When I tell people that I consider myself a feminist, I often get the question: "Why are feminists against pornography?" This is not a question that can be answered in a few sentences. Many people want to define the terms first: Are we talking about "pornography" or "erotica," they ask. Let's see. The 1986 Attorney General Commission on Pornography defined pornography as:
Material that is predominantly sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.
My old Webster's dictionary defines "erotica" as:
Literary or artistic items which have a theme or quality of, devoted to, or tending to arouse, sexual desire.
It is true that much of the material labeled "porn" is puerile, plotless and pointless, and that most of the material called "erotica" contains artistic elements (such as a plot) not found in pornography. But in the end, both have sexual arousal as their goal. For the purposes of the pornography debate, adding a few words like "artistic" and "sexually explicit" to one or the other of the definitions seems to be a distinction without a difference - and there are more important distinctions to be made. So, let's not quibble over those terms, and simply agree that either erotica or pornography is material that is intended to arouse sexual feelings. What's wrong with that? To myself and many of the feminists I know, nothing.
It is true, however, that there are some feminists who are against pornography in any form. Prof. Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin will leap to most minds as examples of anti-pornography feminists. MacKinnon and Dworkin's view, as described by their critics, is that sex in our culture is based on male dominance, and books, movies and magazines which portray sexual acts serve only to reinforce that male dominance. Further, since male dominance in our society effectively denies women true equality, anything which reinforces that dominance (such as pornography, for example) is a violation of women's civil rights. While this is not entirely correct, it is a close enough approximation that it can't be called entirely false. Which is, of course, why their critics use this description as a starting point in the debate.
A more accurate description of their position is this: The objectification of women is a barrier to women's equality in our society. Therefore, anything which perpetuates the objectification of women prevents women from achieving equality. (For those not familiar with feminist-speak, "objectification of women" is the notion that women are seen merely as and only as sex objects who happen to have nonessential attributes, such as a brain, included in the package.) In other words, as long as women are viewed as sex objects which exist solely for the pleasure of men, their status - or lack of it - will continue to be determined by men.
This description is more difficult to argue against. Few feminists would disagree that the constant bombardment of images of naked or nearly-naked women - whether in pornography or in popular media - contributes to the objectification of women. Most would also agree that the objectification of women does, indeed, impede women's progress toward equality. But even with a more accurate understanding of MacKinnon and Dworkin's ideas, I don't entirely agree with them. Yes, women should object to being portrayed as objects, but to define the depiction of an act of loving sex - or even just mutually-enjoyable sex - as a violation of women's civil rights? Please. Stop the bandwagon, I want to get off.
One of the arguments of anti-pornography feminists is that this constant "woman as sex object" bombardment obliterates any other view of women. I agree that it makes other views more difficult to see. But those other views are out there, and they are seen. More importantly, I don't think that removing any trace of women's sexuality from our culture will automatically catapult the view of "women as equals" to the forefront of our cultural consciousness. I also think any effort to remove women's sexuality from our culture would probably be opposed by as many women as men. I think a better answer is acknowledge women's sexuality by replacing those "women as sex object" images with "woman as equal partners in sexuality" images.
So, bottom line, as a feminist, no, I'm not against sexual pornography or erotica, and I don't really think there is much of a difference between the two. But I do think that there is a difference between porn or erotica that depicts sex (or the human body) as arousing, and porn that depicts violence (or the degradation of another human being) as arousing.
Next: A Distinction That Matters.