Why Oppose The Porn Industry?

I’d like to open this post by saying that I’m sorry mum, and please stop reading now.

With that out of the way, I’d also like to tell you what this post will (hopefully) achieve. I self-identify as a pro-sex, anti-porn socialist feminist. It would be helpful, at this point, to define and clarify some of that. When I say I’m pro-sex feminist, it means just that. I think that the act of sex is a wonderful, natural thing, and encourage everyone to do what makes them happy*. Honestly, all I can say on this matter is that good sex is one of the finest pleasures in life, and if more people were sexually fulfilled, I think the world would be a better place. We shall come on to the anti-porn matter in time (pun NOT intended, take your mind out of the gutter). Socialist feminism I think is best described this way: 

"Socialist feminism (sometimes known as Marxist feminism) is different than liberal feminism in that it emphasizes that true equality will not be achieved without major overhauls within society-- particularly economic overhauls. Socialist feminists argue that there are fundamental inequalities built in to a capitalist society because power and capital are distributed unevenly. Thus, it's not enough for women to individually work to rise to powerful positions in society; rather, power needs to be redistributed throughout society. Liberal feminists focus on individual empowerment, while socialist feminists focus on collective change and empowerment.”  

I should also point out at this juncture that I am an anti-capitalist, which informs my views on feminism and pornography. If anyone would like me to expand on this in comments or a separate post, I will. With this post, I hope to set out the reasons why my political philosophies mean I cannot accept pornography, and I hope to also answer the most common counter-arguments I encounter when espousing these views. This post was written with the invaluable help of Georgie (AKA @mortari), to whom I am eternally grateful. I will denote the parts she wrote in italics.

(*within obvious boundaries)

Now that the disclaimers are out of the way, let us approach the main course of the post - why do we oppose the pornography industry? I would recommend, as a must read, this post by Gail Dines and Robert Jensen. I feel that it represents my ideas most excellently. To quote; 

“As leftists, we reject the sexism and racism that saturates contemporary mass-marketed pornography. As leftists, we reject the capitalist commodification of one of the most basic aspects of our humanity. As leftists, we reject corporate domination of media and culture. Anti-pornography feminists are not asking the left to accept a new way of looking at the world but instead are arguing for consistency in analysis and application of principles.”

Also,

“Pornography is fantasy, of a sort. Just as television cop shows that assert the inherent nobility of police and prosecutors as protectors of the people are fantasy. Just as the Horatio Alger stories about hard work’s rewards in capitalism are fantasy. Just as films that cast Arabs only as terrorists are fantasy.

All those media products are critiqued by leftists precisely because the fantasy world they create is a distortion of the actual world in which we live. Police and prosecutors do sometimes seek justice, but they also enforce the rule of the powerful. Individuals in capitalism do sometimes prosper as a result of their hard work, but the system does not provide everyone who works hard with a decent living. Some tiny number of Arabs are terrorists, but that obscures both the terrorism of the powerful in white America and the humanity of the vast majority of Arabs.

Such fantasies also reflect how those in power want subordinated people to feel. Images of happy blacks on the plantations made whites feels more secure and self-righteous in their oppression of slaves. Images of contented workers allay capitalists’ fears of revolution. And men deal with their complex feelings about contemporary masculinity’s toxic mix of sex and aggression by seeking images of women who enjoy pain and humiliation.

Why do so many on the left seem to assume that pornographers operate in a different universe than other capitalists? Why would pornography be the only form of representation produced and distributed by corporations that wouldn’t be a vehicle to legitimize inequality? Why would the pornographers be the only media capitalists who are rebels seeking to subvert hegemonic systems?”

And: 

“Contemporary mass-marketed heterosexual pornography - the bulk of the market for sexually explicit material - is one site where a particular meaning of sex and gender is created and circulated. Pornography’s central ideological message is not hard to discern: Women exist for the sexual pleasure of men, in whatever form men want that pleasure, no matter what the consequences for women. It’s not just that women exist for sex, but that they exist for the sex that men want.

Despite naïve (or disingenuous) claims about pornography as a vehicle for women’s sexual liberation, the bulk of mass-marketed pornography is incredibly sexist. From the ugly language used to describe women, to the positions of subordination, to the actual sexual practices themselves - pornography is relentlessly misogynistic. As the industry “matures” the most popular genre of films, called “gonzo,” continues to push the limits of degradation of, and cruelty toward, women. Directors acknowledge they aren’t sure where to take it from the current level.

This misogyny is not an idiosyncratic feature of a few fringe films. Based on three studies of the content of mainstream video/DVD pornography over the past decade, we conclude that woman-hating is central to contemporary pornography. Take away every video in which a woman is called a bitch, a cunt, a slut, or a whore, and the shelves would be nearly bare. Take away every DVD in which a woman becomes the target of a man’s contempt, and there wouldn’t be much left. Mass-marketed pornography doesn’t celebrate women and their sexuality, but instead expresses contempt for women and celebrates the charge of expressing that contempt sexually.”

I also oppose pornography for the body fascism that is endemic to the culture and the way that it seeps over into the mainstream as a ‘norm’. 

In a culture of gender inequality it is impossible to make porn which isn't oppressive. Society commodifies women's bodies such that any monetising of female sexuality will reinforce the objectification and degredation of women. While woman are considered sexual things first and human beings second, any sale of sexual material featuring women will be dehumanising and exploitative.

