Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by: Andrea ... - Feminish

from other men. A female’s bodily integrity or well-being is notprotected because of the value of the woman as a human being inher own right.T he relatively low incidence of male sexual assault against males,as contrasted with the pervasive assaults against females, cannot beattributed to de jure proscriptions. Rape of women, battery ofwives, forcible incest with daughters, are also proscribed by malelaw but are widely practiced with virtual impunity by men. T hekey is not in what is forbidden but in what is sanctioned, really andtruly sanctioned. Sexual violence against women and girls issanctioned and encouraged for a purpose: the active and persistentchanneling of male sexual aggression against females protects menand boys rather effectively from male sexual abuse. T he system isnot perfect, but it is formidable.T he homophobe’s citing of actual or potential or projected orfeared sexual abuse of boys in particular also functions to sustainmale supremacy by obscuring this crucial fact: male sexual aggressionis the unifying thematic and behavioral reality of malesexuality; it does not distinguish homosexual men from heterosexualmen or heterosexual men from homosexual men. An absence orrepudiation of this aggression, which is exceptional and which doesexist in an eccentric and minuscule minority composed of bothhomosexual and heterosexual men, distinguishes some men frommost men, or, to be more precise, the needle from the haystack.Prostitution, especially boy prostitution, and prisons are theprimary social institutions through which men express explicitsexual aggression against other males. Sexual abuse of males bymen docs take place in other areas, though its frequency, if not itseffect, is unknown.While females as a class are always targeted for sexual abuse,boys and men are targeted according to their devalued position inan exclusively male hierarchy. Youth, poverty, and race are thespecial characteristics that target males as possible victims of othermen. Youth functions to target a male because a youth is not yetfully dissociated from women and children. T he experiencing ofsexual aggression is initiatory; the boy can cross over, soak up the