is in regards to Robert Jensen's article entitled
Patriarchal Sex.
As part of my exam, I have to confute Robert Jensen’s argument regarding patriarchy, masturbation and sex. One of Jensen’s sub-arguments that I find ridiculous is that masturbating from porn is a way of having sex with women. There is not too much within the sub-argument itself that I find to be overly fallacious, but its consistency with his overall argument. Let me explain. One of Jensen’s overall arguments is the following:
- 1. If you don’t penetrate, you haven’t “fucked”.
- 2.If you haven’t “fucked”, you haven’t had sex.
- C1. Thus, if you don’t penetrate, you haven’t had sex (Hypothetical Syllogism from 1 and 2)
The above is one of Jensen's larger arguments. From this, we can derive:
- 3. If you had sex, then you penetrated. (Transposition from C1)
We take Jensen's sub-argument:
- 4. Masturbation over porn is a form of sex.
And, in a conditional premise that:
- 5. You masturbated over porn (Conditional Premise)
And we deduce:
- 6. You had a form of sex (From 4 and 5, ID)
- C2. You penetrated. (From 3 and 6, Modus Ponens)
But, we all know that masturbation over porn involves no necessary penetration at all. In fact, under Jensen’s terms penetration involves another person. But, how then can it be construed as masturbation? It’s absurd.
Have any of you guys read Robert Jensen’s article entitled “Patriarchal Sex”? I tell you, if you ever want to read a radical feminist author expounding weak arguments, then read Jensen’s article.
You also may be interested to hear that Jensen's believes sex with women, in this culture, is to "fuck" women. In our language, the word fuck is often used as a form of violence whether verbal or otherwise. We have insults like "Fuck you!", interjections "Fuck!" or "Fuck you up" or "fucking someone over". It is no surprise to Jensen that we use "fucking" to refer to sex. Women are to be "fucked"; women are to be controlled, dominated and submitted. For Jensen, we are raised in rapist ethics. Consequently, it also follows that, for Jensen, masturbation over porn is also "fucking" women and a form of violence.
One of my criticisms for Jensen in this respect is that we also used the verb "fucking" to refer to shooting the shit or relaxing. For instance, "my buddies and I are just fucking around"or "we are just fucking about". Here we have the verb "fucking"be used in a sense that is free from violence. Also, it is overly simplistic to think of sex
only in terms of "fucking". For, we have other verbs like "making love" to refer to sex but a romaticized form of sex. This action of "making love" cannot be reduced to "fucking" in the traditional sense of the words. They are entirely different, aren't they? Hence so long as"making love" is a form of sex but not fucking, then sex cannot be wholly deemed as "fucking" women. Consequently, "fucking" cannot be the necessary condition of sex like it is in premise 2 of the above deductive proof.
I hope you found this thread interesting.
I phail.
