Women's Institute for
Freedom of the Press
Pornography & the
First Amendment
Contents:
Introduction
Pornography and the First Amendment
Quotes Twiss Butler Andrea Dworkin Eleanor Smeal Ann Jones John Stoltenberg Robin Morgan Jane Caputi Catherine A. MacKinnon Michelle J. Anderson Books Websites dealing with pornography issues
Information / articles
Conference on Pornography and Pop Culture at Wheelock College, Boston, MA covered in off our backs Pornography: Objectification or Free Speech? The Debate Rages On by Lucinda Marshall Pornography is a Left Issue by Gail Dines and Robert Jensen Hustling the Left by Aura Bogado First Amendment is for Pornographers, Not For Women Harmed or Silenced by Pornography, According to the ACLU Owning One's Image
by Martha Leslie Allen, Ph.D.
Pornography is a multi-billion dollar industry profiting from the bodies and lives of women. Pornographers reach millions upon millions of people with their message. But what about the women who are harmed by pornography? Where are their voices?
Women's voices are being silenced. We need a press to tell about the harm done to women by the pornography industry.
The harm done to women is not "news." Those who have spoken out, and written, about the harm, have often been ignored, or worse, attacked: verbally by some "civil libertarians," and graphically by the pornographers.
Courageous women and caring men have worked tirelessly over the decades to expose the harm. The Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press shares here some information, books, and web sites of these groups, as well as some quotes from those who have spoken out. We include information about violence against women because pornography is particularly harmful due to the fact that violence against women is so extensive throughout the world. If this were not the case, then perhaps depictions of women in this way would not be so critical an issue.
This page is a site for those interested in working to end the harm done by pornography.
Quotes
Twiss Butler Andrea Dworkin Eleanor Smeal Ann Jones John Stoltenberg Robin Morgan Jane Caputi Catherine A. MacKinnon Michelle J. Anderson
Twiss Butler
from her chapter "Why The First Amendment Is Being Used to Protect Violence Against Women," in The Price We Pay, The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado, eds. (NY: Hill & Wang, 1995)
"Twiss Butler argues that men's control of institutions of communication and education allows them to support speech that harms women and to suppress speech against that harm. She observes that the publishing industry funds legal, journalistic, and nonprofit organizations endorsing a First Amendment absolutist position. She contends that the industry's defense of pornography as protected speech serves the double purpose of dignifying misogyny and establishing the First Amendment as the publisher's product liability shield." (p. 160)
"When feminists criticize pornography as graphic misogyny, they are attacking not only the system of sexism itself, with its economic and social pay-offs for men, not only Playboy's advertising rates, but also publishers' broad First Amendment shield against liability for any harm caused by the products that they produce and sell.
"The publishing industry and the men in it therefore have a conflict of interest in reporting a critique of pornography as inimical to women's civil rights (unsecured as those rights are by the Constitution). We need to consider how that conflict of interest distorts the information we receive through journalistic coverage of public debate and action on this issue.
"Publishers protect their liability shield either by silencing feminists while granting speech to those who vilify them, or by misrepresenting the feminist critique of pornography. Women are given credibility and access to speech to the extent that they say what men want them to say. Stray from the script and you will be attacked, misquoted, or simply go unheard. As power brokers in a large industry profiting from sexism, publishers disguise this censorship as selfless concern for the First Amendment and freedom of speech. (p. 163) ...
"In the news business as elsewhere, men have long relied on the weapon of pornography to avoid having to compete on their own merits. The role pornography plays in keeping women journalists at a disadvantage is evident in the experience of Lynn carrier, an editorial writer for the San Diego Tribune who sued the paper in 1990 for sex discrimination and harassment. Men coworkers attempted to intimidate and segregate Carrier by displaying pornography in the office, using sexual insults when talking with her, and asking her to run out and buy a copy of Playboy for her supervisor--who also wondered aloud what she would charge Playboy for posing nude for photographs. Carrier won her civil suit (refusing, incidentally, to accept a secret settlement), but the outcome was typical--she no longer works at the Tribune, but is employed instead as a smaller paper in the area. (p. 164) ...
"To protect pornography, women's speech must be carefully controlled. When Linda Lovelace said she loved starring in pornographic films, she was treated as credible; when Linda Marchiano said that she had been beaten, raped, and coerced into making those films, her credibility was questioned. No risk is overlooked. At a National Press Club speech by Christie Hefner in 1986, I addressed her 'as a pornographer' in a written question about her lawsuit to censor testimony from a federal hearing that referred to Playboy as pornography; when my question was read aloud by the club's president, these three words were deleted." (pp. 166-167)
[This chapter by Twiss Butler alone is worth the purchase of The Price We Pay, The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography. The entire book is excellent and highly recommended.]
Andrea Dworkin
from her chapter "For Men, Freedom of Speech; for Women, Silence Please," Take Back the Night, Women on Pornography (NY: William Morrow & Co., 1980)
"The First Amendment, it should be noted, belongs to those who can buy it. Men have the economic clout. Pornographers have empires. Women are economically disadvantaged and barely have token access to the media....The growing power of the pornographers significantly diminishes the likelihood that women will ever experience freedom of anything -- certainly not sexual self-determination, certainly not freedom of speech." (p.258)
from her chapter "Hate Literature/Pornography," Scapegoat, The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (NY: The Free Press, 2000) "In the United States, language exists in a vacuum as if it were isolated from any community of values or action. A recent thirty-year reinterpretation of the First Amendment of the U.S. constitution, which protects speech, assembly, and religion from government sanction, fetishizes all expressive language: words become sacred totems, untouchable, an archeology of immutable runes. . . . The reigning dogma is that consequences are irrelevant: and so human life is entirely subservient to an abstract, absolutist principle of recent and cynical vintage (the protection of the pornography industry) that guts language by misdefining its very nature; language cannot be severed from acts or motives or slow, lingering, repetitive incitements whether lyrical, innocent, shocking, vulgar, invasive, or malign. Language cannot be frozen, unretracted, misshapen by legal design and still have value. Language lives in a world in which things happen: sometimes things happen because of language." (p. 136)
Eleanor Smeal
from her chapter "SPEECH AND VIOLENCE, Why Feminists Must Speak Out Against Pornography" in The Price We Pay, The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado, eds. (NY: Hill & Wang, 1995)
"What can women do about sexual exploitation in the media? What can we do about pornography? One of the reasons so many feminist activists are concerned about these issues is that everywhere we go audiences and individual women tell us over and over about the problems of violence against women, violence in the media, exploitation, sexual violence, date rape, domestic violence, marital rape, sexual assault, child assault, and sexual harassment. Many of us have heard for too long about the connections between media violence and real-life violence. We are desperate to figure out how to deal with the problem. Pornography is hate for women and no movement worth its salt would endure this assault of pornographic images without taking it on. (p. 199)
Ann Jones
from her chapter "A Little Knowledge," Take Back the Night, Women on Pornography (NY: William Morrow & Co., 1980)
"I became interested in pornography (which has always repelled me) while I was interviewing battered women who had killed their batterers. Pornography kept coming up over and over again. One woman had shot her husband though his pornographic tattoo. Alerted, I began asking questions specifically about pornography." (p. 179)
..."Men continue to examine how pornography affects men and to publish their research on the topic, while women are stuck with only bruises, shame, anger, and a certain knowledge of the truth. "Very well. Let us do our own studies of ourselves. Let us ask, as Diana Russell did, 'Did he ever attempt to act out something he had seen in pornography?' and let us hear the answers: 'He whipped me, he tied me up and sodomized me, he beat me up.' "Ask the police chiefs (something like 60 percent of them) who agree that pornography leads to crimes of violence against women. Ask the cops who saw all the pornographic pictures papering the walls of the shack where Melvin Rees tortured Mildred Jackson and her five-year-old daughter, Susan. Ask the cops who cataloged the pornographic magazines retrieved from the bedside of David 'Son of Sam' Berkowitz. Ask battered Jennifer Patri, who finally shot her husband, a man who played pornographic tapes for his daughters and who made at least one of those daughters, as well as his wife, 'monkeys' in his sexual circus." (p. 181)
John Stoltenberg
from his chapter "The Triangular Politics of Pornography" in The Price We Pay, The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado, eds. (NY: Hill & Wang, 1995)
"Blinded by First Amendment fundamentalism--as dangerous and contemptuous as any fundamentalism can be--liberals defend a deregulated marketplace of sexual ownership in which manufacturers and brokers, pornographers and pimps, have state protection." (p. 177)
"...[T]he left doesn't understand that there's anything wrong at all--and, even if there might be, the left believes nothing can or should be done about it.
