Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Did he deserve it? If so, good for you! Do you have children by this
beast? (I realize we are getting up close and personal but hey that's
what happens to celebs!)
  

    
Let's just say - I left him didn't I? And no kids. Just a dog that I
got custody of. And that's not the most personal question I've been
asked this week.
  

    
MJ, you have said you used to be in advertising. What campaigns did you work
on that we might be familiar with?
  

    
Lets see, I won the NOW pig award inthe 80's for bringing back the
Maidenform woman and keeping her underessed in public... I did loads of
commercials in the 80's for MacDonald's and Opium perfume and Jhirmack
Shampoo and Sharp electronic products and ban de Soliel and Enfamil
Baby food.  My most famous was "Think Big, Big Mac Big" for Macdonalds.
But my best work was for the NYPD - the commercial i did for them got
in the Musuem of Modern Art's Broadcast Collection. But only about ten
people saw it.
  

    


When was this, and what was the ad?
  

    
The NYPD spot was done about five years ago... and it showed a young
man on a building ledge being talked down by a policewoman. 
  

    
> I won the NOW pig award inthe 80's for bringing back the
>  Maidenform woman and keeping her underessed in public...

I suspect I shouldn't, but I'm LOL at that.
  

    
Laughing at my typo or the fact that I did do that campaign? Or the
fact that I got the PIG award.

I don't blame you for laughing at any or all. 

I was 22 years old... fresh out of college - the copywriter assigned
to the account was pregnant and went into labor three weeks early and I
was the only other female writer in the agency.  The creative director
gave me the assignment to do a campaign for Maidenform Bras and I
remebered those ads from when I was a kid and thought it would be fun
to bring her back as a liberated woman...

When we won the PIG award the creative director kindly - he thought -
lied about who the writer had been so I wouldn't get hate mail - being
a woman and doing ads that were so demeaning. 

Almost 20 years later, let me take this oppy to apologize. 
  

    
I love that story! I've gotten hate mail to my website (not up
currently) for being a "tool of the patriarchy" because I wrote about
sex for money as empowerment. So, have you gotten any flak from NOW or
feminists or women about LIP SERVICE? 
  

    
Last night I typed "lipservice.com" instead of "readlipservice.com" and
found myself at an interesting website.  Unfortunately, there was no
anewanais.  

I managed to find the right address somehow.
  

    
Yes, I know that other address takes you to quite a different site
than mine... glad you found the right address. 



And as to Feminist flack... not yet. A professor of Poetry at
Northridge, Cal does think that Lip Service should be included in
feminist lit classes and was going to try to do something about getting
it on the roster. I found that intertersting... but can't imagine it
will happen.



I'm waiting for the flack... I'm expecting it and worse. We'll see how
tough my hide is... my guess is its not tough enough.
  

    
>  Laughing at my typo or the fact that I did do that campaign? Or the
>  fact that I got the PIG award.

I was laughing at the "keeping her underdressed" part (I just saw right
past the typo). It seems to me that Madonna was doing her Boy Toy tour at
that time, wearing bras and girdles as outerwear right about the time your
Maidenform bra campaign hit, too. So there's even more irony to the PIG
award, since in another arena, wearing underwear as outwear was a statement
of liberation, not subjugation.
  

    
I myself cannot stand the feminist "debate" about pornography, because
it has not evolved since it began in the late 70s; except that more
feminists have come to see the light, that sex can be empowering, that
the trouble with porn has been, historically, that it's so
male-centered, as is everything else in our culture. With that
changing, they are coming around.

But, MJ, should you be asked by an interviewer if you feel that
portraying phone sex as empowering to women is a delusion or worse,
what would you say? (You probably want to hit me for this
question!--still, it's a chance to practice, just in case)
  

    
I can answer this one quick, since one of the characters in the book
says just this to Julia - the woman in the book who has just become
empowered by doing all this phone sex. 



There are women for whom it would be a delusion or worse. But I am
only talking about one woman - Julia Sterling. And for her phone sex is
empowering. 



Feminism, to moi, is allowing each and every woman to live her life as
she sees fit: to use power and gain power and respons to power (and
everything else in her life) as an individual.
  

    

Since we're talking about what feminism means to people today, I might as
well ask about this, though it's off the topic of Lip Service...

> I myself cannot stand the feminist "debate" about pornography, because
> it has not evolved since it began in the late 70s;

I had to scratch my head at that and wonder what authors or thinkers
you're referring to there, since things look very different to me decade
by decade in the various subgroups of self-described feminists.
  

    
That question is really for Marcy since she's the one Gail is
quoting... Marcy?
  

    
Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon, Women Against Pornography, Women
Against Violence Against Women, all began their "crusades" against porn
in the late 70s. They claimed that "porn is the theory, rape the act."
They still say this. Yes, younger feminists feel quite differently,
and people like Glorie Steinem et al have struggled valiantly to define
a woman-centered expression of sexuality. But I still hear the old
debates going on. I don't read the new books, but I know that, for ex.,
Diana Russell still preaches the antiporn gospel.
  

    
anewanais, what do you think of the "porn is the theory, rape is the act"
stance Marcy mentions above?
  

