XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography (17 page)

Research to date thus provides no substantial basis for the belief that erotic materials constitute a primary or significant cause of the development of character deficits or that they operate as a significant determinative factor in causing crime and delinquency. This conclusion is stated with due and perhaps excessive caution, since it is obviously not possible, and never would be possible, to state that never on any occasion, under any 66

condition, did any erotic material ever contribute in any way to the likelihood of any individual committing a sex crime. Indeed, no such statement could be made about any kind of nonerotic material. On the basis of the available data, however, it is not possible to conclude that erotic material is a significant cause of crime." [17]

This vindication of pornography led then President Richard Nixon to declare, "So long as I am in the White House, there will be no relaxation of the national effort to control and eliminate smut from our national life.... I totally reject this report." [18] Radical feminists agree with Nixon.

The growing intolerance within feminism is not a sign of intellectual confidence, which invites open discussion. It is a sign of dogmatic hostility toward anyone who disagrees. It is coupled with bad science and poor research.

In general, most studies of pornography follow one of two methodologies, both of which try to draw connections between images and behavior:

1. They expose men to pornographic material in a lab setting and observe the immediate effects; or

2. They try to correlate what men report reading or watching with the behavior of those men.

The first type of research has many possible shortcomings. Any one of them could invalidate its findings. The possible shortcomings include: The lab study may not reflect behavior in the real world; the subject or the researcher might introduce unknown factors (e.g., the emotional response of the researcher); the subjects-often criminals or students-may not be representative of the general population, or even representative of most criminals or students; the artificial situation in and of itself may induce aggression (e.g., no punishment is attached to behavior); the pornography viewed is selective; the impact of pornography is short-lived and easily overridden by the next stimulus; most studies rely on immediate responses and do not indicate what behavior, if any, would follow in the real world; the extent to which pornography causes harm by, for example, changing morality, is impossible to scientifically measure.

The second research methodology suffers from similar pitfalls. Added to this is the credibility problem of having to believe whatever the subject says. This is a particularly sticky problem when the subjects are rapists who wish to blame their crime on some external force.

Moreover, the researcher typically brings assumptions to the experiment, which shape the results. This is true of the most scrupulously honest study. For example, if a researcher believes that sex is biologically based rather than a social construct, this assumption will influence what questions are asked and how the data is interpreted.

Whichever method is used, many researchers are openly skeptical that the results prove anything.

Research on the possible connection between images and actions, pornography and violence, is in its infancy. Antiporn feminism is not allowing it to mature. Political/sexual correctness is the single greatest force blocking real investigation into violence against women.

Consider the issue of rape. In the sixties, researchers approached rape as a complex crime that had as many motives as any other violent act did. Consider murder: People murder for money, out of passion, as a part of war, for the thrill, out of jealousy, from peer pressure, for revenge, because they are on drugs or drunk ... The list goes on. The Kinsey study classified no less than seven types of rapists.

Rape used to be considered in such complex, sophisticated terms. Today, political correctness-especially on the campus has narrowed the range of permissible research that can be conducted.

Rape now has only one cause: patriarchy. It is an act of power committed by men against women.

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When political interests become mixed with methodology, reports and studies become virtually worthless. So does analysis.

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In the maelstrom of antipornography hysteria, liberal feminism often provides the few voices of sanity heard above the storm. Liberal organizations like Feminists for Free Expression (FFE) have consistently and courageously stood up against measures like the Victims of Pornography Compensation Act, and for sexual expression. Some liberal feminists like Nadine Strossen have been staunch and tireless in their defense of freedom of speech. It is difficult to imagine better companions in the fight for sexual choice.

Other liberals seem to have forgotten their roots and are now willing to sacrifice free speech for the greater good of protecting women from pornography.

There is a growing schism within liberal feminism, which threatens to disrupt such key liberal organizations as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

What are the arguments that are causing such turmoil in liberal ranks?

LIBERAL FEMINIST ARGUMENTS AGAINST CENSORSHIP

In general, liberal feminists offer three types of arguments against censoring pornography: Freedom of speech is a necessary condition for human freedom; the suppression of pornography will hurt women (in the several ways presented below); and, pornography offers certain benefits to women.

Let us examine the first two arguments. The third will be discussed in the following chapter.

Freedom of speech is a necessary condition for human freedom.
This argument says little about women's relationship to pornography, except in the most general sense. Even feminists who believe porn degrades and humiliates women sometimes argue against censorship as the greater threat. These are the feminists who say: As a woman I am appalled by
Playboy...
but as a writer I understand the need for free speech.

Such feminists are not pro-pornography. They are anticensorship. They argue on several grounds: Great works of art and literature would be banned; the First Amendment would be breached; political expression would be suppressed; and a creative culture requires freedom of speech.

The suppression of pornography will hurt women.
This argument specifically addresses the relationship of women to pornography. But, again, it is not so much a defense of pornography as it is an attack on censorship. Liberal feminists point to the real problems involved in implementing the antipornography program. Among the insightful questions they ask are: Who Will Act as Censor?