"Human rights--women's rights--are being denied so that pornographers can sell 'sex.' and pornographers' liberal defenders stand dead in the way of human freedom., because they really don't give a damn." (p. 180)
Robin Morgan
from her chapter "Theory and Practice: Pornography and Rape," from an essay written in 1974, published in The Word of a Woman, Feminist Dispatches 1968-1992 (New York: WW Norton & Co., 1992):
"Pornography is the theory, and rape the practice." (p. 88)
Jane Caputi
from her book The Age of Sex Crime (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press, 1987)
"... In 1983 alone, one in eight commercially released films in this country depicted violent acts by men against women. Such conventual portrayals similarly pervade advertising, rock 'n' roll song lyrics and album covers, billboards, display windows, etc. The fashion press also regularly flash back the genocidal scene; in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Glamour, etc., women are shown dead, laid out, suffocated, shot, run over by cars -- all in the course of advertising products such as stockings, perfume and shoes. These symbolic annihilations of female images perform much the same functions and have many of the same general effects as actual male violence. They too demonstrate the rules of patriarchal power, help to generate the State of Fear, eroticize violence, give ideas to violent-prone men, and ceaselessly suggest obliteration to women. Such imagery is the necessary symbolic counterpoint to the lethal actualization -- its mirror reflection, 'inspirational dream,' and motivating myth. "We might recognize such media manifestations of misogyny as a 'pornography of everyday life,' for it is, of course, express pornography which sets the trends, pushes the limits, and provides the ultimate source for all other victimizing and degrading images of women in the media. ... [M]y purpose here [is] to suggest some of the ways in which the institution of modern pornography is central to the practice of sexual murder." (pp. 160-161)
... "The core assumption of the Age of Sex Crime is the equation of 'sex' with the male mutilation and murder of a woman. So too, the essence of pornography consists in the conditioning of male arousal to female subordination, humiliation, objectification, pain, rape, mutilation, and even murder. It is largely because of pornography that members of contemporary culture can see the torture of women and think sex. It is in pornography that the basic meanings of sex crime are distilled -- the female body fetishized, displayed, sacralized, only so that she can be hated, possessed, profaned, sacrificed. Moreover, although the entire range of sexual violations are nominally defined as despised and taboo acts, these very same acts, portrayed in pornography, are the very stuff of this massive 'entertainment' industry. "Not surprisingly, the case histories and personal testimonies of sex killers almost universally reveal not only a regular use of pornography, but also the enactment of a fantasy of making and participating in pornography itself." (p. 164) [Caputi provides numerous examples of this.]
... "Pornography is used by men prior to sexual abuse, during the abuse, and then, afterward, the abuse itself having been recorded or during a recounting can itself be used and/or sold as pornography. All such testimonies, as well as those of the sex killers themselves, expose a fact which patriarchal glamour consistently obscures: the pictures of pornography are not all simulation and play acting. Rather, they frequently depict real acts. It is real women and often children who actually are being coerced, actually are being bound, gagged, pissed on, whipped, raped, mutilated, and even murdered. "Even when such acts are 'merely' dramatizations / simulations, we cannot ignore the function of such imagery in the social construction of sex crime." (pp. 166-167)
"At the core of pornography is dissimulation -- the lie that women are symbols, objects, possessions, dolls, i.e. that women are not real, and, correspondingly, the pervasive assumption that pornography isn't real either, that is it is 'fantasy.' Typically then, much of the debate aroused in patriarchal circles regarding snuff films is whether or not they are genuine or indeed whether any genuine snuff films can be proven to exist. Consider the following taken from a book on sex crime written largely for police investigators: "One large law enforcement agency now has in its possession a new film reportedly made in a foreign country that looks extremely realistic. The death scene shows a nude women lifted several feet off the ground by ropes tied to her wrists. While suspended, her intestines are ripped out through her vagina and she then hangs there bleeding to death while another women dances underneath her, drinking some of the blood that flows out. Whether or not this is a real snuff film, it is important to keep in mind the kind of sadistic personality that will be buying copies of this film." (p. 168)
Catherine A. MacKinnon
from Toward a Feminist Theory of the State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press, 1991)
"If pornography has not become sex to and from the male point of view, it is hard to explain why the pornography industry makes a known ten billion dollars a year selling it as sex mostly to men; why it is used to teach sex to child prostitutes, to recalcitrant wives and girlfriends and daughters, to medical students, and to sex offenders; why it is nearly universally classified as a subdivision of 'erotic literature'; why it is protected and defended as if it were sex itself." (p. 139)
"..."If it is not only that women are the principal targets of rape, which by conservative definition happens to almost half of all women at least once in their lives. It is not only that over one-third of all women are sexually molested by older trusted male family members or friends or authority figures as an early, perhaps initiatory, interpersonal sexual encounter. It is not only that at least the same percentage, as adult women, are battered in homes by male intimates. It is not only that about one-fifth of American women have been or are known to be prostitutes, and most cannot get out of it.
