T H E P O R N O G R A P H Y WARS 

Exploring Two Distinct Feminist Identities 

M E R E D I T H H U D S O N 

C U R R E N T P O L I T I C A L DEBATES OVER T H E L E G A L I Z A T I O N OF GAY M A R R I A G E A N D T H E 

P R O T E C T I O N OF A W O M A N ' S R E P R O D U C T I V E R I G H T S RARELY Q U E S T I O N S T H E C R I T I -

CAL REASONS W H Y O U R SOCIETY U P H O L D S B O T H P A T R I A R C H A L A N D H O M O P H O B I C 

V A L U E S . T H I S A R T I C L E EXPLORES O N E S U C H WAY I N W H I C H A P A T R I A R C H Y IS SUS-

T A I N E D BY T H E USE OF I M A G E S , S P E C I F I C A L L Y P O R N O G R A P H I C I M A G E S . T H O U G H 

M A N Y F E M I N I S T S W O U L D W A N T TO PURSUE A B A N O N P O R N O G R A P H Y , S U C H A BAN 

W O U L D MERELY R E I N F O R C E T H E IDEA T H A T C E R T A I N S E X U A L DESIRES BETWEEN T W O 

C O N S E N T I N G A D U L T S ARE I M M O R A L A N D D E G R A D I N G . C O N D E M N A T I O N OF I M A G E S 

S U C H AS T H E S E HAS P E R P E T U A T E D T H E R I G H T FOR O U R C U L T U R E TO U P H O L D H O M O -

P H O B I A FOR M A N Y D E C A D E S , T H E R E F O R E , W E , AS A S O C I E T Y , M U S T BE WARY OF S U C H 

A P O L I C Y . 



I N T R O D U C T I O N 

Though the tumultuous decade of the 1960s appeared to 

shake the very foundations of the American nation, many 

beneficial consequences also arose. Various minority 

groups became mobilized; African-Americans fought for 

their right to vote, women fought for their right to equal op-

portunity, and gays fought for the right to practice their 

lifestyle free from the fear of police entrapment. 

Concurrent with the political upheaval of this time, a social 

revolution was occurring as well. The counter-culture 

movement was promoting causes such as "free-love," and 

the invention of the birth control pil l made this possible. 

The sexual revolution focused on liberating society from in-

hibitions about sexuality and encouraged sexual explo-

ration. As a result of this cultural phenomenon, pornogra-

phy became more widespread. For some feminists, this 

proliferation of sexual imagery was not liberating; rather it 

problematized the role of women in our society and pre-

sented them as objects merely to serve and submit to male 

sexual pressure. This particular school of feminism saw all 

sexuality as a form of male violence; every act of sexuality is 

inherently a situation of domination and control of the fe-

male by the male. During the 1970s and early 1980s, rad-

ical feminists formed a coalition with conservative 

Christian groups such as the Moral Majority to ban pornog-

raphy. These political efforts ultimately failed to make 

pornography illegal, but the pornography debates reveal 

significant tension and conflict about the identity of a fem-

inist, as well as the role of women's sexuality. It sparked a 

conflict among those in the feminist movement, as well as 

from other sexual minorities. Some groups claimed ban-

ning pornography not only intrudes upon First 

Amendment rights, but also, by legislating sexuality and 

morality, risked marginalizing those who did find sexual 

pleasure and liberation in pornography or other devious 

sexual acts. 

F E M I N I S T A R G U M E N T S A G A I N S T 

P O R N O G R A P H Y 

Though feminists against pornography enacted several 

local-level strategies to regulate pornography, none were as 

controversial as the Dworkin-MacKinnon ordinance, since 

it defined pornography as a direct violation of women's 

rights." Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon pro-

posed anti-pornography legislation to the city of 

Minneapolis in 1980 that legally defined pornography as 

The graphic, sexually explicit subordination of women 

whether in pictures or in words that also includes one or 

more of the following: women are presented dehumanized 

as sexual objects,...or women are presented as sexual 

objects who enjoy pain or humiliation; or women who ex-

perience pleasure in being raped...or women's body parts 

are exhibited, such that women are reduced to those parts; 

or women are presented in scenarios of egradation...shown 

as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised or hurt in a context 

that makes these conditions sexual}11 

The law proposed civil, not criminal, action for those af-

fected by pornography; it provided a legal framework in 

which those affected by pornography would have the legal 

right to sue makers, sellers, distributors and exhibitors of 

pornography. The law also provided for a court injunction 

to remove pornography from the public realm, so that 

publishers and booksellers would be under constant 

scrutiny and surveillance. i v Feminists sought to evaluate 

the detrimental effects of pornography on three levels: 

E L E M E N T S S P R I N G 0 6 



production, the product itself, and the consumers of the 

product. Pornography is a $7 billion a year industry; there 

are more X-rated bookstores than McDonalds in the United 

States.v Eighty-four percent of men and 69 percent of 

women have seen pornography, though few reported, or 

were will ing to report, that they watched pornography fre-

quently. Ninety percent of pornography is directed at het-

erosexual males; most consumers are white, middle-class 

males. Among the adult population there is no consensus 

as to the effects of pornography; forty-nine percent believes 

it is a cause for men to commit rape, 47 percent claim it im-

proves sex within marriage, and 56 percent believe it leads 

to a break down of morals.v> Ten percent of women re-

ported that someone tried to inflict undesired sex acts on 

them that came directly from pornography, while among 

married women 24 percent reported such acts. v u Given 

these statistics, even an objective observer would admit that 

pornography has a notable effect on American culture. 

