You can either love it or hate it

Hi, all. My "Why I'm pro-porn" / "Who are you and why are you here?" post will be up shortly, but for now, I wanted to re-post something I originally wrote a year ago, almost to the date.

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On many occasions in the lovely ol' blogosphere, I've witnessed anti-porn feminists write a screed against porn and make categorical declarations about people who like porn (hey, here's one example); and then when someone who does like porn takes offense and says, wait a minute, speaking in broad generalizations like that is a misrepresentation, a bunch of angry radfems will descend on the person and ask how they can, in good conscience, support the trafficking of women as sexual slaves, the commodification of women's sexuality, the elevation of men's sexual desires above women's, and so on and so forth.*

Here's why this is ridiculous.

If you say, "I like music," no one assumes that you like every piece of music ever created. In fact, usually the follow-up question is, "What kinds of music do you like?"

There might be some kinds of music that you thoroughly, passionately love; music that you can listen to over and over again and never get sick of; music that speaks to you on a deeply personal level; music that is therapeutic for you - or just downright fun to dance to.

Some other kinds of music? Eh, you might feel like you could take it or leave it.

You might be annoyed by some of it.

You might find some of it downright weird.

You might be disturbed by some of it - e.g., violent lyrics in some rap music. On the other hand, you might see that as a healthy outlet for anger.

You might think that the commodification of "boy bands" stifles true musical creativity from getting the attention it deserves.

You might think that in the music industry as a whole, there is too much focus on monetary gain, and the barrier of entry is too difficult for small-time musicians starting out.

You might have strong ideological and/or pragmatic reasons for supporting independent artists - and still sing along with pop music on the radio.

The same goes for saying you like movies, books, sports, etc. - no one assumes you love the entire spectrum of it. Because, you know, that would be silly. People understand this. So, can someone explain to me why porn seems to be the exception?

* Ed. note: I apologize for the long-ass run-on.