Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

1.2K followers 410 following 780 posts

when I say, "I love coffee," what I mean is, "I love David Lynch, who also loved coffee."
FINISHED READING WAR AND PEACE BY LEO TOLSTOY 28 OCTOBER, 2025
Judy Cuevas super-fan 🕎
scarrstuff.com

Posts Replies Media Videos

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

I read the source the paper cited, A Sensible Antiporn Feminism by A. W. Eaton, and it did also suck!

feedback effects of pornography for individual users: desire for pornography - pornography usage - sexist attitudes - leads back to desire for pornography

As a remedy, this article offers a careful and nuanced delineation of pornography's alleged harms, recognizing a wide range of potential injuries that differ in terms of character and severity. Third, and related, we are sensitive to the entire range of pornography's putative harms when proposing means of prevention and redress. A sensible APF is cautious and judicious and not necessarily in favor of state regulation of pornography. Fourth, we understand the claim that pornography causes harm as a hypothesis that has yet to be conclusively proved (or refuted) and that must be tested empirically. This article proposes that APF employ the methods of epidemiology-our current best science of causes—in attempting to verify the harm hypothesis. Fifth, a sensible APF holds that gender inequality is the cumulative effect of multiple factors, of which inegalitarian pornography is just one. This is to say, we adhere to a multicomponent view of causality in which pornography is one factor in a complex causal mechanism. We do not hold pornography solely responsible for gender inequality, nor do we think that elimination of pornography would solve all our problems. Sixth, and related, we also construe the causal relation between pornography and its purported harms probabilistically and as holding ceteris paribus. This is to say, exposure to pornography is neither necessary nor sufficient for its putative injuries but rather raises the chances of harm depending on context. Seventh, and finally, we conceive of pornography's role in sexism on the model of a feedback loop: at the same time that inegal-itarian pornography is the result of gender inequality, it also facilitates and accelerates this inequality, and it does so cumulatively.

November 16, 2025 at 2:38 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

I was supposed to do things today not spiral about this piece of shit paper

KEYWORDS
Romance; popular romance studies; pornography; sex; feminism; romance genre;
genre fiction; pro-sex feminism; anti-porn feminism

The romance genre is a powerful educative tool which can - and should - advocate for the realities of sex, and present egalitarian pursuits of pleasure, so as to remind young people (but specifically women) that what sex is, and could become, lies with them
(Srinivisan 2021, 71).

November 15, 2025 at 7:59 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

anyway art doesn’t need to be didactic (romance is art, porn is art)

I have discovered since, has a much smaller purpose and a much more immediate benefit. Good writing is about honesty, about finding Your own view to the truth and expressing it as articulately as possible in your own individual voice, so that a reader can try your world out for a day or two and test it against her own. To the extent that social or philosophical realities feminism, humanism, postmodernism, all the isms have shaped my thinking (and many have), then these have shaped my work. But I support no philosophies or trends in my writing that derive from a sense of social responsibility.
Romance has often found itself heaped with more than its share of burden when it comes to social responsibilities. One example that comes immediately to mind is the attack on romance from feminist quarters in the last decade, which claims that romance fosters unhealthy sexual roles for women. I won't even argue whether this claim has merit; it doesn't, but merit is not my point. First of all, I take exception to anyone who would have romance novels take on a responsibility that no other branch of literature is asked to shoulder: namely the "molding" —or
"mismolding," some would say—of its readers. Anne Tyler writes rather charmingly of dysfunctional families yet is not blamed for creating them.
Norman Mailer has written with interest and some sympathy for murderers yet has never had seriously to defend himself as the cause of murders. Vladimir Nabokov is not these days blamed for pedophilia; such examples are infinite. Why a romance that portrays one rotten thing or another should then have to defend itself or, God forbid, the entire genre against perpetuating unhealthy attitudes is beyond me.

Rotten things are part of life. People liking rotten things is a part of life. If someone can portray rotten values at work in a sympathetic way, what a feat! What a work of art! I've seen it done well in romances, and ! applaud it. I've seen it done badly in romances and this is my point and I loathe the work. But not for its subject matter. Rather, for its creator's failure of imagination.
Romance, I suspect, will never gain the stature it covets because of the social issues it addresses. Moreover, if we seek praise for the issues we address, we are likely to win it and find ourselves on the same plane as writers of good self-improvement pamphlets. Or worse, the writers of good propaganda that supports the current regime, the party line. That is not to say that if an issue speaks to a writer, she should not write about it. We all have content, ideas to get across. I am only saying that the whole notion of "issues" smacks of a kind of self-censorship to me. l hate to think of a writer looking for a "good topic" instead of a compelling topic, a social topic instead of her own topic particular to her

November 15, 2025 at 6:12 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

every time I read some bonehead romance academic that makes reference to porn my blood pressure drops and I want to scream.

every time I read some bonehead academic paper on romance and porn my blood pressure drops and I want to scream.

November 15, 2025 at 5:58 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

I am my most annoying self rn
(it has been two weeks and one day since I finished reading WAR AND PEACE)

November 13, 2025 at 11:54 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

life update:

screenshot from goodreads: 28 October, 2025 I finished reading war and peace!

October 28, 2025 at 9:25 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

a few more …

October 26, 2025 at 9:01 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante

October 26, 2025 at 8:53 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

four books to get to know me

October 26, 2025 at 8:53 PM

Sara they/them

@scarr.bsky.social

I love the dive into the translation!
the first time I read Beast I was 😬😵‍💫 but the second time I read it, I fell pretty hard for the language and the descriptions - just exquisite.

I think about this passage from Beast all the time: