The Cambridge Porn Debate

On the 17th of February, the Cambridge University Union Society hosted a debate entitled This House Believes Pornography Does A Good Public Service. On the “for” side were feminist porn filmmaker Anna Span, sex educator and therapist Jessi Fischer (The Sexademic) and porn actor Johnny Anglais. On the “against” side were anti-porn feminist Gail Dines, child psychologist Richard Woolfson and Shelly Lubben, ex prostitute and porn actress, now an evangelical Christian and anti-porn campaigner.

The debate was held in front of a packed audience (with students listening outside the hall) and the end result was a vote in favour of porn, 231 to 187 (with 197 abstaining).

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Some have reported that Shelly Lubben’s emotional and non academic performance was a deciding factor (here, here). Jessi Fischer, in her blog post about the experience, says it was the lack of sources and general misinformation on the “against” side that did it in. Anna Span says the “against” side weren’t prepared to face such stiff opposition.

Debates like this are good for getting the issue out there but I do wonder whether the adversarial and strict nature of such an event can ever do it justice. I am mostly on the side of porn but I also believe there are plenty of negative issues surrounding it that need to be discussed. It’s such a pity that people like Dines and Lubben talk only in black and white when it comes to porn, they see only exploitation, abuse and bad outcomes when the fact is the whole shebang is entirely complex and can’t be reasonably discussed in generalisations.

I do have to cheer Jessi Fischer’s ongoing efforts to inject rationality and real data into the discussion, especially in the face of massaged statistics and moral hysteria. I think my favourite quote is this:

“The plural of anecdote is not data.” Superb.

Read Johnny Anglais’ speech here. BBC has a radio interview with Anna Span here.

Update 23rd Feb: Anna Span and Gail Dines appeared on BBC radio after the debate (audio here). Unfortunately the presenter took sides halfway through and belittled Anna. Violet Blue has publicly made a complaint about bias (and I did too after listening to the recording). We’ll see what happens from here.