Pornography and Female Objectification

by:  Lexie Tourek

Mass produced videos of the “barely legal” girl, the Asian sex-slave, and the impossibly perfect blonde objectify, oppress, and stereotype every womyn. It does not matter that these womyn are filmed voluntarily, that men recognize the fantastical nature of pornographic material, or that no one is physically harmed. Every explicit sexual image degrades womyn in the eyes and minds of porn’s audience and creates expectations regarding how womyn are supposed to look, act, and respond sexually.

Feminist scholar and UM professor Catharine MacKinnon offers a brilliant counterargument to the defense of pornography as an avenue for “liberation”: she argues that pornographic material is an obscene creation that actively constructs a sexual reality in which womyn are, in effect, made submissive, not only depicted as such.  In this sense, the very existence of explicit sexual images of womyn (and men) removes the very possibility of gender equality.  So long as people make porn a part of their lives, its social repercussions will affect everyone, regardless of whether he or she views it.

There is no opportunity for equality when pornography thrives in an undetected and un-debated social realm; sexual representations link female gender with a womyn’s sexuality…

There is no opportunity for equality when pornography thrives in an undetected and un-debated social realm; sexual representations link female gender with a womyn’s sexuality, which becomes inseparable from tendentious images disseminated by a network of PlayBoy-esque industries propagating a proper form for what a womyn should be. Moreover, the sexual reality of pornography is not contained in the bedroom: objectification of womyn jeopardizes attempts for female economic and social equality when sexual stereotypes come to describe (and stigmatize) womyn as political subjects.

Within our highly sexualized culture, porn is not the only locus spreading harmful sexual representations, but it is one of the most powerful. Porn creates sexual norms, linking violence with pleasure and pleasure with male satisfaction. Cultural encouragements for womyn, to conform to this gendered dynamic, explains much of what we see today: many womyn aspire to change their bodies with plastic surgeries, hair removals, and diets to become the porn star. For males, “normal sex” entails a portrayal of the domination over female sexual partners as illustrated in porn.

Porn’s sewage seeps not only into our learned sexual roles, but further into other social and political roles. It is impossible to say whether the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace or the media’s fixation on what color lipstick Sarah Palin wore during the elections is a direct result of porn’s prescription of female sexuality, yet it is disturbing that a womyn’s role as a politician or employee must be viewed or complicated by sexuality. Porn cements the relationship between a womyn and her body to how society desires to see her body and to how men use her body.

As a corollary to this general description of dehumanization, the sexual portrayal of minorities creates and reinforces other stereotypes. Porn links race to false structures of sexual desire that unite separate systems of domination. Womyn of different socioeconomic classes are distinguished from one another by the types of sexual acts, and racist depictions of sexuality begin to perversely inform the base stereotypes upon which they thrive.

For example, a video featuring a “hard-working Latina” engaging in obscene sexual performance immediately distinguishes her identity from that of a white/privileged womyn; the fact that the Latina is seen engaging in indiscriminate and ‘filthy’ sex as if it were natural for her to do so disturbingly maps onto racial stereotypes describing the “colored womyn as insatiable sex-fiend” and makes the misapplication of assumptions about “her” identity (as standing in for all Latinas) all the easier, for it is (1) presented in the reinforcing context of the most extreme and basest objectification and (2) attended by the gratifying release of masturbatory orgasm.

Porn stands in for real life encounters, yet simultaneously constructs our fantasies into our reality. This has the most terrifying implications for gender relations in that womyn’s sexuality is shunted by a collective attitude and message that realization of sexual power or equality is not desirable or profitable. How are we supposed to change this dynamic when porn has such an ominous voice in our politics? Is it at all troubling that significant numbers of our public officials have documented problems with sex and sex addiction? Could a porn-based critique of legislative outcomes offer insight into why enormous inequalities still attach to gender in America?

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The Limitations of
Anti-Pornography Feminism

by:  Rachel Yung

Whether or not pornography contributes to sexualized violence against women and the extent of such an effect, have been hotly contested issues in feminist debate. Anti-pornography feminists tend to argue that porn is intimately linked to sexual violence and enables it, if not instigates it. In his essay “Using Pornography,” anti-pornography feminist Robert Jensen cites particular examples of men who claim that pornography “shaped [their] fantasies, increased the frequency of masturbation [ and, with regard to violence,] was ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’” (1998). Interestingly enough, every subject cited is described as “reluctant to blame his behavior on pornography, […] resist [ant to] putting sole or even primary blame for his abusive behavior on pornography” (ibid). Nonetheless, Jensen insists that the interviews reveal a causal link between pornography and sexual violence against women and children.

