December 27, 1991. op-ed page, New York Times To the Editor: Catherine A. MacKinnon's "Palm Beach Hanging" (Op-Ed, Dec. 15) exudes the prejudice that permeates feminist legal theory. Referring to men as a "group sexually trained to woman-hating aggression" and as a "group who aggress," she stereotypes millions of innocent men as rapists and fosters the concept of collective guilt invoked by Hitler and Stalin to justify exterminating racial and political minorities. Ms. MacKinnon claims that rape is sex discrimination against women. But rape is a crime that victimizes not only women, but also thousands of men annually, especially prison detainees. Occasionally, women even rape men. Although rape against women is typically accompanied by less violence than male rape, Ms. MacKinnon seeks civil remedies for female, but not male victims, violating men's right to equal protection. Professor MacKinnon defames men by comparing the pornography they read to photographs of lynchings sold by racists. Pornography incites lust, not violence. Men purchase more pornography than women do because men have more heavily visual sexual-arousal patterns, not because they hate women. Moreover, pornographic consumption is not limited to men: Playgirl magazine has 600,000 subscribers, while I, a man, never purchase pornography. Ms. MacKinnon displayed a sexist bias in 1983 when she wrote a Minneapolis ordinance, promptly ruled unconstitutional, that banned pornography depicting women, but not pornography depicting men. In 1983 also, she called on Minneapolis to ban as "pornographic" French and Italian art films, works by avante-garde artists and even Rolling Stones album advertisements. She later wrote that nearly all heterosexual sex is rape, questioning even "whether consent is a meaningful concept." She thus defines nearly every man as a rapist. Ms. MacKinnon says she wants to vindicate the civil rights of women. But if her nightmarish vision became a reality, civil rights for men and free expression for all of us would be but a fond memory. Hans Bader Highland, Md., Dec. 16, 1991 The writer is a law student