"...Normal men viewing pornography over time in laboratory settings become more aroused to scenes of rape than to scenes of explicit but not expressly violent sex, even if (especially if?) the woman is shown as hating it. As sustained exposure perceptually inures subjects to the violent component in expressly violent sexual material, its sexual arousal value remains or increases. 'On the first day, when they see women being raped and aggressed against, it bother them. By day five, it does not bother them, in fact, they enjoy it.'" (p.144)
"No government is, yet, in the pornography business. This has not been necessary, since no man who wants pornography encounters serious trouble getting it, regardless of obscenity laws. No law gives fathers the right to abuse their daughters sexually. This has not been necessary, since no state has ever systematically intervened in their social possession of and access to them. No law gives husbands the right to batter their wives. This has not been necessary, since there is nothing to stop them. No law silences women. This has not been necessary, for women are previously silenced in society - by sexual abuse, by not being heard, by not being believed, by poverty, by illiteracy, by a language that provides only unspeakable vocabulary for their most formative traumas, by a publishing industry that virtually guarantees that if they ever find a voice it leaves no trace in the world...." (p. 239)
"Pornography, the technologically sophisticated traffic in women that expropriates, exploits, uses, and abuses women, also becomes a sex equality issue. The mass production of pornography universalizes the violation of the women in it, spreading it to all women, who are then exploited, used, abused, and reduced as a result of men's consumption of it." (pp. 246-247)
"Pornography, in the feminist view, is a form of forced sex, a practice of sexual politics, an institution of gender inequality. In this perspective, pornography, with the rape and prostitution in which it participates, institutionalizes the sexuality of male supremacy, which fuses the erotization of dominance and submission with the social construction of male and female. Gender is sexual. Pornography constitutes the meaning of that sexuality. Men treat women as whom they see women as being. Pornography constructs who that is." (p. 197)
"Pornography turns a woman into a thing to be acquired and used.... Men have sex with their image of a woman." (p. 199)
"If pornography is an act of male supremacy, its harm is the harm of male supremacy made difficult to see because of its pervasiveness, potency, and success in making the world a pornographic place." (p. 204)
"...In a society of gender inequality, the speech of the powerful impresses its view upon the world, concealing the truth of powerlessness under a despairing acquiescence that provides the appearance of consent and makes protest inaudible as well as rare.... So while the First Amendment supports pornography on the belief that consensus and progress are facilitated by allowing all views, however divergent and unorthodox, it fails to notice that pornography (like the racism, including anti-Semitism, of the Nazis and the Klan) is not at all divergent or unorthodox. It is the ruling ideology. [my emphasis] Feminism, the dissenting view, is suppressed by pornography. Thus, while defenders of pornography argue that allowing all speech, including pornography, frees the mind to fulfill itself, pornography freely enslaves women's minds and bodies inseparably, normalizing the terror that enforces silence on women's point of view." (p. 205)
..."That pornography chills women's expression is difficult to demonstrate empirically because silence is not eloquent. Yet on no more of the same kind of evidence, the argument that suppressing pornography might chill legitimate speech has supported its protection." (p. 206)
[Do words constitute harm in themselves?] ... "--libel, invasion of privacy, blackmail, bribery, conspiracy, most sexual harassment, and most discrimination. What is saying 'yes' in Congress - a word or an act? What is saying 'kill' to a trained guard dog? What is its training? What is saying 'You're fired' or 'We've had enough of your kind around here"? What is a sign that reads 'Whites only'? ... What is 'Sleep with me and I'll give you an A'" These words, printed or spoken, are so far from legally protecting the cycle of events they actualize that they are regarded as evidence that acts occurred, in some cases as actionable in themselves. ... When acts are tantamount to acts, they are treated as acts." (p. 206)
..."Under male dominance, whatever sexually arouses a man is sex. In pornography, the violence is the sex. The inequity is sex. The humiliation is sex. The debasement is sex." (p. 211)
Michelle J. Anderson
from "Silencing Women's Speech" in The Price We Pay, The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado, eds. (NY: Hill & Wang, 1995)
"During the past decade, pornography has become the most profitable form of media, soaring ahead of all non pornographic films and records combined. Pornographic films now outnumber other films three to one. As documentary filmmaker Harriet Koskoff has observed, 'Pornography is everywhere; we live in an environment that's saturated with it.' This is not true just for the adult world either: schoolteachers have confiscated issues of Hustler magazine from third graders. Nine out of ten boys and six out of ten girls have seen at least one pornographic video in their lives and one-third of boys and 2 percent of girls consume pornography more than once a year.
"Pornography's influence extends into many forms of mainstream media such as popular movies in which women derive pleasure from sexual abuse; interactive computer pornography which allows users to insert knives into the vaginas of the female characters, books in which women are tortured, mutilated, and killed for sexual pleasure; 'high art' and fashion photos which eroticize the abuse of women; rock and rap group album cover art and lyrics which are violently misogynist; popular slasher films in which scantily clad girls and women are murdered with various implements. The depictions of abusive sex and violence in these 'nonpornograhic' slasher movies, in particular, have become increasingly graphic, especially in the feature-length films shown in theaters. Millions of people mostly adolescent and young adult males, consume these films as entertainment. ... (p. 122)
"Pornography's apologists defend its expansion and influence on mainstream media on the basis of its producers' right to free speech. Pornography is a medium of communication, they say, and regulating it would threaten the fundamental values that the First Amendment is designed to protect--individual self-expression and collective self-determination. ... We lose sight of the fact that a blanket defense of pornography does not protect individual self-expression, but rather protects the corporate propagation of imagery that is anti-democratic. ... Promoting pornography distorts public discourse and enforces silence.
"...The silencing pornography does is inextricably tied to what social science has documented are pornography's 'non speech' harms: its contribution to sexist attitudes, its encouragement of rape myths, its sexualization of dominance, and its reduction of men's inhibitions to rape. (p. 123)
"...[A] number of studies reveal a causal relationship between men's exposure to pornography and their insensitivity to women's speech. ...
"The subjects who viewed the pornography displayed in inattentiveness to the woman's speech and an overattentiveness to her body ... After viewing pornography only 4 percent of this group was able to recall what the female speaker had said. The results for the other participants were quite different--24 percent.
"That men scrutinize women's bodies more closely after viewing pornography is, at first blush, a neutral point in terms of free speech. But this scrutiny is not separable from the fact that, in a professional setting, men hear less of what women have to say after viewing pornography. Other studies confirm that pornography has the ability to delegitimize women. After viewing either traditional pornography or nonpornograhic slasher films, men have been shown to view women as significantly less than equal and to display less sympathy with statements about sexual equality than they had before. Exposure to aggressive pornography also inclines men to disbelieve survivors' allegations of rape, and to believe instead rape myths, including the myth that women tend to lie about sexual assault." (pp. 125-126) ...
"Pornography's effects can be seen in the most intimate of settings. Research indicates that many men model their own sexual behavior on the acts they see in X-rated movies or magazines. Two studies asked female respondents,"Have you ever been upset by someone trying to get you to do something which they had seen in pornographic magazines, movies, or books?' Ten percent of women responded yes in a random sample study in San Francisco, and 24 percent said yes in a survey of college undergraduates. Sometimes these interchanges are not simply requests. Three percent of women in one survey and 8.5 percent in another said that they had been physically coerced into sex by someone inspired by pornography. (p. 128)
Books
Pornography, The Production and Consumption of Inequity, Gail Dines, Robert Jensen, Ann Russo (New York: Routlege, 1998)
In Harm's Way, the Pornography Civil Rights Hearings, Catharine A. MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, eds. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997)
Life and Death, Unapologetic Writings of the Continuing War Against Women, Andrea Dworkin (New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1997)
The Price We Pay, The Case Against Racist Speech, Hate Propaganda, and Pornography, Laura Lederer and Richard Delgado, eds. (New York: Hill & Wang, 1995)
Against Pornography, The Evidence of Harm, by Diana Russell (Berkeley: Russell Publications, 1993)
Only Words, Catharine A. MacKinnon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993)
The Sexual Liberals and the Attack on Feminism, Dorchen Leidholdt and Janice Raymond, eds. (Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press, 1990)
Toward A Feminist Theory of the State, Catharine A. MacKinnon (Cambridge: Harvard Unniversity Press, 1989)
Pornography and Civil Rights, A New Day for Women's Equality, Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon (Minneapolis: Organizing Against Pornography, 1988)
Feminism Unmodified, Discourses on Life and Law, Catharine A. MacKinnon (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987)
The Age of Sex Crime, Jane Caputi (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Press, 1987)
Pornography, Men Possessing Women, Andrea Dworkin (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1981)
Take Back the Night, Women on Pornography, Laura Lederer, ed. (NY: William Morrow & Co., 1980)
Websites dealing with pornography issues
National Feminist Anti-pornography Movement
The national feminist anti-pornography movement focuses on the harms of pornography by challenging the industry and the increasingly pornographic sexuality of the culture. Grounded in a feminist analysis of the sexist, racist and economic oppressions in contemporary society, our goal is to end the demand for pornography and other forms of men's sexual exploitation as part of a progressive movement. We affirm sexuality rooted in equality and free of exploitation, coercion, and violence.