Whoever acts as censor will wield tremendous power, because words such as
degrading
are so subjective they will be interpreted to mean whatever the censor wants them to. In the August 1993
Virginia Law Review,
Nadine Strossen worries that the antipornography definitions are so vague that they could be used against homosexual and lesbian material: "It is not clear whether Andrea Dworkin or Catharine MacKinnon would classify homoerotic photographs or films as 'pornography.' Although their model law defines `pornography' as thèsexually explicit subordination of
women
through pictures and/or words,' it expressly stipulates that even images of men could be interpreted as portraying the subordination of women." [1]

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The state that banned Margaret Sanger because she used the words
syphilis
and
gonorrhea
is no different, in principle, than the one that interprets obscenity today.

There will be nothing-not even the paper shield of the First Amendment-to stand between the state and feminist literature. There will be no protection even for the feminist classics such as
Our Bodies, Ourselves,
which provided a generation of women with a explicit glimpse of their own sexuality.

Inevitably, censorship will be used against the least popular views, against the weakest members of society-including feminists and lesbians. When the Canadian Supreme Court decided (1992) to protect women by restricting the importation of pornography, one of the first targets was a lesbian/gay bookstore named Glad Day Bookstore, which had been on a police "hit list."

Canadian officials also targeted university and radical bookstores. Among the books seized by Canadian customs were two books by Andrea Dworkin:
Pornography: Men Possessing Women
and
Women Hating.

Even narrowing the definition of pornography to include only the depiction of explicit violence would not protect feminist works. It would not, for example, protect Susan Brownmiller's pivotal
Against Our Will,
which offers a "history" of rape, complete with graphic detail. Nor. would it exempt Kate Millett's
The Basement,
a novel-chronicle of sexual torture.

Doesn't the AntiPornography Crusade Perpetuate the Myth of Women as Victims?

Refusing to acknowledge the contracts of women in pornography places them in the same legal category as children or mental incompetents. In Indianapolis, the antipornography ordinance argued that women, like children, needed special protection under the law: "Children are incapable of consenting to engage in pornographic conduct.... By the same token, the physical and psychological well-being of women ought to be afforded comparable protection, for the coercive environment ... vitiates any notion that they consent or `choose' to perform in pornography." [2]

This attitude of "I'm a helpless victim" could easily backfire on women who may be required to prove they are able to manage their own finances, or to handle custody of their own children.

Moreover, the idea of men "emotionally or verbally coercing" women re-enforces the concept of men as intellectually and psychologically stronger than women. It is the old "Man of Steel/

Woman of Kleenex" myth.

Who Will Protect Women from the AntiFeminist Conservatives, with Whom Radical Feminists Are Aligning?

By joining hands with conservatives, antipornography feminists have strengthened the political power of the Religious Right, who attack abortion and other fundamental rights of women.

Radical feminists are being used. For example, in 1992, the promotional material of the conservative National Coalition Against Pornography featured quotes from Andrea Dworkin; in other contexts, these same people crucify her as a lesbian.

This alliance may be a tragic mistake for women's rights. With tragic results. Feminists are lending credibility and power to organizations, which will turn on a dime against them.

Aren't Radical Feminists Diverting Attention from the Real Issues that Confront Women?

Feminists used to address the complex network of cultural, political, and biological factors that contributed to the real issues confronting women. Now the beginning and ending of all discussion seems to be the specter of patriarchy-of white male culture in league with capitalism.

Pornography is merely one aspect of this single-minded assault. Radical feminist analysis is imposed on all forms of women's sexuality, including childbirth.

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Consider the furor that is brewing around the New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs), which have been called "the pornography of pregnancy." These technologies-which include
in
vitro

fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and embryo transfer are behind the recent news stories announcing that sixty-year old women are giving birth. Men have always been able to become parents at sixty; that door has just opened for women.

The NRTs raise many questions of medical and genetic ethics, including how to redefine the family, what of population control; and what of world hunger. For radical feminists, however, there is but one issue. Medical science and technology are the products of white male culture, which oppresses women; therefore, the NRTs are medicalized terror conducted against women.

(Interestingly enough, the women who clamor for such medical procedures are dismissed in the same manner as women in pornography: namely, they are said to be brainwashed and no longer capable of true consent.)

Patriarchy seems to be blamed for everything from sexual harassment to stretch marks. It is a common saying: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When your ideology sounds only one note, all songs are in the same key. Increasingly, violence against women seems to be linked almost attributed to one source: pornography. This is not an opening up of feminist theory and consciousness; it is a closing down.

Doesn't Blaming Pornography Exonerate Rapists?

To blame words or images for the actions of people is simplistic. It retards any real examination into what motivates violent crimes, such as rape. Radical feminists are handing a "pornography made me do it" excuse to rapists. Nothing should be allowed to mitigate the personal responsibility of every man who physically abuses a woman.

Radical feminists are allowing men to introduce "extenuating circumstances" into their defense.

For example, in appealing
Schiro v. Clark,
[3] the defendant-a rapist-argued that in sentencing, the judge had failed to take into account his consumption of "rape" pornography. Fortunately, his argument fell deservedly flat.

How Can Women Chronicle Their Oppression If They Do Not Have Access to Its History?

Censorship removes the evidence of women's oppression and limits their ability to learn from it.

For example, if it had been up to Comstock and his nineteenth-century censorship drive, no evidence of the fledgling birth control movement would have survived. The record of this struggle survives only because individuals preserved periodicals and pamphlets, which were archived decades later by universities and historical societies.

How much lesbian history will be available if censorship prevails?