Legal, But Unacceptable

By David B. Orr

On the left hand corner of a kiosk in the yard, a sign advertising “Let’s Go Amsterdam” asks passers-by, “Want to Pluck a Tulip?” with a photograph of a teenage female figure staring alluringly at her audience. Just a joke?

In The Harvard Crimson, Albert Einstein’s head is pasted onto the emaciated, half-naked body on an anonymous woman in a cartoon by a Maxim “artist” presenting his ideal Harvard president. Free exchange of ideas?

At Out of Town News, where hundreds of Harvard students purchase newspapers and magazines every week, scores of magazines featuring women being beaten, gagged, assaulted and otherwise tortured are sold along with “erotic” stories of rape fantasy and child molestation. Protected speech?

The answer to all of those questions is, at least at first glance, a definitive “yes.” I am as wary as the next person of government- or university-sponsored speech police censoring the signs put up by student groups, the content of newspapers or the commerce at newsstands. And I do not wish to explore the complicated issue of the status of pornography as speech. But the question of legality is only one small part of this picture. The bigger question is, why do we as a community and as individuals find these portrayals of women acceptable? Or if we do not find them acceptable, why do we refuse to do anything about them? What culpability do we have as individuals?

Last week I had what Lecturer Diane L. Rosenfeld ’96 calls a feminist moment. Sure, I have been involved in various women’s groups for a number of years, and I have always considered myself a feminist. But suddenly, the pieces have fallen into place, and I see all around me examples of subtle and overt efforts to undermine women and preserve a tradition of male domination. The relationship between pornography, gendered marketing and the social pressure to assume “traditional” gender roles on the one hand, and sexual violence, the glass ceiling, domestic violence and workplace harassment on the other, is stark and clear. The objectification of women is the first step in their disempowerment and ultimately their abuse.

As Catherine McKinnon points out in her writings on pornography, there is plenty of speech that we do not find acceptable because of the actions with which it is associated. Stores cannot place signs that say “Jews not allowed” in their windows, even if those signs are only meant to express the idea that Jews should not be allowed. But again, beyond legality, we do not find it acceptable for the Ku Klux Klan to march in Skokie, Ill., because it has the highest concentration of Holocaust survivors in the country. We don’t make it illegal, but we protest, chastise and exert social pressure to make clear that behavior of that sort is unacceptable.

How would you feel if the newsstand on the corner carried Southern Partisan Magazine, a neo-Confederate publication? I would feel shocked and outraged—not that such speech is legal, but that members of my community traffick in hate speech. Fortunately, we can all rest easy that Out of Town News and Nini’s Corner do not carry such garbage. How would you feel if the newsstand on the corner sold a cartoon called “Chester the Molester,” in which a young Jewish girl is lured by a dollar bill attached to a string to the erect penis of an elderly man? I would feel shocked and outraged; I do feel shocked and outraged, because Chester the Molester is available for your reading pleasure in Hustler Magazine, for sale at Out of Town News and Nini’s Corner.

How many studies showing a clear link between repeated exposure to pornography and increased likelihood to commit rape will it take before we start to treat this brutal artistic “genre” as the hate speech it really is? Indeed, studies have found that between 75 and 90 percent of child molesters regularly use hard-core pornography.

Of course, you may say, there is not necessarily a connection between “speech” and “action.” I am sure that, despite their advertisements, many editors of Let’s Go do not actually want to attract research-writers by holding out the promise of “plucking” the virginity of young Dutch women. I can accept that the Maxim cartoonist might not believe that anorexia and sexual availability should be held up as models for the ideal Harvard president. And I imagine that the owners of Out of Town News and Nini’s Corner may not really think that rape and child molestation are acceptable forms of sexual expression.

The federal courts agree with me. Although the government monitors membership in organizations like the Ku Klux Klan and subscription to magazines like Southern Partisan because of the clear connection between hate speech and hate crime, the courts do not extend such regulation to pornography subscribers. They have not held that there is a connection between the “art” in works such as “Chester the Molester” and harmful action. The judiciary’s position hasn’t changed even after it turned out that the cartoonist who created “Chester the Molester” had been molesting and raping his own daughter for many years. If it leads to male masturbation, it just cannot possibly be hate speech.

How safe would you feel if 50 men in your House subscribed to a magazine that advises parents to send their sons to schools with lax policies on sexual assault? What attitudes—and behaviors—might be associated with reading such a publication? Now go to your mail room and see how many issues of Maxim are delivered. In Cabot House this month, it was 47. Is that acceptable?

David B. Orr ’01 is a social studies concentrator in Cabot House.