Andrea Dworkin Website
Nostatusquo.com PETA, Where Only Women are Treated Like Meat
Victims of Pornography.Org Includes resource links
http://talkintrash.com/playboy/PB.toc.html Good, useful articles.
Information
Conference on Pornography and Pop Culture at Wheelock College, Boston, MA covered in off our backs
By Calandria Somuah, WIFP Summer 2007
Reporter Karla Mantilla and antipornography activist S. M. Berg covered the conference Pornography and Pop Culture: Reframing Theory, Rethinking Activism for off our backs, volume 37 edition. Scholars and activists assembled the conference to raise awareness about pornography’s presence in mainstream culture and what message it conveys to viewers.
Gail Dines, professor of sociology and women’s studies at Wheelock College, presented a slide show as the central backdrop of the conference. Her presentation made perfectly clear that action needs to be taken against pornography.
Once relegated to the back of the media, pornography is becoming more acceptable via fashion, music, video games, and television. Models are more risqué than their pinup counterparts of the 1940s. With the help of technology, pornography is within reach through VCR and DVD rentals and sales and the Internet.
According to The Internet Filter Review, $3,075.64 is spent on pornographic material every second. The report stated that in 2006, the United States brought in revenue of $13 billion in pornography. The majority of its revenues come from video sales and rentals at $3.62 billion. The Internet trailed behind at $2.84 billion. And three adult entertainment businesses—Playboy Enterprise, New Frontier Media, and Private Media Group—are traded on the U.S. stock market.
What is pornography and how did it enter mainstream media?
Mildly put, pornography is a graphic depiction of the human body and sexuality to entice and arouse one’s sexual libido. The term is derived from Greek porne ‘prostitute’ and graphein ‘to write’ translating “to write about prostitutes”. Mainstream pornography is a hyperbole of women’s sexuality and body types. The media depicts women as sexual beings for entertainment and marketing.
Dines said that pornography “happens in the banks of international capitalism”. Prior to the 1950s, pornography wasn’t distributed in mainstream media. It was produced and sold underground. Postwar America promoted marriage and family through advertising and television shows. Women were easily lured into spending money on consumer goods for health, home, beauty and fashion. Advertisers were struggling to reach male consumers. Hugh Hefner saw this demographic gap and created a medium for men to encourage them to spend money on consumer goods.
The first issue of Playboy magazine came out in December 1953 with Marilyn Monroe on the cover. The magazine was an immediate success and helped to establish the adult entertainment industry. What Hefner did for Playboy was combine scantily clad females and commercial endorsements to promote a hedonistic lifestyle. The adult industry continued to grow with Penthouse magazine.
Bob Guccione founded the magazine to compete with Playboy. Like its competitor, the magazine used women as “teasers” to promote “high class” living. But it took a slight risqué approach of revealing a woman’s pubis mons. Guccione helped increase the magazine’s circulation by marketing kinkiness. In the long run however, Playboy and Hugh Hefner gained celebrity status in mainstream media.
Pornography and Pop Culture Conference, March 23-25, 2007
The conference featured producer and director Byron Hurt; assistant professor of philosophy and activist Rebecca Whisnant; associate professor of journalism Robert Jensen; clinical psychologist and founder and director of Prostitution Research and Education Melissa Farley; and founder of Girls Educational and Mentoring Services (GEMS) Rachel Lloyd.
S.M. Berg reviewed Byron Hurt’s documentary Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes. The documentary she writes isn’t about feminism, but about race and masculinity and how it perpetuates misogyny, homophobia and violence in the hip-hop culture.
Rap music was a vehicle for political and cultural expression. As the music evolved, it became hip-hop. The music has become more commercialized with repeated messages of material consumption, sex and violence. The lyrics and videos preach to the youth that the only way to make money is through sex and crime. Pornographic content in music and videos not only promote violence, but reinforce ethnic stereotypes. Oppressed groups implant stereotypes of themselves to gain wealth and stardom. Images of black men portrayed as “gangsters” and black women as “bitches” reaffirm 19th century views of black masculinity and femininity as inferior, savage and licentious.
Movements against pornography have been prevalent for some time but in the late 1979, antipornography activism took to the streets of Times Square. In 1983, activists Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin drafted a civil rights ordinance that passed in Minneapolis City Council. It was later defeated by pornographers with the help of some feminists citing that it violated civil liberties.
Karla Mantilla reviews a disturbing trend of feminism that accepts male entitlements of sexual exploitation as a form of liberation. The idea of a woman being sexually dominated by a man as a form of power is illusive. . . .
There has been discussion on how the media and pornography demean women and ethnic minorities but pornography also denigrates men. Shere Hite of Hite Research International wrote “The Image of Men in Pornography: Man as Raging Beast” pornography reduces men to a beastlike state “cheapening and brutalizing their sensibilities, destroying their possibility of personal sexual discovery, implanting clichés of big, hard erections, and so on.” Masculinity in the media is defined as powerful and dominant portraying men in a violent manner; as physically desirable beings; and in control of themselves and others. Boys are taught at an early age that they’re supposed to be heroes and lovers void of emotion and solemnity.
Journalism professor Robert Jensen discussed in “Real Men, Real Choices” that masculinity is a fallacy that restricts rather than frees men. Men are fed images that give them a false sense of confidence and empowerment. In his study about men for the past 20 years, he concluded that there needs to be an outlet for men who are struggling to make sense of themselves in a society that is dominated by wealth and power. Sexuality is a human need to connect emotionally but according to Jensen, sex for men is often an anesthetic separating the effect of pornography as not only objective to women, but also objective towards them.
Dr. Melissa Farley and Rachel Lloyd make evidently clear that pornography is prostitution. One may beg to differ but pornography and prostitution do correlate because paying someone for sex is prostitution whether on camera or on the street. Farley used research to show that prostitutes and strippers engaging in pornographic films were more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Former sex industry worker Rachel Lloyd put a face on the connection between pornography and prostitution.
Coming from a broken home, she started at fourteen nude modeling, then gradually stripping, and eventually, prostituting. The industry, according to her, disguises itself as a parental authority to mostly young women, which is what she lacked. After suffering abuse from her pimp and the industry, she got out and formed an organization to provide support for underage girls in the sex industry and lobby for legislation to protect youth from sexual exploitation.
Conclusion
The pornography industry unjustly benefits at the expense of women. Young women are lured into the adult entertainment industry by slick promoters promising them fame and fortune. Once they enter the business, they are owned and labeled “sluts”, “bitches” and “whores” by money-hungry executives and managers. This produces a negative effect on their overall well-being. They are treated like property used and abused and their humanity becomes shredded.
Mainstream media tries to separate itself from pornography but more likely embraces it through reality television shows, celebrity sex tapes and music videos.
People opposing to pornography and its contents are vilified for media censorship and accused of taking jobs from people. What activists are fighting against is an industry reaps profits at the expense of humans and material content that is racist and sexist. Hite, Shere. “The Image of Men in Pornography: Man-as-Raging-Beast/The Uncelebrated Beauty of Men’s Sexuality. A Reality Check”. <http://www.hite-research.com/artmeninpornography.html>
Berg, S.M. and Mantilla, Karla. off our backs, volume 37/no. 1
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Pornography: Objectification or Free Speech? The Debate Rages On
Lucinda Marshall, 2005
It is truly astounding to listen to otherwise progressive, left-leaning men bend over backwards to vociferously defend their right to view pornography as a matter of free speech while viciously attacking anti-pornography feminists who dare to suggest that pornography is a tool to objectify women.
