A Feminist Overview of Pornography, Ending In a Defense Thereof

""Pornography benefits women, both personally and politically." This sentence opens my book XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography, and it constitutes a more extreme defense of pornography than most feminists are comfortable with. I arrive at this position after years of interviewing hundreds of sex workers...

Gender feminism looks at history and sees an uninterrupted oppression of women by men than spans cultural barriers. To them, the only feasible explanation is that men and women are separate and antagonistic classes, whose interests necessarily conflict. Male interests are expressed through and maintained by a capitalistic structure known as 'patriarchy'.

The root of the antagonism is so deep that it lies in male biology itself. For example, in the watershed book Against Our Will, Susan Brownmiller traces the inevitability of rape back to Neanderthal times when men began to use their penises as weapons. Brownmiller writes: "From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." [Emphasis in original.] How she acquired this knowledge of prehistoric sex is not known...

The assumed degradation is often linked to the 'objectification' of women: that is, porn converts them into sexual objects. What does this mean? If taken literally, it means nothing because objects don't have sexuality; only beings do. But to say that porn portrays women as 'sexual beings' makes for poor rhetoric. Usually, the term 'sex objects' means showing women as 'body parts', reducing them to physical objects. What is wrong with this? Women are as much their bodies as they are their minds or souls. No one gets upset if you present women as 'brains' or as 'spiritual beings'. If I concentrated on a woman's sense of humor to the exclusion of her other characteristics, is this degrading? Why is it degrading to focus on her sexuality?...

Other studies, such as the one prepared by feminist Thelma McCormick (1983) for the Metropolitan Toronto Task Force on Violence Against Women, find no pattern to connect porn and sex crimes. Incredibly, the Task Force suppressed the study and reassigned the project to a pro-censorship male, who returned the 'correct' results. His study was published.

What of real world feedback? In Japan, where pornography depicting graphic and brutal violence is widely available, rape is much lower per capita than in the United States, where violence in porn is severely restricted...

Pornography strips away the emotional confusion that so often surrounds real world sex. Pornography allows women to enjoy scenes and situations that would be anathema to them in real life. Take, for example, one of the most common fantasies reported by women -- the fantasy of 'being taken', of being raped.The first thing to understand is that a rape fantasy does not represent a desire for the real thing. It is a fantasy. The woman is in control of the smallest detail of every act.

Why would a healthy woman daydream about being raped?

There are dozens of reasons. Perhaps by losing control, she also sheds all sense of responsibility for and guilt over sex. Perhaps it is the exact opposite of the polite, gentle sex she has now. Perhaps it is flattering to imagine a particular man being so overwhelmed by her that he must have her. Perhaps she is curious. Perhaps she has some masochistic feelings that are vented through the fantasy. Is it better to bottle them up?"

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Feminism and Free speech: Pornography

"3. MEN WATCH PORNOGRAPHY AND COPY IT OR FORCE WOMEN TO DO WHAT THEY SEE

· Violence and intimidation existed for thousands of years before commercial pornography, and countries today with no pornography, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, do not boast strong women's rights records. Men have forced women to do things -- sexual and nonsexual -- for centuries. The problem is not sex, it's force.

· People do not mimic what they read or view in knee-jerk fashion. If they did, the feminist books of the last 25 years would have transformed this into a perfect feminist world. If they did, advertisers could run an ad and consumers would obey. Instead, businesses spend millions of dollars and still, the strongest motive for purchases is price. People juggle words and images -- good and bad -- with all the others that they have seen or heard, and with all their real life experiences. It is experience that is the strongest teacher.

· Men do not learn coercion from pictures of sex. They learn it from the violence and contempt for women in their families and communities where each generation passes down what sorts of force are acceptable, even "manly."

· Copycat theories are "porn made me do it" excuses for rapists and batterers. They relieve criminals of responsibility for their acts...

5. PORNOGRAPHY IS ONLY FOR MEN

· Half the adult videos in the U.S. are bought or rented by women alone or women in couples.

· Sexual health professionals recommend pornography as entertainment and information for women and men. It may enhance failing marriages and help couples talk about and experiment with sex. "