Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity - a New Book by Robert Jensen

"Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity," is a new book just out with an important message for our time!

Author, Professor Robert Jensen is an outstanding researcher, journalist, and human being. He falls into the category of a truly great man. Robert and I have conversed regarding his work and I honor him for his courage and strength to speak out on a topic that is largely ignored, as it slowly permeates our society with unhealthiness.

Robert's work speaks to the often unspoken problems of a society that has created and supported the degradation, denigration, and objectification of women. Further, he clearly demonstrates the problems of a society where masculinity is defined by its power over, and use of women.

"Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, begins with the simple demand of the culture: "Be a man." It closes with a defiant response: "I chose to struggle to be a human being." And in between, it offers a candid and intelligent exploration of porn's devastating role in helping to define conventional masculinity. In other words: In our culture, porn makes the man.

Writing in his trademark conversational style with a rigorous analysis, Robert Jensen easily blends personal anecdotes from his years as a feminist anti-pornography activist with his scholarly research to show readers how mainstream pornography reinforces social definitions of manhood and influences men's attitudes about women and how they treat them.

Pornography is big business, a thriving multi-billion dollar industry so powerful it drives the direction of much media technology. It also makes for complicated politics. Anti-pornography arguments are frequently dismissed as patently “anti-sex”—and ultimately "anti-feminist"—silencing at the gate a critical discussion of pornography's relationship to violence against women and even what it means to be a "real man."


In his most personal and difficult book to date, Robert Jensen launches a powerful critique of mainstream pornography that promises to reignite one of the fiercest debates in contemporary feminism. At once alarming and thought-provoking, Getting Off asks tough but crucial questions about pornography, manhood, and paths toward genuine social justice."

Robert Jensen is a journalism Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center.

He is the author of The Heart of Whiteness: Race, Racism, and White Privilege and Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (both from City Lights Books); and Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream (Peter Lang).

He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu and his articles can be found online at http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/index.html

Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, is a recently released must read book!

Thank you to Robert Jensen for his excellent work!