I’d like to thank ethicist Leslie Cannold for writing this on her blog today. It’s an excerpt from a longer essay called Pornography’s Effects: The Need for Solid Evidence by Ronald Weitzer. You can read the full thing here.
The essay, published in the journal Violence Against Women, points out that a lot of the rhetoric of Gail Dines and other anti-porn campaigners is not backed up by any solid established evidence. Instead, they rely on anecdotes, generalisations and assumptions.
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It’s best if you read the whole thing for yourself but here’s a few choice paragraphs:
To evaluate these claims, it is crucial to ask if there is supporting evidence. Like Boyle’s book, Dines’ is evidence-thin. Although Dines cites a handful of academic studies, vir- tually the entire book is based on anecdotal information: (a) quotations from some men and women who attend Dines’ lectures; (b) her descriptions of some porn websites; (c) statements from a handful of actors and producers whom Dines met at the annual Adult Expo convention in Las Vegas; and (d) her accounts of selected scenes in porno- graphic videos. How does Dines use this impressionistic material and what alternative sources would be superior?
First, Dines did not conduct a systematic and rigorous review of porn websites or scenes, nor does she cite studies that do so. Neither are readers told how many websites or scenes she examined, nor how they were selected. Did she view 20 scenes or 2,000? She claims that they were representative—“these images are all too representative of what is out there on the Internet and in mass-produced movies” (p. xxi)—but we have no basis for believing that they were. With so much porn available today on the Internet and elsewhere, how could we ever construct a random sample from this universe to reach generalizable conclusions?
Second, grand generalizations are made throughout the book. Dines frequently refers to “men,” “women,” the “porn industry,” “fans,” and “performers” as monolithic categories. Also troubling is the jarring use of terms such as “never,” always,” “usually,” and “most.” Similarly, nowhere does she define some frequently used terms: “degrading,” “dehuman- izing,” or “empathy.” She does give examples of acts that she considers inherently degrad- ing; these include anal sex, ejaculation on a woman’s body, two or more men having sex with one woman, and multiorifice intercourse. Whether these acts are indeed perceived as degrading by viewers and actors does not figure into Dines’ argument. They are simply defined as perverted by fiat.
Third, nothing is said about gay male porn, lesbian porn, alternative porn, porn made by women—which, together, constitute a sizeable share of the market. A small but growing literature on these genres shatters Dines’ sweeping claims about “porn” (see Bakehorn, 2010; Collins, 1998; DeVoss, 2002; Stychin, 1992; Thomas, 2010; Tucker, 1991). The prolifera- tion of alternative genres renders any generalizations about “porn” ludicrous.
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Fourth, Dines acknowledges that there is very little data on actual porn consumers— those who watch porn in the real world (vs. in laboratory experiments)—but then proceeds to make many far-reaching claims about them. She writes that the “men who speak to me are not that different from the general population of men who use pornography,” but her source for the latter is another antiporn writer, journalist Pamela Paul (p. 89). Dines did not conduct a survey or in-depth interviews with a sample (let alone a representative sample) of consumers. A particularly troubling aspect of the book is her quotations from men and women who have spoken to her during and after her lectures. Blocks of sentences are quoted verbatim, bracketed by quotation marks, without indicating how these statements were recorded. How can readers have confidence that these statements were actually made by individuals with whom she had conversations? Was Dines somehow able to remember verbatim student statements consisting of two to four sentences at a time?
I think this article is incredibly useful and relevant – especially given that it is in a journal that looks at actual violence against women. Next time Gail Dines and her anti-porn cohorts wheel out their standard arguments, I’ll be linking to this essay. It does an excellent job of rebuttal in one easy swoop.
I am eagerly awaiting the publication of research by Dr Clarissa Smith and colleagues. They actually listened to porn 5,490 consumers via online questionaires. Understandably, it will take a while for the full results to emerge but they’ve uploaded some preliminary data here.