There is a passage in "Defending Pornography" that specifically addressed a branch of feminism and the views they hold on the value of pornography for the movement. I want to site that passage here specifically to discuss.
"An increasingly vocal cadre of feminist women who are dedicated to securing equal rights for women and to combating women's continuing second-class citizenship in our society strongly opposes any effort to censor sexual expression. We are as committed as any other feminists to eradicating violence and discrimination against women; indeed, many of us work directly for these goals every day of our lives. But we believe that suppressing sexual words and images will not advance these crucial causes. To the contrary, we are convinced that censoring sexual expression actually would do more harm than good to women's rights and safety. We adamantly oppose any effort to restrict sexual speech not only because it would violate our cherished First Amendment freedoms - our freedoms to read, think, speak, sing, write, paint, dance, dream, photograph, film, and fantasize as we wish - but also because it would undermine our equality, our status, our dignity, and our autonomy" (Strossen, page 14).
I would like to first preface this discussion with a statement that I disagree with this passage. I do not agree that sexual expression, through the medium of pornography, is beneficial to the equality of women. However, I want this to be an open discussion and I am willing to see both sides of the argument.
From Strossen's perspective, I understand that pornography is technically protected under the boundaries of the First Amendment. It is a form of expression and many people engage in the production of porn and in the consumption of it. I am sure there are people who have selected that as a viable source of income, including women, and they benefit greatly from it.
From my perspective, I see pornography as something utterly detrimental to achieving equality for women's rights. Porn objectifies both men and women and creates very unrealistic expectations about sex for the viewer. There are also so many more people who are on those screens that are not being paid adequately for what they are doing and some are actually sex trafficking victims. They did not choose that as a career. There is also strong evidence of drug and alcohol abuse in the industry. These actors and actresses are putting their bodies through a lot and when they finally leave the industry, they are physically, mentally, and emotionally unable to merge back into the world.
One article that would support my claim covered the deaths of five women within the time frame of 12 weeks. Oliva Lua, age 23, found dead in rehab; August Ames, committed suicide after refusing to shoot a particular genre; Yuri Beltran, age 31, overdose; Shyla Stylez, age 35, found dead in her mom's home.
A lot of this, while true, happens in other industries. Women and men are exploited. There are suicide nets outside of factories in Japan and China. at 18 people are allowed to join the military, fight in the endless wars waged by the US, then come home not receive any proper treatment for their mental health, then they commit suicide too. Women are sexually harassed and assaulted in office workplaces. These incidents aren't good in any industry, but to say, they happen in the sex industry therefore sex industry/work bad. Most porn stars are doing consensual sex work. And any harm to performers perpetrated would be mitigated through decriminalization of sex work, regulation of the industry, and breaking the stigma surrounding sex work. Because the reason sex workers are treated so poorly is because of the stigmatization of them, as a society if we treated them better (and all workers in general) would could get to a place where they aren't abused and exploited
ReplyDeleteI will agree that in the pornography industry some workers are not treated properly. But like Tiara said in the comment above, negatives like what happens in that industry occur in other industries as well. Some women could potentially enjoy the pornography industry because it can empower their femininity, give them a sense of control over their bodies, and even enjoy having sex altogether. And if you can get paid for having sex, something you like doing, why wouldn't you take advantage of that? Some porn is also self done and not recorded at studios or places that may exploit their employees so to speak. With this being said, its all context sensitive and based on who the person is in general. Now I will also agree some women and men who need mental help after being in the industry don't get adequate help like those in the military and so on. I could go on and on about this topic but I might write too much. Women watch porn like men and some people don't at all. It depends from person to person who they are and how they react to porn itself.
ReplyDeleteI think the porn industry absolutely has issues with consent, fetishizing based on race/gender/sexuality, but I also think there are ethical ways to consume porn outside of that industry--I've noticed a lot of movement toward subscription-based services that are organized by and benefit directly the sex workers they depict, which I think can be very positive. As we sort of mentioned in class, I think the problem lies with power--women do not have power in the porn industry and are directed by men for male viewership. However, if women had directorial power, it would be very different. For example, Francis Lee's "Ammonite" contained a lesbian sex scene, which the two women actors directed and choreographed fully by themselves--I think it would be much more ethical if all explicit content followed this trend (that said, Ammonite is just a movie with a sex scene, not "porn"). Ultimately, I think the content of porn does not matter (because criticizing this can quickly veer into sex-negative/puritanical territory) so much as what is going on behind the scenes--was it truly consensual, were the actors truly over 18 and not trafficked beforehand, etc.?
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