Noam Chomsky recently posted a short piece on his ZMag blog discussing his interview with Hustler Magazine (which will be in the September, 2005 issue), re-igniting the firestorm that took place on my blog over at ZMag several months ago. The gist of Chomsky's piece was that he had no idea who he was interviewing with or what kind of magazine Hustler is, which is a bit hard to believe, but all he was saying was that he felt taken advantage of. The responses to this post were quick to once again equate the male right to objectify women with free speech, and most are of the same ilk to those posted earlier to my blog.
Activist Nikki Craft has had an extensive email conversation with Chomsky about his experience and she joined in the discussion on ZMag about Chomsky's misadventure. She invited readers to check out Hustling The Left and read her rather extensive correspondence with Chomsky. For the most part her comments were ignored by other posters in the Comments section and when she pointed that they weren't bothering to educate themselves about what they were spouting off about, they ignored her again. Hardly surprising when earlier this year a woman who spoke out against pornography on my blog was referred to as being, "filled to the brim with estrogen on a men-hating rampage".
The zinger came when another ZMag blogger decided to write a blog entry stating that Craft's comments should not be censored, never mind that no one had even remotely suggested such a thing. His rationale was that she had posted a link to a site that had pornography on it. Unfathomably, the implication was that a site that critiques porn is no different than a site that offers porn. Worse, because her work is dedicated to exposing the damaging impact of pornography it is offensive because that in some way restricts free speech. It seems unlikely that the participants in this discussion are aware that Craft's activism about this issue goes back decades, although even if they were, they would likely be dismissive of any evidence that does not jive with their perception of what a good feminist is supposed to think.
What I find most interesting is that Chomsky's blog entry was not actually about porn, but it didn't take much for the comments to turn to that topic. This is exactly what happened on my blog at Zmag a few months ago when I racked up over 800 comments on one entry (Chomsky's only at 100 as I am writing this, but perhaps he'll catch up). No other topic gets this kind of response in those blogs. As Loretta Kemsley, publisher of Moondance points out, "Porn is another element where men get to define the terms of our sexuality."
In an article entitled, Sexuality, Masculinity and Men's Choices, Robert Jensen offers the following insight as to why the discussion on porn gets so heated,
"...at some level everyone knows that the feminist critique of pornography is about more than pornography. It encompasses a critique of the way "normal" men in this culture have learned to experience sexual pleasure-and the ways in which women and children learn to accommodate that and/or suffer its consequences."
This is not a free speech issue, it is a control issue, and speaks to the heart of male privilege. In point of fact, if one actually reads what Chomsky told Craft, it is clear that he feels pornography is degrading and that being interviewed by Hustler is totally inappropriate:
(Nikki Craft) "I'll try to rephrase my question: I'm not attempting to misrepresent you, but I believe I can conclude from this exchange that you do employ a standard against publishing in pornographic publications that degrade women.
Chomsky Replies: Certainly. That's why I insisted that they withdraw the interview when I learned what the journal was, and how they had misrepresented themselves.
(Nikki Craft) If that is the case, thank you. In your opinion what is the effect of leftists who are publishing in and cooperating with such publications. Do you think this is a political mistake? Do you see it damaging to our political movement in any way? Any other potential for harm that you could point out?
Sincerely, Nikki Craft
Chomsky Replies: I think it's a mistake. That's why I refuse to do it."
The full interview can be found at http://www.hustlingtheleft.com/chomsky/index.html.
There are several excellent articles regarding Hustler and pornography which you may want to read as well. The first is Aura Bogado's Hustling the Left on the Znet site (as well as the responses from Susie Bright and Nion, see the links below Bogado's article). As Nikki Craft points out, it is unfortunate that this article has been relegated to the Gender section on the Znet site, the article is about a great deal more than gender. Secondly, Ms. Craft asked that I also mention Jennifer McLure's excellent article, When White Males Attack: Larry Flynt, Racism and The Left.
Lastly, while it is not specifically about Hustler, Aviva Ariel's excellent article, Rappers Delight gives a very perceptive critique of the damaging impact of pornographic language in rap lyrics, namely that it gives legitimacy to degrading descriptions of women and gives men the impression that it is acceptable to describe women in this way and further that the language involved also impacts women's sense of what they must accept in relationships. As Jensen goes on to point out in the article mentioned earlier,
"And because heterosexual women (LM: actually I would say this applies to all women) live with men and men's sexual desire, those women can't escape the question-either in terms of the desire of their boyfriends, partners, and husbands, or the way they have come to experience sexuality. That takes us way beyond magazines, movies, and computer screens, to the heart of who we are and how we live sexually and emotionally. That scares people."
The final point that we need to come to grips with is that pornography and misogynist portrayals of women are no longer confined to magazines in brown paper wrappers at the back of the store. It is in the pop up ads that evade all manner of blocking software on your kids' computer. It is when Senator Hillary Clinton needs to champion the cause of labeling the video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" as adults-only entertainment. It is on television where a friend who recently took a day off from work was astounded at the number of instances of violence against women being portrayed as entertainment on network tv. It is the word 'bitch' being used in everyday discussion by everyone from pre-pubescent teens to Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.
With the advent of cable television and the internet, pornography (and all its damaging implications) has gone well beyond the realm of personal immorality. It has become an inescapable part of the cultural fabric our everyday lives, and that will not change so long as men refuse to examine and take responsibility for the consequences of their usurpation of sexual entitlement.
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Lucinda Marshall is a feminist artist, writer and activist. She is the Founder of the Feminist Peace Network, http://www.feministpeacenetwork.org/ which publishes Atrocities, a bulletin documenting violence against women throughout the world. Her work has been published in numerous publications including, Awakened Woman, Alternet, Dissident Voice, Off Our Backs, The Progressive, Rain and Thunder, Z Magazine, Common Dreams, and Information Clearinghouse.
Pornography is a Left Issue
by Gail Dines and Robert Jensen
Anti-pornography feminists get used to insults from the left. Over and over we are told that we're anti-sex, prudish, simplistic, politically naïve, diversionary, and narrow-minded. The cruder critics do not hesitate to suggest that the cure for these ailments lies in, how shall we say, a robust sexual experience.
In addition to the slurs, we constantly face a question: Why do we "waste" our time on the pornography issue? Since we are anti-capitalist and anti-empire leftists as well as feminists, shouldn't we focus on the many political, economic, and ecological crises (war, poverty, global warming, etc.)? Why would we spend part of our intellectual and organizing energies over the past two decades pursuing the feminist critique of pornography and the sexual exploitation industry?
The answer is simple: We are anti-pornography precisely because we are leftists as well as feminists.
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.
It has always seemed strange to us that so many on the left consistently refuse to engage in a sustained and thoughtful critique of pornography. All this is particularly unfortunate at a time when the left is flailing to find traction with the public; a critique of pornography, grounded in a radical feminist and left analysis that counters right-wing moralizing, could be part of an effective organizing strategy.
Left media analysis
Leftists examine mass media as one site where the dominant class attempts to create and impose definitions and explanations of the world. We know news is not neutral, that entertainment programs are more than just fun and games. These are places where ideology is reinforced, where the point of view of the powerful is articulated. That process is always a struggle; attempts to define the world by dominant classes can be, and are, resisted. The term "hegemony" is typically used to describe that always-contested process, the way in which the dominant class attempts to secure control over the construction of meaning.
The feminist critique of pornography is consistent with - and, for many of us, grows out of - a widely accepted analysis on the left of ideology, hegemony, and media, leading to the observation that pornography is to patriarchy what commercial television is to capitalism. Yet when pornography is the topic, many on the left seem to forget Gramsci's theory of hegemony and accept the pornographer's self-serving argument that pornography is mere fantasy.
