Benign Discrimination
Benign discrimination is a term used to describe the way that prejudicial language enters into the discourse through the normalizing of social codes. This kind of discriminatory language seems benign, but only because of its habitual use. Metaphor is engaged to reveal the inherent bias:
“for purposes of sex discrimination law, to be a woman means either to be like a man or to be like a lady. We have to meet either the male standard for males or the male standard for females.”
Pornography
The link between viewing pornography and committing rape becomes one that is fertile ground for creating metaphorical associations. Pornography as a stimulant for actual commitment of real life violent sexuality is made manifest through a series of imagery in which pornography is:
“like a loaded gun”
“like drinking salt water”
“the chemical of sexual addiction”
Men and Pornography
The subject of pornography’s influence on society is one that is rife with the opportunity for metaphor. The influence runs so deeply into the social fabric that of American sexuality that it offers almost unlimited opportunities for speaking about it from a variety of perspectives. For instance, from a young man who recognized the negative associations and wanted desperately to fight against it:
“I do not want to be a mechanical, goose-stepping follower of the Playboy bunny, because that it what I think it is”
Constitutional Freudianism
One of the more creative, imaginative, and enlightening metaphors to be found in the book comes about as the result of constitutional law colliding with Freudian psychology. Most likely few have ever looked at the Bill of Rights of through this perspective, but once presented, it is difficult to ignore:
“First Amendment absolutism, the view that speech must be absolutely protected, is not the law of the First Amendment. It is the conscience, the superego of the First Amendment, the implicit standard from which all deviations must be justified.”
Darkness
Darkness is everywhere in the fiction of the twentieth century. As a metaphor, it is the go-to symbol of the century. Turns out, however, that this predilection is not limited to fiction. Or even just creative non-fiction. Even the more academic levels of writing drawn upon the admittedly elastic properties of the word to be used metaphorically:
“The freer the access to sex in print, the more freedom there is, the sexier the sex is, and the more money they make. Any critique of this is seen as the forces of darkness moving in to have the government restrict existing freedom.”
