Last weekend was Stop Porn Culture’s anti-porn conference, and while it was said that registration was closed before attendance capacity was reached, some women did manage to attend; women who sought to engage with attendees and presenters about diverse viewpoints on pornography. They did not necessarily agree with the top-porn-culture/">Stop Porn Culture agenda, but wanted to observe and create balanced conversation around all viewpoints, if possible. On Twitter we followed the constantly-updated conference experiences of sex educator Megan Andelloux (HiOhMegan), student and sex-positive activist Mz. Aida (PledgeMistress), and blogger/homemaker/human resources professional Debauched Diva (debaucheddiva). While we eagerly await more blog posts or report summaries to come from anyone at the conference and read about their experiences there, Debauched Diva provides us with the first glimpse in her post topporncon.html">#stopporncon -- here are a few excerpts from a piece well worth reading in its entirety:
I don't think if this was the best weekend to pick for attending an anti-porn conference or not but that I exactly what I did.
Leading up to this weekend there were a few people who questioned my reasons for attending the Stop Porn Culture! There are many misconceptions of why and what I would do at this conference. I had few reasons for wanting to attend.
The first was to hear why this group was so against pornography. I already knew Donna Hughes would be there and from her past actions I knew what her radical viewpoint would be. But what I didn't know was who were these other group of people attending. What would their reasons for attending and their views be.
(...) The other reason I attended was because of something that happened to me in Vegas was I was out there for CineKink. As I sat in the lobby of the Onyx theatre in between screenings a young collage student came up to me asking about one of the panels that was being presented in Vegas. She specifically wanted to hear about the "Feminist Porn" screenings because as she explained to me she was taught in her woman's studies program there was no such thing as Feminist Porn.
What she went on to explain to me was that if it was porn made by women, for women then it was not actually called porn, but erotica. My mouth dropped opened at that point and I asked if she had ever heard of the Feminist Porn Awards.
The comments of this young woman and what she was being taught at her collage made me wonder why there was a woman's studies program teaching something such as that. (...) I took a lot of notes, tweeted some of their comments and unfortunately ended up becoming snarky in my tweets as the day progressed. There was so much misinformation and scare tactic's being used it became more difficult to sit and listen calmly to it.
At one point we were called out for being there to the entire room in a very angry speech by the organizer without her ever directly addressing us. The feelings I had as I sat there and watched the entire room cheer to the hateful speech of the organizer were not good. I don't think I've ever sat in a roomful of people who disliked me simply because my views differed from theirs. (...topporncon.html">read more, debaucheddomesticdiva.blogspot.com)
Note: in Debauched Diva's post, she estimates that Stop Porn's 2010 conference attendance was around 150.
I’m doing a series of write-ups on my blog. I’ve already posted the first two. The rest will be more about the meat of the conference.
Part I: http://molusgoabobinable.blogspot.com/2010/06/spc-series-part-i-introduction-to-stop.html
Part II: http://molusgoabobinable.blogspot.com/2010/06/spc-series-part-ii-purpose-rules-of.html
- Mz. Aida