Apparently the commonplace left insight that mediated images can be tools for legitimizing inequality holds true for an analysis of CBS or CNN, but evaporates when the image is of a woman having a penis thrust into her throat with such force that she gags. In that case, for unexplained reasons, we aren't supposed to take pornographic representations seriously or view them as carefully constructed products within a wider system of gender, race, and class inequality. The valuable work conducted by media critics on the politics of production apparently holds no weight for pornography.
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 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?
Why do the pornographers get a free ride from so much of the left?
After years of facing the left's hostility in public and print, we believe the answer is obvious: Sexual desire can constraint people's capacity for critical reason - especially in men in patriarchy, where sex is not only about pleasure but about power.
Leftists - especially left men - need to get over the obsession with getting off.
Let's analyze pornography not as sex, but as media. Where would that lead?
Corporate media
Critiques of the power of commercial corporate media are ubiquitous on the left. Leftists with vastly different political projects can come together to decry conglomerates' control over news and entertainment programming. Because of the structure of the system, it's a given that these corporations create programming that meets the needs of advertisers and elites, not ordinary people.
Yet when discussing pornography, this analysis flies out the window. Listening to many on the left defend pornography, one would think the material is being made by struggling artists tirelessly working in lonely garrets to help us understand the mysteries of sexuality. Nothing could be further from the truth; the pornography industry is just that - an industry, dominated by the pornography production companies that create the material, with mainstream corporations profiting from its distribution.
It's easy to listen in on pornographers' conversations - they have a trade magazine, Adult Video News. The discussions there don't tend to focus on the transgressive potential of pornography or the polysemic nature of sexually explicit texts. It's about - what a surprise! - profits. The magazine's stories don't reflect a critical consciousness about much of anything, especially gender, race, and sex.
Andrew Edmond - president and CEO of Flying Crocodile, a $20 million pornography internet company - put it bluntly: "A lot of people get distracted from the business model by [the sex]. It is just as sophisticated and multilayered as any other market place. We operate just like any Fortune 500 company."
The production companies - from big players such as Larry Flynt Productions to small fly-by-night operators - act predictably as corporations in capitalism, seeking to maximize market-share and profit. They do not consider the needs of people or the effects of their products, any more than other capitalists. Romanticizing the pornographers makes as much sense as romanticizing the executives at Viacom or Disney.
Increasingly, mainstream media corporations profit as well. Hugh Hefner and Flynt had to fight to gain respectability within the halls of capitalism, but today many of the pornography profiteers are big corporations. Through ownership of cable distribution companies and Internet services, the large companies that distribute pornography also distribute mainstream media. One example is News Corp. owned by Rupert Murdoch.
News Corp. is a major owner of DirecTV, which sells more pornographic films than Flynt. In 2000, the New York Times reported that nearly $200 million a year is spent by the 8.7 million subscribers to DirecTV. Among News Corp.'s other media holdings are the Fox broadcasting and cable TV networks, Twentieth Century Fox, the New York Post, and TV Guide. Welcome to synergy: Murdoch also owns HarperCollins, which published pornography star Jenna Jameson's best-selling book How To Make Love Like A Porn Star.
When Paul Thomas accepted his best-director award at the pornography industry's 2005 awards ceremony, he commented on the corporatization of the industry by joking: "I used to get paid in cash by Italians. Now I get paid with a check by a Jew." Ignoring the crude ethnic references (Thomas works primarily for Vivid, whose head is Jewish), his point was that what was once largely a mob-financed business is now just another corporate enterprise.
How do leftists feel about corporate enterprises? Do we want profit-hungry corporative executives constructing our culture?
Commodification
It's long been understood on the left that one of the most insidious aspects of capitalism is the commodification of everything. There is nothing that can't be sold in the capitalist game of endless accumulation.
In pornography, the stakes are even higher; what is being commodified is crucial to our sense of self. Whatever a person's sexuality or views on sexuality, virtually everyone agrees it is an important aspect of our identity. In pornography, and in the sex industry more generally, sexuality is one more product to be packaged and sold.
When these concerns are raised, pro-pornography leftists often rush to explain that the women in pornography have chosen that work. Although any discussion of choice must take into consideration the conditions under which one chooses, we don't dispute that women do choose, and as feminists we respect that choice and try to understand it.
But, to the best of our knowledge, no one on the left defends capitalist media - or any other capitalist enterprise - by pointing out workers consented to do their jobs. The people who produce media content, or any other product, consent to work in such enterprises, under varying constraints and opportunities. So what? The critique is not of the workers, but of the owners and structure.
Look at the industry's biggest star, Jenna Jameson, who appears to control her business life. However in her book she reports that she was raped as a teenager and describes the ways in which men in her life pimped her. Her desperation for money also comes through when she tried to get a job as a stripper but looked too young - she went into a bathroom and pulled off her braces with pliers. She also describes drug abuse and laments the many friends in the industry she lost to drugs. And this is the woman said to have the most power in the pornography industry.
As we understand left analysis, the focus isn't on individual decisions about how to survive in a system that commodifies everything and takes from us meaningful opportunities to control our lives. It's about fighting a system.
Racism
As the most blatant and ugly forms of racism have disappeared from mainstream media, leftists have continued to point out that subtler forms of racism endure, and that their constant reproduction through media is a problem. Race matters, and media depictions of race matter.
Pornography is the one media genre in which overt racism is still acceptable. Not subtle, coded racism, but old-fashioned U.S. racism - stereotypical representations of the black male stud, the animalistic black woman, the hot Latina, the demure Asian geisha. Pornography vendors have a special category, "interracial," which allows consumers to pursue the various combinations of racialized characters and racist scenarios.
The racism of the industry is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. In an interview with the producer of the DVD "Black Bros and Asian Ho's," one of us asked if he ever was criticized for the racism of such films. He said, "No, they are very popular." We repeated the question: Popular, yes, but do people ever criticize the racism? He looked incredulous; the question apparently had never entered his mind.
Yet take a tour of a pornography shop, and it's clear that racial justice isn't central to the industry. Typical is the claim of "Black Attack Gang Bang" films: "My mission is to find the cutest white honeys to get Gang Banged by some hard pipe hitting niggas straight outta compton!" It would be interesting to see a pro-pornography leftist argue to a non-white audience that such films are unrelated to the politics of race and white supremacy.
Up-market producers such as Vivid use mainly white women; the official face of pornography is overwhelmingly white. However, alongside this genre there exists more aggressive material in which women of color appear more frequently. As one black woman in the industry told us, "This is a racist business," from how she is treated by producers to pay differentials to the day-to-day conversations she overhears on the set.
Sexism
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.
Leftists typically reject crude biological explanations for inequality. But the story of gender in pornography is the story of biological determinism. A major theme in pornography is that women are different from men and enjoy pain, humiliation, degradation; they don't deserve the same humanity as men because they are a different kind of creature. In pornography, it's not just that women want to get fucked in degrading fashion, but that they need it. Pornography ultimately tells stories about where women belong - underneath men.
Most leftists critique patriarchy and resist the system of male dominance. Gender is one of those arenas of struggle against domination, and hence an arena of ideological struggle. Put an understanding of media together with feminist arguments for sexual equality, and you get the anti-pornography argument.
The need for a consistent analysis of power
Leftists who otherwise pride themselves on analyzing systems and structures of power, can turn into extreme libertarian individualists on the subject of pornography. The sophisticated, critical thinking that underlies the best of left politics can give way to simplistic, politically naïve, and diversionary analysis that leaves far too many leftists playing cheerleader for an exploitive industry. In those analyses, we aren't supposed to examine the culture's ideology and how it shapes people's perceptions of their choices, and we must ignore the conditions under which people live; it's all about an individual's choice.
