Pondering Porn

In a speech last Monday entitled “X-Underrated—Pornography and Popular Culture,” Pound Visiting Professor of Law Catherine A. MacKinnon stressed to her Barker Center audience of several dozen that pornography cannot exist separately from the mainstream.

MacKinnon is a longtime social activist who has committed much of her career to advocating legislation to curb pornography and representing former porn actresses in suing for damages. In her speech Monday, MacKinnon went straight for shock tactics, suggesting that society is wrong to consider porn harmless when it produces images as bad as those that came out of Abu Ghraib.

To be sure, there are many aspects of pornography that are distasteful and destructive. The sort of violent pornography that treats women exclusively as subordinate objects, for instance, reveals a disturbing element of sexual desire. Yet, however tacky or disgusting we may find it, we should recognize that most porn is just the extreme end of a gradient of objectification that occurs regularly in society—involving both men and women. Movies, ads, casual flirting—all can sometimes involve an element of objectification in how we look at others, but that does not mean they are always inherently harmful.

MacKinnon’s brand of feminism is of that tired sort that presumes women lack autonomy of any sort when it comes to sex. She is joined by feminists like former Harvard Law Professor Susan Estrich, whose book “Real Rape” essentially suggested that women are always coerced into sex. Effectively, according to these theorists, we can’t trust women who say they make choices of their own free will—women are always victims. MacKinnon’s argument, that poor women only go into porn because they are coerced, could just as well apply to poor people who choose other “demeaning” jobs. Dismissing the decision of a porn actress as a sign of oppression, while respecting that of the janitor or factory worker, hardly demonstrates respect for the will and subjectivity of the individual women.

Despite our disagreement with MacKinnon’s views, however, we welcome discussion on the causes and effects of pornography. As she points out, the issue is too rarely considered outside the auspices of Women, Gender and Sexuality classes. To ignore the presence of a $60 billion global industry and its implications is perverse and foolish when examining how humans relate to one another in society, especially regarding gender disparities. But such discussion should avoid the language of extremes and should acknowledge the fact that this is an issue full of nuances.