Scientific links between male aggression and pornography have been uncertain at best (Donnerstein et al. 1987), leading anti-porn feminists to claim that although “‘science’ has not yet conclusively shown a causal link between the use of pornography and sexual violence, […] such a link is beyond the capacity of science to determine” (Jensen ibid). There have thus been countless testimonies publicized by anti-porn feminists in which women who have been sexually abused recount their husbands and boyfriends wishes to reenact pornography. Yet as many anti-censorship feminists point out, pornography is not the source of the inequality here. Rather, as Carol reports, it is “the fact that men feel entitled to make these demands which is disgusting—not what they desire sexually” (Carol and Pollard 1993), and pinning the blame on pornography “trivialize[s] the degradation and pain of the majority of rape and abuse victims for whom pornography has been irrelevant” (Carol 1994).

…pornography is not the source of inequality here…

The arguments made by anti-porn feminism with regard to the exploitation of women in the porn industry are remarkably similar to feminist anti-prostitution arguments. Both anti-porn and anti-prostitution feminists argue that sex work is inherently harmful to women and that state action against sex work is needed to protect women from these occupations. There is an underlying assumption that the experiences of women in the sex business are uniformly negative, that they have been coerced into participating and their superiors are misogynistic males who actively enjoy using their positions to abuse them.

For example, in a description of a heterosexual scene between two partners in a particular film, Robert Jensen and Gail Dines describe the female as “one of [a] stable of women performers,” and the male as “a male pornography actor” (Jensen and Dines 1998). These descriptions reveal a sharp disparity in the way anti-porn feminists view the roles of males and females in pornography, regardless of what actually takes place.

Another argument shared by anti-porn and anti-prostitution feminists is that women are often forced by economic conditions to enter the sex industry and that the sex industry should therefore be abolished. While the former is certainly true, the latter is hardly a logical response. It implicitly suggests, “Women are not harassed, underpaid, exposed to danger, and mistreated in any other industry. This is obviously nonsense; […] there is no industry where women are not economically exploited” (Carol 1994). By singling out pornography as a source of female disempowerment, anti-porn feminists ignore the fact that women in other occupations also face gendered harassment and danger. Moreover, this line of thinking posits that women not involved in sex work have the freedom and economic stability to choose whatever line of employment they so desire. A vast number of women, particularly the poor and working classes, choose their jobs in any industry due to economic stress; pornography is certainly not unique in that respect. By singling out sex work as an industry to be destroyed rather than improved, anti-porn feminists tell disadvantaged women that they should starve to death rather than endure less than optimal working conditions, as long as their work is condemned by state morality.

The “anti-anti-porn” position is not an endorsement of pornography, nor a defense of its possibilities for female liberation, though there are cases in which we can imagine porn being “good”: e.g., for a young gay person experiencing intense hetero-normative family pressures, porn may be an outlet for exploration, experimentation, and confidence-building. However, with a critical eye on the direction of feminist scholarship, the anti-porn camp is here characterized as overly reductionist.  To focus on the exploitation of women in the pornography industry as the cause of sexual domination obscures other, more pressing gender issues.  As feminist thinkers, we must choose our words and our theory carefully.  While it may be indeed true that pornography is “bad for women,” we may lose more than we stand to gain by focusing our energies on what is, in the end, one disturbing cultural product among many.

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edited by: Alexandra Tourek

Bibliography

Assiter, Alison
1989 Pornography, Feminism, and the Individual. London: Pluto Press.

Assiter, Alison, and Avedon Carol, eds.
1993 Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures: The Challenge to Reclaim Feminism. London: Pluto Press.

Best, Joel
1990 Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Berger, Ronald J., Patricia Searles, and Charles E. Cottle.
1991 Feminism and Pornography. New York: Praeger Publishers.

Carol, Avedon
1994 Nudes, Prudes, and Attitudes: Pornography and Censorship. Cheltenham: New Clarion Press

Dines, Gail, Robert Jensen, and Ann Russo
1998 Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. New York: Routledge.

Donnerstein, Edward, Daniel Linz, and Steven Penrod
1987 The Question of Pornography: Research Findings and Policy Implications. New York: The Free Press.

Rodgerson, Gillian, and Elizabeth Wilson, eds.
1991 Pornography and Feminism. London: Lawrence and Wishart Limited.