A critique of pornography doesn't imply that freedom rooted in an individual's ability to choose isn't important, but argues instead that these issues can't be reduced to that single moment of choice of an individual. Instead, we have to ask: What is meaningful freedom within a capitalist system that is racist and sexist?
Leftists have always challenged the contention of the powerful that freedom comes in accepting one's place in a hierarchy. Feminists have highlighted that one of the systems of power that constrains us is gender.
We contend that leftists who take feminism seriously must come to see that pornography, along with other forms of sexualized exploitation - primarily of women, girls and boys, by men - in capitalism is inconsistent with a world in which ordinary people can take control of their own destinies.
That is the promise of the left, of feminism, of critical race theory, of radical humanism - of every liberatory movement in modern history. ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gail Dines is a professor of American Studies at Wheelock College in Boston. She can be reached at gdines@wheelock.edu .
Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu .
They are co-authors with Ann Russo of Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. Both also are members of the interim organizing committee of the National Feminist Antipornography Movement. For more information, contact feministantipornographymovement@yahoo.com or go to http://feministantipornographymovement.org
http://hustlingtheleft.com/CRAPP_E_LIB/leftissue.html
Hustling the Left
by Aura Bogado
ZNET http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=91&ItemID=8012 June 5, 2005
In August of last year, just days before the Republican National Convention in New York, I received an email from a local (Los Angeles) chapter of Not In Our Name (NION). The group, which I have never been a member of, had been organizing a letter-writing campaign with hopes of pressuring Mayor Michael Bloomberg to grant permits to protest on the streets of New York against the Convention. NION's email proclaimed enthusiastically how Larry Flynt had endorsed their letter-writing campaign. As a woman of color who opposes the type of violence that Hustler Magazine* *celebrates in their publication, I was dismayed that NION chose to align themselves with Flynt. For that reason, I sent a personal email back to NION, asking to be removed from the list. Los Angeles NION organizer Robert Corsini not only responded to me, but also forwarded his response, along with my original personal email, to both of my bosses at the local community radio station I work with, and to Larry Flynt Publishing. Because he violated my trust and attempted to ridicule me, I responded to Robert Corsini and the entire email list to explain my disgust with Hustler. A flame war quickly erupted, with people on all sides of the issue exchanging emails. What has followed is an interesting example of power politics, the most recent round ending in Hustler publishing several extremely offensive articles and cartoons condemning me as a 'femi fascist' for having the courage to speak out against their brand of pornography as a form of institutionalized gender and racial violence. The experience has led me to examine the greater umbrella of the so-called 'left', and to scrutinize the conditions under which a Goliath like Flynt is sanctioned by it.
In the months after the November election, the left has started looking at our failures in communication and subsequent lack of action while seeking new directions in which to move and create change. Because there are a vast myriad of principles that inform our movement, we often look like, and therefore act, as a deeply divided lot. As a woman of color, it remains difficult to locate the voices and actions that may motivate me, and others like me, to connect with what remains a heterosexist, white male dominated popular left. From protests and rallies in Boston and New York, to lectures and readings in my hometown of Los Angeles, I find that, not unlike 95% of the delegates to the Democratic National Convention who, according to the Boston Globe, opposed the war and still supported a pro-war candidate, we have moved to a rudimentary center and made silent the theories and practices that could flourish by incorporating the voices and actions of those on the margins. The cost of what is in effect the intellectual segregation of the voices of radical women of color is immeasurable: by somewhat unconsciously choosing an easy center, we stifle the dialogue and critique which could meaningfully question what it is we stand for.
Instead, we tacitly support pornographers like Larry Flynt of Hustler Magazine. Flynt has gained credit for squeezing the work of progressive authors between images of violent degradation. By hiding behind this fact, Flynt is able to repel criticisms about the racist and misogynistic culture he perpetuates. Hustler Magazine now publishes articles of popular left icons such as Greg Palast and Christian Parenti. It is important to understand the type of magazine that Larry Flynt publishes: Hustler is not erotica or sex-positive in any sense of those terms, instead it is pro-capitalist hard-core pornographic degradation. Historically, Hustler Magazine goes many steps beyond simple pornography by using hate speech, directly misogynist, and at times pedophilic imagery throughout its pages.
For 25 years, B Dwaine Tinsley was Hustler Magazine's cartoon editor and creator of 'Chester the Molester', a cartoon which depicted Tinsley's character, Chester, sexually abusing prepubescent girls. In 1989, Tinsley's own daughter testified that he molested and forced her take birth control pills from age 13 through 18. He was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter as well as having sexual contact with another 13-year-old girl, whose accusations originally led to his arrest. Tinsley served a nearly two-year sentence, all the while continuing to contribute to Hustler Magazine. Although his conviction was eventually overturned due to a legal technicality, Hustler continued to publish his degrading images, even as he spent time in prison for sexual abuse. Although Tinsley died in 1990, Hustler continues to honor his legacy by publishing heterosexist, and racist work through its magazine. Even while declaring that he is against child pornography, another one of Flynt's many publications includes Barely Legal which uses images of the youngest girls who are allowed to pose nude by law. If such laws did not exist, or were altered to allow the degradation of even younger girls, one can guess that Flynt would print those as well.
In an interview with Guerilla News Network in May 2004, Greg Palast said, 'Larry Flynt is putting [his writing] between beaver shots.' One can only guess what he means if Palast confuses women's genitalia with animals that live near woodlands. He may have been prompted to use essentializing language in association with a magazine that does the same through words and images. In the May interview Palast was talking about gaining exposure for his work in a number of avenues, but it is tough to imagine what type of would-be activists purchase Hustler for enlightening reading material. If such people exist (and I seriously wonder if they do),* *they are the same people who have no qualms with the images of degradation. After being desensitized by viewing women represented as objects and being sexually mutilated, it is unlikely that this audience possesses the psychic ability to be astonished, for example, by images of torture at Abu Ghraib. While Palast can note that his audience is increasing, Flynt can use the work of progressive journalists such as Palast as a scapegoat for avoiding the problematic issues of his product.
In a full hour interview with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman, which aired on hundreds of stations throughout the country several months ago, Larry Flynt was briefly questioned about the exploitation of women in his work. Flynt's response was that, 'most of the criticism comes from the radical feminist movement, who really [sic] only claim to fame is to urge a bunch of ugly women to march behind.' This is the same group of women who screamed in the margins in the days leading to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, yet on hundreds of popular left stations, Flynt's words went unchallenged. Goodman did not include another guest to confront Flynt. Instead, she read a dated quote in which Gloria Steinem voiced her opposition to Flynt and compared his use of the First Amendment to racist and fascist publications that similarly serve to degrade people. Flynt's response was short and easy: that Steinem's work was useful in the 1960s, that she is out of touch today, and that if she is offended by his magazine, she should not read it. Goodman's questions quickly moved on to another topic. Before the interview ended, Flynt adds that '[T]here are only a handful of us that are lobbing grenades into the Bush camp. It's me, Michael Moore, Howard Stern, Molly Ivins, D.H. Hatfield, Greg Palast, you know, you can count them all on both hands.'
Flynt's myopic view of the world makes him blind to the work that so many others do. And, because he controls a tremendous amount of capital, he is able to dodge criticisms against his degradation of women while legitimizing himself to the popular left by publishing progressive journalists. Flynt has become sophisticated at amplifying his voice through his enormous means of production to avoid any real concerns about his product.