On the problem with porn:

Is is hard to describe just how violent and degrading most pornography is. A 2010 study analysed the content of a selection of popular pornographic films (*footnote). Its findings included:

• 88% of scenes contained physical aggression, including spanking, gagging, and slapping. 
• nearly half of all scenes included name-calling, most commonly "bitch" or "slut".
• Women were overwhelmingly the targets of aggressive acts, and men the perpetrators.
• Following instances of aggression towards women, in 95% of cases the women expressed pleasure or neutrality.

The message of these porn films is clear: not only is violence and verbal abuse against women acceptable and sexual exciting, but woman enjoy and are aroused by this treatment. 

As Gail Dines said, "Pornography is the perfect propaganda piece for patriarchy. In nothing else is their hatred of us quite as clear."

Footnote: Bridges et al. analysed a randomised selection of 50 films from a list of the 250 best-selling and the 250 most-rented videos from December 2004 to June 2005, as selected and reported by pornography industry publication Adult Video News. These 50 films comprised of a total of 304 scenes.

Now, to the counter-arguments, and our counter-counter-arguments.

Isn’t it all about choice? Surely that’s what feminists want, women to be able to choose their own paths? The women in pornographic films chose to appear in them.

Yes, in a manner of speaking they did*. However, choice does not exist in a vacuum. I do not oppose the womens’ right to be in the films, I oppose the films themselves. Here is a rather good post about why a person’s freedom to conform to a certain stereotype does not mean that it is good for the people as a whole. (*I would point out that many ‘porn stars’ are failed actresses that needed to make the rent. This is obviously not true of every woman in porn, but I would suggest that it is rare to find a woman making pornographic films who had made a conscious effort to do so as a vocation.)

Well, they make good money. Surely that’s empowering?

Without willing to sound glib, there are plenty of things people do for money. Just because you enjoy the things they do does not make it empowering for them. Imagine if I paid you a million pounds to eat elephant shit. Would you consider that empowering because you were paid such a high amount?

But women produce female-friendly porn!

Yes, they do. I still find this objectionable because of my anti-capitalist views. I also feel that the fact that ‘female-friendly’ porn is a thing, and such a tiny proportion of the pornography market rather reinforces my opinion of the industry as generally misogynist. If porn were truly equal to the sexes, it would not need to exist.

Women can hold sexist attitudes too, and female-produced porn can be just as problematic. A 2008 study found that female-directed pornography was just as likely to contain aggression against women as male-directed pornography.

Porn degrades men too!

Not to the same extent as it degrades women, or with the same consequences. Women have traditionally been oppressed, so images that propagate this are, I feel, more harmful than images which break the gender binary and show something unexpected. (see also, my opinions on misandrist comedy as an allegory in this old post)

What if the women like being submissive during sex?

I have no problem with women enjoying submission during consensual sexual encounters which take place with the knowledge that the submission only belongs in the bedroom.

I/a friend of mine worked in porn and enjoyed it.

My answer (inspired by Meaghan Murphy) would be: I am glad that you enjoyed your experience, really. However, just because you as an individual woman found this empowering, that does not mean that the porn industry is not harmful for women generally. There can often be conflicts between what is good for us personally, and what benefits us as a group. The intention here is not to demonise women who have worked in porn - they need to pay the bills just like everyone else, and the point is not to criticise their choices. However, whatever the feelings of the performers involved might be, selling images of women as sexual objects which exist for the titillation of men only reinforces sexist attitudes.

What about if it isn’t a capitalist venture?

I feel that consensual pornography made for users by users with no capitalist aspects would tend to have less misogyny and therefore be ultimately preferable to any output from the porn industry.

Do you just want to ban all sexual thoughts?

I absolutely do not want to ban sexual thought. What I do object to is people thinking they have some kind of god-given right to act on their sexual thoughts. For one example, see street harassment. If I am walking down the road and see someone that I think is really attractive, it would never occur to me in a million years to shout something or believe that they would appreciate me doing so, or to do it and be offended if they don’t respond positively! Also, see objectification. I get that we all see other human beings sexually, but when it becomes ALL people see women as, it's a problem.

Can anti-porn feminists coexist with pro-porn feminists?

Of course we can coexist peacefully. Our main objectives remain the same. Feminism is not a monolithic culture that should always share the same opinions. I like to think that feminism is allegorical to Christianity – even though we may disagree on the fine details of how to practice it, we all have the same central objective.

So do you want to censor/ban porn?

No. I am not a proponent of censorship, and even if I were, a ban on pornography would be practically unworkable. Making pornography illegal would make it harder to regulate the industry, which could be dangerous for the women working in it. I would like to live in a world in which pornography was eradicated because there was no market for it. My desire is to persaude people that they do not need to see images of objectification and degredation to satisfy themselves sexually.

But all men watch porn! How could this ever change?

It is important to question men who use porn, and to challenge them on its sexism. It should not be socially acceptable to use porn. Like the use of racial epithets or other hate speech, sexist attitudes and the use of porn can be denounced by social peers. If porn were not so tolerated, people would think more carefully about its social consequences and would be less likely to use it.

  

So there you have it. With regards to the comments on this post, I’d encourage reasonable discourse about the points I address. I will try and answer everything (caveat – I will be mainly offline between Monday 27th – Friday 1^st, but will try address everything eventually). Obvious usual comment rules apply, but I’d also like to add that I don’t want to see derailing. We’re talking about the pornography industry. We are not talking about prostitution. Any arguments or suppositions about my feelings towards women (or men, trans* people) who work in the sex industry are unwelcome and probably wrong.

And one last thought: You have imaginations. Use them. Embrace them.