Question: if Equality Now's platform is gender equality -- which is a different platform from the advancement of women over men! -- then I have to ask why this letter focuses so heavily on the r*** of school girls and of women and not human beings in general. While not nearly as common in porn, the theme of women forcing themselves on men is quite prevalent in hentai. And it goes in so many different directions!
- sometimes the little sister forces herself onto her big brother
- sometimes it's the older sister who does it to the younger brother
- sometimes it's a female classmate who tires of the boy's indecisiveness and forces the first few moves upon him
- sometimes it's Mary Kay Letourneau in anime form as she proceeds to foot-fuck a male student's dick and gradually warm him up to the idea of having sex with his teacher
I don't think Equality Now means to fight against r*** in fictional sexual media. I think their genuine goal is to fight against the sexual objectification of women in such media. And that's something I can't deny: hentai definitely portrays women as the closer of the two genders to being a bonafide sex object. Either everyone's pretty or just the girl is. Ugly guys fuck women -- any woman will do, but normally the women are hot -- while ugly girls rarely get to have any sex. Whenever a girl calls over her tutor, she's either hoping to have sex or else she isn't but is pleasantly surprised when he makes the moves on her anyway. Whenever a sister and a brother are in the bathtub together, either the sister wants to have sex or else she doesn't but soon gives in and enjoys it anyway. Almost always, whether the woman is portrayed as victorious or not, whether she enjoys a happy ending or a bleak and miserable one, almost always does she encounter sex. And in so doing, it is fair to say that hentai portrays women as being inextricable from sex. Hentai programs men to think "women, sex. Sex, women." When there are no women in the scene, there's never any sex. When there are women in the scene, there's bound to be sex in just a few moments.
But the thing is, that's what all porn does! It sexually objectifies the main characters! When I watch a porno of Hamasaki Rio pretending to be a teacher, I could give two shits about her professional interests, her salary, how long she's been working there, who her favorite students are, etc. Teacher, nurse, maid: the profession serves as nothing more than a fetish, a garnish if you will for the main course -- her, Hamasaki Rio, a delicious woman made from meat and fat and bone and spirit. It is the woman, in all her sexual glory, who I have tuned in to see -- not the teacher, not the daughter, not the mother, but the woman.
So, fundamentally, I think that Equality Now is dilly-dallying. I think that they know who their true opponent is but they know that if they go up against him guns a-blazin' that they'll lose the people's support.
Why? Because, fundamentally, their real enemy is pornography period.
Does porn sexually objectify women? Yes. Case closed: Equality Now is against the sexual objectification of women, therefore they are against pornography period.