I consider myself a feminist. I feel that men and women are equal in damn near everything. (I can't write my name in the snow, my husband can't give birth.) I have led my little battles to try to establish some sort of equality in specific areas (like trying to stop the guys from yelling "Run like a girl" when playing Quake). But one thing that I have never agreed on with the feminist society is the concept that pornography is an exploitation of women.

I just don't understand the concept in general and no one has ever been able to explain it to me. I am a woman (although some of my friends would disagree that the resemblance goes any further than the physical) but never have I once looked at a picture of a naked woman and thought, "Poor dear, being exploited like that!" Shit, no! Do you know how much money these women make? If Playboy came up to me and offered to pay me for posing in their magazine (like that would ever happen!) you'd feel the wind from my clothes flying off my body from miles away.

But why exploitation? Why aren't men considered to be exploited if they pose for Playgirl? Our resident Kato Kailin(sp?) compares it to prostitutes vs. gigolos. No woman holds the dream of being a prostitute, yet many men dream of being gigolos. It's all in the way the different genders view sex. Maybe. But I still think everybody has it backwards. Women aren't being exploited, we are exploiting men.

I learned at a rather young age that I could get damn near anything I wanted from a man, simply because I am female. (I was really good at it too. I once had a man literally give me the shirt off of his back.) Women have a power over men who view them purely as sexual objects. I figure, if a man is stupid enough to have that opinion, he's stupid enough to be exploited. I'm not ashamed of that nor do I consider it to be morally wrong.

Beauty is an attribute one is born with (or pays lots of money for). If pornography is exploitation, then so is hiring the smartest person for the job, or commissioning the best artist for the family portrait.

And if someone wants to pay me lots of money, they can exploit me all they want!

This is just stuff I was thinking about and felt that others should, too. Have any thoughts about it? Send 'em to me.