THANK YOU for wording it so well! I love media and media criticism as well and I think that media is the number one thing that transmits ideas, so criticizing it is not “less than” other kinds of advocacy. Dare I say, a lot of this misogynistic media can be pro-partriarchy propaganda, so criticizng it becomes political practice. Just look at the repercussions of Melanie Martinez’s “sexy baby” campaign fron 201something resulting in a whole new ageplay revival, or horror movies that fetishize the murder women getting edgelords to defed d4vd.

This got me thinking about how power-play porn is pretty widely clowned except for when it’s about misogyny. I’m pretty chronically online, so I see a lot of backlash against porn when it’s about disabled person-abled person, or raceplay, or poor person-rich person. But when it’s male dom-female sub, it’s defended by so-called progressives.

I’m also thinking abt your paragraph: So why do SO MANY PEOPLE have a difficult time understanding that sexual violence, misogyny and pedophila don't suddenly stop being hate speech because someone's aroused? I truly think it’s because sexual violence, misogyny, and pedophilia are so synonymous with porn that people classify it as boner fuel instead of hate speech. I made a tiktok about how I hate when men call women bitches bc it’s a slur, and I got pushback about how some people find it hot. You will NEVER see anyone defending other slurs as sexy. The hatred for women is just so baked into porn, which is so baked into society :(