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An Anarchist Defense of Pornography
BAD Broadside #5
Pornography continues to be a controversial issue, including among
anarchists, whom one might expect to be among the strongest supporters
of free sexual expression. However, many anarchists have criticized
pornography and some have supported and/or participated in the
anti-pornography movement, the members of which not infrequently
strive to prevent those wishing to view pornography from doing so.
Some anarchists in canada even went so far as to firebomb a sex video
store, an activity which many other anarchists either ignored or chose
not to criticize. Meanwhile, those of us who defend pornography and
freedom of expression, sexual or otherwise, are dismissed as sexists
and reactionaries. Why is it that supposed lovers of freedom and
sexual liberation seem to forget their principles when it comes to
sexually explicit literature and pictures.
The anti-pornography movement, including its anarchist members and
supporters, is not monolithic. Some dislike dirty books and movies,
but support people's freedom to produce and consume such material.
They rely on argument and protest in an attempt to change the
attitudes of those who like porn, encouraging them to refrain from
indulging in it, and do not support censorship. Others, again
including some anarchists, feel that physical attacks on porn stores
or government-mandated censorship are acceptable tactics in the fight
against porn. While only the latter position is censorious, and
therefore unanarchic, the former position, which is contemptuous of
depictions of sex is also problematic in a movement which purportedly
favors sexual freedom.
Pornography is simply a depiction, in words or pictures, of sexual
activity. Most people find sex a good, pleasurable activity and
looking at pornography is sexually arousing for many people. Anti-porn
people frequently say that the images of women in porn are degrading
and offensive to women. However, while some women certainly are
offended by pornographic images they find degrading, other women enjoy
pornography. (See, for instance the book Caught Looking by Kate Ellis,
et al, or Writing Sado-masochistic Pornography: A Woman's Defence by
Deborah Ryder.) While the anti-porn movement views women as a class,
who all share the same goals and desires, women are not a mass of
automatons who all think and feel alike; some are pro-porn and some
are anti-porn, just like men. Additionally, the images of women in
porn are no more sexist and demeaning towards women than the images of
women in most literature and visual media, from novels to movies to TV
to magazine ads. In a sexist society, most images of women are going
to contain at least some of the sexist attitudes common to both women
and men. Besides, some pornography contains women characters who are
very independent, self-motivated and concerned with their own
pleasure, especially in S/M porn where women are frequently on top.
What bothers these people is not the image of women in porn, which is
like that elsewhere in society, but its sexual explicitness; they are
uncomfortable with sex.
Anti-porn activists also claim that porn, with its allegedly
degrading view of women is responsible for the attitudes and actions
of men towards women, and therefore is different from other forms of
expression. But, as with other types of writing and pictures, porn
generally shows what people want to see and are comfortable with; it
doesn't plant foreign ideas in people's minds. And, even in the few
cases where novel ideas are introduced to people in porn, they remain
just that, ideas. Men do not rape or beat women because they see it in
a movie. Sexism, rape, and beatings of women by their partners existed
long before the widespread dissemination of modern pornography, and
societies with little or no porn are no less sexist and violent than
those where it is common.
The claim that men are made violent by porn, besides being
inaccurate, is also based on a myth: that most pornography is violent.
Most porn is composed of depictions of non-violent, consensual,
mutually pleasurable sex. Some of it also contains S/M sex, which,
while including the trappings of violence, and involving (apparent)
pain, is also consensual and mutually pleasurable. There is certainly
some porn which depicts rape or other coercive and violent sex, but it
is a small portion of the porn produced and consumed. Moreover, like
violent non-sexual movies and books, it is simply a depiction of a
fantasy, made up by the author, or performed by consenting
acters/actors. Violent porn is no more real violence than are the
Halloween movies. And if anti-porn people are truly concerned about
the violence and not the sex in porn, why is it that they protest only
porn shops or destroy porn mags and video store, while ignoring Friday
the Thirteenth and horror magazines and books.