    

Cynthia's question is indeed the one that has been lurkin beneath this most
recent discussion.
  

    
This is such a tough issue isn't it?  I don't think "porn is the
theory" works for all porn. Yes, of course it does for some porn. But
the bigger issue to me is freedom - and if we have freedom of speech
then we have freedom of every kind of speech. Do I wish we could get
rid of anti-semitism, biogotry and racism? Of course. Do I wish men
would stop objectifying women? Yes, but... how can we allow some things
and not others  without seriously damaging our rights. 



As a woman, writing a book about a woman, I don't think I've written
porn. As a woman seeing porn, I don't feel humiliated all the time only
some of the time. But then again, I feel just as humiliated if not
more so by women's magazines who write idiotic articles about getting,
finding and keeping men happy, by the ads for miracle makeup products
that make women look like gulible guniea pigs and  I'm more angry at
women who have tons of plastic surgery to keep the myth of "youth is
all" alive than I am at some of the porn I've seen. 



An interesting note - when I did the research for LIP SERVICE I spoke
to a half a dozen women who did phone sex for a living and none of them
felt objectified or humiliated - quite the opposite - quite a few felt
it was the men who humiliated and who they felt sorry for. These women
felt they were getting paid a lot of moeny for doing an easy job.  
  

    
>>I don't think "porn is the theory" works for all porn.
>>Yes, of course it does for some porn.

 It does? Does this mean you believe that some porn incites rape?


>>I'm more angry at women who have tons of plastic surgery to keep
>>the myth of "youth is all" alive than I am at some of the porn
>>I've seen.

Does this cause any conflict for you with the previously stated 
belief that feminism is all about being able to do whatever you
want to do?
  

    
I believe that some porn does make rape seem more acceptable to some
men. But still - despite that - I don't know how we could as a society
regulate some people from having freedom of speech  and not others. To
me its the same issue as some movies with gratuitous violence, where
the perp of the violence is seen as the hero, give some poor misguided
souls the idea that if they too were violent, they too would be heroic.
That doesn't mean I advoacte stopping violence. It just means I wish
people would take more responsibility for what they create.



Which leads me to my asnwer for your second question - a conflict? No.
We should all be able to do what we want. Have a ton of plastic
surgury or have none.I just get mad at the women who do it to excess
becuase its so demeaning and I just wish that we lived in a society
where superficial, youthful beauty was not the be all end all.



 In France, for instance, youthful beuaty is admired and coveted. But
there is also another beauty that is appreciated too - the woman over
40. Women over 40 are not as afraid of their wrinkles in France. They
perceive themselves, and others percieve them in a much more positive
view than we do in America. 
  

    

Makes sense. Being able to do what we want (insert a traditional caveat 
that nods to the concept of unaceptable acts, malicious harm, mass 
murder, rape, etc)  can not preclude expressing criticism, or attempting 
to sway popular culture or peer pressure.
  

    
In my view, the form of "feminism" which says that women have the
right to live their lives exactly as they choose, but yet is not
accepting of those choices, is hypocritical and meaningless.


>>>I believe that some porn does make rape seem more acceptable to
>>>some men.

Which porn is the bad porn? The seventies feminists were quite clear
on their "porn is the theory" tastes, condemning male-created porn that
objectified women, which was most everything around then. I assume
that sex-positive erotica (Susie Bright, Herotica books, etc.) are good
porn, since the sex-positive definition might be anything that goes on
between consenting adults. Where is the line on the rest?

For example, in your book you include a detailed, graphic,
pornographic passage describing the supposed sexual abuse of a teenage
girl by her stepfather, including her being burned by a cigarette
during sex. Is this the good kind of porn or the bad kind?
  

    
>>>In my view, the form of "feminism" which says that women have the

right to live their lives exactly as they choose, but yet is not

accepting of those choices, is hypocritical and meaningless.>>>>



I not sure I understand what you mean - but let me clarify my position
on this - I am accepting  any choices any woman makes. I'm simply
sorry that so many woman buy into the youth and beauty myth. I think it
damages our self esteem. 



The passage in my book that you refer to - about sexual abuse of a
teenager is not written to titilate the reader - it clearly the warped
sexual fantasy of the man who is relating it.  I'm frankly surpised
that anyone reading the book, who has read Julia's ( the main
character) reaction to the deviate on the phone would imagine that I
inteneded this man's sickness as anything but a disturbed man's
fantasy.



I'm simply a writer who in this particular novel explored one woman's
experience. My novel is not a treatise on porn - good porn or bad porn.
My story is not intended to support or not support the porn industry
or moralize on it. 



I'm not confortable speaking for feminists, only for myself. And for
myself, I'm sorry if my answer about porn being the theory isn't
satisfying. Its just that in my experience I don't see the majority of
porn being any more or less damaging to the people I know who use it or
enjoy it than violent movies are - or for that matter any more of less
damaging that the media's fascination with youthful beauty. All of the
above can do damage. Or no damage. I am more of an "Indivualist" than
any thing else.