In the days that followed, the program was flooded with comments condemning Flynt and the broadcast. Democracy Now's response was to have two feminists, Susie Bright and Susan Brison, debate the merits of pornography, centered around the Flynt interview. Democracy Now attempted to have these women argue over the issue of pornography- while two weeks earlier the program featured a longer interview with a pornographer, unchallenged.
Perhaps taking its lead from Democracy Now, the February issue of Hustler featured an interview with Susie Bright. Besides several incorrect assumptions she makes about me, I was surprised to learn that Bright believes that Hustler is a 'deliberately proletariat' publication, with a 'working-class Southern flavor'. A white feminist who conveniently avoids the issues of racism in Hustler raised by women of color, Bright attempts to rely on an inconsistent class analysis and connects what are 'disgusting' and 'icky' images with that which she deems to be 'working-class', claiming that it makes the publication easier to attack. Rather than aligning herself with the real struggles of working women, Bright has chosen to align herself to millionaire Larry Flynt. Towards the end of the interview published by Hustler, Bright begins to critique the publication itself, alluding to 'disrespectful agreements' between herself and Hustler. At this point, Hustler cuts off the interview entirely, slashing any agency she may have thought she would have had in the interview. When I first read the Bright interview, I was hurt but only slightly surprised that a white feminist would allow Hustler to use her for their own ends. I have never met or spoken with Bright, but it saddens me that someone who calls herself a feminist could say that because of my critique of Hustler, I would wind up 'in a room all by [my]self.' I would not be alone in Bright's imaginary room if she had reached out to me, a working class woman, before postulating fallacies in a publication that serves to physically (and in the case of Bright, intellectually) use women for their immediate gratification.
In the same issue, Hustler attempts to enlist another white woman, Amy Alkon, to attack me. Alkon questions my commitment to free speech, yet fails to realize that it was Hustler Editors Mark Cromer and Bruce David who first attacked me for using free speech in my simple request to be removed from an email list. Alkon unsuccessfully attempts to compare me to white supremacist David Duke making no genuine connection for her comparison. In a separate yet similarly incoherent argument, Alkon asks, 'Aura, what's the answer? Should we all go around in burkhas? Isn't that the oppression you're professing to want to prevent ' in between your position to work out your jealous rage against rich old Larry Flynt?' Obviously Alkon, like Bright, has not taken the time to inform herself on my positions, and her suggestion that I am jealous of Flynt is nothing short of ludicrous.
In another edition of Hustler, the magazine goes far beyond words and uses caricatures of me in a desperate attempt to further speak vilify me. I have not made any public statements regarding Hustler or anyone related to its publication since August 2004, yet after half-a-year of me remaining silent on the issue, Hustler continues to attack me, featuring horrific images of me: in some, I read a poem a Valentine's Day poem, 'Roses are red, Violets are blue, If you're a white male, I'm gonna kill you'; another has me smashing a microphone because, in the cartoon, a caller into the station I work at sends an email suggesting that I like 'having [my] mouth near a microphone because it reminds [me] of a white male's cock.'; yet another cartoon includes a line of 'Aura Bogado Jewelry'- in it, I have a penis pierced through my tongue.
While attempting to position his magazine as a progressive publication, Flynt is using the tactics of reactionary conservatives such as Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh to attack women who stand against violence degradation. In a recent book, Savage complains that the New York Times is contaminated by 'femi-fascists, the Commu-Nazis'. I wouold argue that it's no coincidence that in the February issue of Hustler, the editors refer to me as a 'femi-fascist' and a 'Stalinist', and commissioned a caricature of me as some type of Nazi/fascist. These unfounded characterizations are so similar to conservative attacks on other feminists that it's difficult to distinguish them in print. Both camps (if they are indeed, truly different) make unfounded attacks that have little to do with the real issues at hand. Interestingly, while constantly labeling me a Stalinist (a fascist dictator whose authoritarian reign I have never condoned in any way), Hustler has apparently not spent enough time investigating the profound connections between NION and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). While NION does not force their members to affiliate themselves in any way to the RCP, NION was founded by C Clark Kissinger, of the RCP, therefore many of NION's organizers are members of the RCP. If nothing else, Hustler can be counted on for getting even the simplest facts wrong.
In this horrendous era of the Bush administration, the left has grown- people are finding reasons to join it daily; but is this so-called movement better off defining itself purely by numbers, or do the ideas that inform our movement still matter? If Flynt is truly bringing a new audience and activists to this movement, we cannot forget who they are. They are people who support the degradation of women for capital. They are people who support the notion of women as objects for amusement, hence 'male entertainment'. While social movement theorists cite that electoral politics serve only to co-opt our work, we must ask ourselves if publications like Hustler Magazine don't do the same. As the left continues to grow, our broader ideas about liberation should grow as well. We cannot forget that if we build bridges with racists and sexists, we will burn bridges with women of color and others who oppose oppression at every level of class, race and gender.
--- Aura Bogado works with KPFK Radio and Free Speech Radio News (FSRN). The opinions stated herein reflect the views of the author alone and are not those of KPFK or FSRN management or staff, nor do they reflect the editorial positions of KPFK or FSRN./
From ZNet
First Amendment is for Pornographers, Not For Women Harmed or Silenced by Pornography, According to the ACLU
The following is an article in Media Watch "Challenging racism, sexism and violence in the media through education and action." (Fall 2000). Media Watch website
Do You ACLU?
"The American Civil Liberties Union continues to fight for child pornography on the internet (including public libraries), and was instrumental in keeping child pornography legal until 1982. Their leader, Nadine Strossen, even wrote the book Defending Pornography.
"Claiming 1st Amendment issues are at stake, the ACLU is defending the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA0 and its Web site, a group that advocates sex between men and boys, against a lawsuit brought by the family of a murdered 10-year-old.
"The family of Jeffrey Curley of Cambridge claims in its lawsuit that the North American Man/Boy Love Association and its Web site incited the molestation and murder of the boy in 1997. NAMBLA's web site assists its members in raping children by educating perpetrators on how to locate victims, how to gain their trust and how to avoid law enforcement so they won't get caught.
"ACLU supports the tobacco industry, hates campaign reform, litigates against restrictions on commercial speech and ads, supports the domination of the public airways by media conglomerates and has even assaulted anti-pornography leafleters at a Northern California fund-raiser. This organization DOES NOT -- support the underdog unless he is in prison. (check out Always Causing Legal Unrest, www.nostatusquo.com)"
Owning One's Image
The following is an article by De Clarke in Media Watch "Challenging racism, sexism and violence in the media through education and action." (Fall 2000). Media Watch website
"Since we're stuck in a market ideology at present, why not expand intellectual property law -- with a rule that any image of a human being is the inalienable property of that human being, and cannot be used, promoted, reproduced, etc. without that person's express consent and with a fair share of profits going to that person. In other words, an image of you can only be borrowed or rented, it can never be sold. Heck, that's how the RIAA and MPAA feel about recorded media. According to them, you never really buy a CD or a movie, you just pay for the right to listen to it or watch it.
"Imagine if National Geographic actually had to give money to all those picturesque and undernourished peeasants they like to take pretty pictures of. Imagine if the peasants and indigenous people actually had the legal right to prevent their pictures from being marketed to upscale white folks' coffee tables.
"In our current system a woman has no power to prevent the republication of pornographic images of herself taken N years ago.Imagine is any woman whose image had been used in porno had a guaranteed legal right to control over the distribution of her image, a guaranteed legal right to retract her permission for its replication at any time and to sue the pants off (so to speak) the pimps marketing it? If Monsanto thinks it can patent traditional crops and then make it illegal for farmers to stockpile seed -- then why can't a woman own her own image?" -- De Clarke