One aspect of the whole phenomenon of porn that is often left out
of the discussion is that of homosexual porn. Much of the pornography
produced today shows men having sex with men, with a growing
proportion depicting woman-woman sex. The anti-porners tend to ignore
homoporn because it gives the lie to many of their arguments. If
depictions of inequitable sexual encounters between men and women are
degrading to women, why aren't similarly inequitable encounters
between men and other men (which are very common in all-male porn,
with its tops and bottoms) degrading to men? And if they are
degrading to men, why isn't such porn offensive to men, especially
bottom men? And, if there is S/M imagery and (pretend) violence in
this porn, why doesn't this result in widespread violence against men,
and even rapes of men?
A discussion of such issues never takes place, since most of the
people who oppose heteroporn are unwilling to talk about, let alone
criticize, queer porn because they do not want to risk being seen as
"homophobic" or otherwise politically incorrect. This is due to the
fact that porn has often been seen, rightly, as liberatory by
homosexualist men (and recently also by some homosexualist women), and
is a much more open part of mainstream life for queer men than
heteroporn is in straight society. Because of this "politicization" of
queer porn, any discussion of homoporn by the anti-porners, few of
whom are homosexualist men, is likely to be criticized by gay
liberationists as "anti-gay", and thus effectively suppressed. This is
unfortunate, since such a discussion would show the fallacies in the
anti-porn arguments.
Even though it seems odd that sexual liberationists and anarchists
would find porn offensive, it is certainly true that people have
different tastes. Just because I like porn doesn't mean that you
should. But, if one finds something offensive, one should simply avoid
it, and thereby avoid the offense. However, anti-porners are not
content with this strategy when it comes to porn. They feel that if it
offends them, it must offend others, primarily women, and they take it
upon themselves to protect these others from it. Additionally, since
they feel it leads otherwise non-violent, women-loving men onto the
path of violence and sexism, they feel they need to prevent men from
seeing porn as well.
As stated above, anti-porners differ on the strategy they employ
to achieve these ends. While those who rely on argument and protest to
influence others to avoid porn are preferable to the censors, their
ideas about people are problematic for those with an anarchist
perspective. People are free agents who make choices and decisions
based on what they observe, hear, and otherwise experience, and are
responsible for the outcome of these choices. The libertarian way to
deal with other free agents who choose to view or read materials of
which one disapproves is to let them see these books or movies and
then discuss the material with them and try to convince them of one's
point of view. The issue should be debated in a free marketplace of
ideas, a marketplace where all should feel free to view the images or
writings under discussion, not simply taking the word of the puritans
that porn contains degrading or harmful images or words. People who
pressure porn dealers to stop distributing porn, and who encourage
others to avoid porn based on someone else's experience of it, while
engaging in a non-coercive, and therefore acceptable form of activity,
do not respect the decision-making ability of others. Nor do they
trust the strength of their own arguments when up against a person's
own experience of pornography. Such people feel that others need to be
protected (in large part, from themselves) by those more enlightened,
i.e., the anti-porn people. Urging others to restrict their
experiences and rely on the opinions of others in such matters as
reading and viewing preferences, including the reading and viewing of
porn, while not unanarchic, is certainly illiberal.
More objectionable to anarchists, however, are the anti-porn
activists who are frankly censorious. While we have not come across
any anarchists who endorse laws banning porn, many anarchists support
destruction of the property of porn dealers. Destruction of films and
books which some people wish to sell to others who voluntarily seek to
buy them is just as much censorship as any government mandated law.
While sharing the views of the other anti-porners who seek to protect
others form porn, these people go a step further and use coercive
force to achieve their ends. This is totally incompatible with the
kind of voluntary society sought by most anarchists, and should be
denounced by all freedom-lovers.
Pornography, like any other form of entertainment can be good or
bad, based on the individual merits of any particular work. However,
as a genre of literature or film, it is no better or worse or good or
evil than any other. If porn is bad or sexist, the best strategy is to
criticize it and discuss it with others, and/or make good, non-sexist
porn, not suppress it. Sex and its depiction are a source of pleasure
for many and our freedom to indulge in both should be defended, or at
least tolerated, by anarchists. Censors, including those who claim to
be anarchists, are the enemies of freedom, and anarchists who support
them call into question their commitment to a free society.
NO COPYRIGHT
Please send two copies of any review or reprint
of all or part of this to:
Boston Anarchist Drinking Brigade
(BAD Brigade)
PO Box 1323
Cambridge, MA 02238
Internet: bbrigade@world.std.com
February, 1992