Every now and then an article appears in the mainstream media that denounces pornography. Sometimes I just roll my eyes and get back to work. Other times, I can’t help but write about it. Today is one of those days. Never mind that I have a 45 minute porn scene that is waiting to be edited. Nope, today, I’m going to have to wade in, despite my better judgement, just so I can stop thinking about it.
Today’s source of frustration is an article at ABC’s The Drum called “So what if your porn is feminist? The collusion of feminism with sexual violence“. It’s by Laura McNally, who is a psychologist and consultant* as well as a contributor to a book called The Freedom Fallacy: Limits of Liberal Feminism. This book is keen to put the boot into “choice feminism”.
This piece is a textbook example of the many ways that anti-porn campaigners frame their argument. If you’re looking to take up railing against the evils of porn, here are some of the things you’ll need to do:
1. Start with the assumption that all porn is harmful. Doesn’t matter who makes it, what it looks like, what it depicts, if people are having sex on screen, it’s bad and dangerous and not feminist at all.
2. Mix in an anti-sex-work philosophy. This worldview sees any exchange of sex for money to be wrong and exploitative. Ignore any suggestion of consent or agency. Insist that sex is for love, baby-making and maybe, occasionally, for pleasure. But not money.
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3. Define pornography only on your terms. Make sure your definition is narrow and only includes heterosexual, mainstream, US-produced porn. Whatever you do, don’t mention gay or queer porn. Make sure the focus is always on how porn is harmful to women. Do this by discussing only straight rough sex or sexist porn. Mislabel it as “gonzo” (see the actual definition here).
4. Present your anecdotal or debunked evidence. In anti-porn campaigning, anecdotes are gold. Present first-person stories of porn trauma and “addiction”. Say you’ve had discussions with women and they all say the same thing. Talk about what some doctors have told you. Quote a vox pop or a TV documentary. Assert that porn is addictive, that pre-teens are watching it regularly, that young men are replicating what they see in porn with their hapless girlfriends. Use online surveys, statistics from porn piracy sites, opinion pieces. Don’t look too hard at where your information is coming from or how it was obtained. Don’t ask whether your data is scientific or not; the main thing is, it supports your argument so use it. Ignore any contradictory evidence.
5. Suggest that porn is one of the root causes of modern women’s problems. Imply that the many injustices women face because of patriarchy can be helped if we could just do something about pornography.
6. Assume the viewers of porn are uncritical, unthinking beasts. Roll with the idea that only men watch porn and they passively accept the worldview of what they are seeing. Suggest that because they have an erection, all reason goes out the window. Assume that they will automatically replicate the behaviours and attitudes of porn.
7. Assume all the performers in porn are exploited, stupid, abused or drug addicted. Ignore any suggestion that the performers have agency, are happy with their work, have collaborated on set. Use only those who have had bad experiences as your examples. Also, only talk about the female performers.
8. Talk about “the porn industry” as a monolith. Focus on the Porn Valley studios, the AVN conventions, the Mindgeek tube sites and say that these people represent everyone in porn. Paint “the industry” as greedy, ultra-capitalist, exploitative and huge, an enemy that must be stopped. Ignore the global nature of porn or the way the internet has allowed anyone with an iPhone to make and publish their own porn.
9. Dismiss feminist porn as either irrelevant, too capitalist or collusive. Say feminist porn is too small to make a difference, or it is still exploitative because money is exchanging hands. Question the feminist credentials of those involved. Dismiss it as frivolous or “choice feminism”. Call the female directors “pimps” and say their performers were duped. Say that their work is worthless because it was produced with a larger studio or else say it’s too indie so nobody is watching it anyway.
This last one is new. Feminist porn has proved to be a fly in the anti-porn ointment because we are showing that porn isn’t the bogeyman they have built. This is of course bad news for their book sales so lately I’m seeing attacks on feminist porn as part of the armory.
The frustrating thing is this: I am a critic of pornography just as they are. I see the problems with porn – the sexism, the racism, the bad business and employment practices that do exist. I also see a massive lack of sex education and porn media literacy among the wider public. I want to change that but my approach is to make change from within, to be the change I want to see in the world, even if it’s just me, one woman, making my own version of porn, far removed from “the industry”.
We differ greatly when it comes to point 10:
10. Push for censorship or prohibition. Raise a panic. Demand that something must be done. Urge governments to step in. Fight to make sex work illegal. Regulate porn out of existence via mandatory condom laws or bans on “extreme” porn. Push for mandatory internet filters.
I think this is why I’m here writing about this. Because I know that this ultimate goal is wrong. Porn and sex work have always been with us; people like sex, people want to watch sex, they want to have sex. Prohibition doesn’t work. What does work is sex education and ethical practices. And those are two of the goals of feminist porn.
Laura McNally’s article is a fine example of anti-porn campaigning at work. I’m going to write a second post specifically pulling apart some of her claims. Stay tuned.
* Consultant. I’m assuming this means she makes her money speaking and writing about porn. Which is not at all capitalist or exploitative or bad, because selling books denouncing porn is totally different from selling porn movies.
# Part 2: I’ve written a somewhat rambling dissection of Laura McNally’s article in this post.
Photo credit: Hansol, via flickr
STANDING OVATION!
HEAR FUCKING HEAR!!!
Extremely well put.