the domination of women. Pornography is the "material 

means of sexualizing inequality."V )" The subordination of 

women occurs i n four parts: hierarchy, objedification, sub-

mission, and violence. Violence is a particularly problem-

atic aspect of women's marginalization as men perceive 

that women like violence, they find pleasure i n rape, and 

love i n battery. Images within pornography solidify and re-

inforce this perception. 1* MacKinnon asserts that the 

"male gaze" has transformed women into merely objects of 

pleasure and gratification; women are not naturally subor-

dinate individuals but the oppressive institution of patri-

archy has transformed women into this positions For 

MacKinnon and Dworkin all sexuality is violence, the penis 

is a tool of invasion and domination. Consensual sex be-

tween adults can never exist. x l They argue that, despite 

progress in women's rights, inequalities wi l l exist as long as 

the sexual subordination of women does. Pornography is 

not the only reason why these inequalities exist, but it is the 

Pornography is a $7 billion a year industry; there are more 
X-rated bookstores than McDonalds in the United States." 

I n order to understand the theoretical arguments articu-

lated by Mackinnon and Dworkin in both the definition of 

pornography and the regulations suggested by the 

Minneapolis Ordinance, one must understand the frame-

work of feminism to which both women adhered. Some 

authors define MacKinnon and Dworkin as radical fem-

nists, and others refer to them as cultural feminists. 

Regardless of the terminology, these women and their fol-

lowers began to make the claim that "the personal is the po-

litical;" women's oppression in sex flows into other aspects 

of her life: health care, reproductive rights, employment op-

portunities, and politics. Sexual subordination is the 

medium through which women are oppressed. During sex 

the woman is the passive, weak object whose sole purpose 

is to pleasure the male in any way he desires. Inequality it-

self becomes sexualized as sexual pleasure is based off of 

medium that presents women as submissive and "asking 

for violence." For these reasons, radical feminists thought 

pornography must be eliminated from society for progres-

sive change to occur. 

The production of pornography itself is problematic as 

those involved in the industry have come forth with stories 

of rape and coercion. Women who have starred i n 

pornographies often report rape and assault by men who 

presume their sexual availability. Linda Marchiano, the star 

of the pornographic f i lm Deep Throat, was abducted, 

beaten, and forced to star in the pornography. Children are 

manipulated and black-mailed to star in pornography, 

many times by their own parents. Many pornography ac-

tresses are driven into the industry as a way to escape 

poverty/ 1 1 For these reasons, radical feminists pushed for 

T H E P O R N O G R A P H Y WARS: E X P L O R I N G TWO D I S T I N C T F E M I N I S T I D E N T I T I E S 



pornography to be viewed not as an obscenity but as a civil 

rights violation. Expression made when one party is forced 

to speak i n a manner that violates their rights and dignity in 

not protected under the First Amendment/ 1 " The radical 

feminists argue that even "feminist pornography" that is 

directed by and marketed towards women is problematic 

because it merely recycles the detrimental mode of porno-

graphic representation. The specifics of pornography are ir-

relevant; the representation of women in a sexual manner 

is in itself violent. x l v 

R E A C T I O N S A G A I N S T 

A N T I - P O R N O G R A P H Y F E M I N I S T S 

The critics of the anti-pornography feminists believed the 

ordinances brought forth by MacKinnon and Dworkin 

were too widespread. Many feminists, specifically the les-

bian-feminists and the S/M feminists found their sexual 

practices under scrutiny and condemnation by the very 

people that were supposed to be fighting for the rights of 

women. Though many women suffer the bad effects of 

pornography, there are those women who find pornogra-

phy pleasurable, educating, and even liberating and were 

not will ing to curtail their own sexuality for a group of 

women who did not address their interests in the first 

place. x v A misconception about those who defended 

pornography is that they did recognize the exploitation and 

the abuse that existed within the industry; however, they 

knew that some people do chose to make pornography. 

They defended pornography to a degree: as long as the 

meanings expressed within the images did not directly 

imply the subordination of or violence towards women, i t 

should be allowed. Many defenders of pornography did see 

violence as a problem, but believed its causes were mainly 

structural and social conditions.X V 1 As a result of McCarthy-

style attacks anyone even remotely related to the pornogra-

phy industry was condemned as a sexual pervert. Sexual de-

viants, specifically those in the leather community, felt their 

livelihood was being threatened, and began to confront the 

Women Against Pornography (WAP) for fear that the fem-

inist movement had morphed into a campaign not for 

women's rights, but for moral purity. The leather commu-

nity was particularly vocal i n addressing the images pre-

sented i n pornography and the cultural significance at-

tached to those meanings. For them, scenes of sado-

masochistic torture were not violence for the sake of 

violence, but rather signified a source of pleasure and 

arousal. Meanings assigned by the dominant culture to 

S/M sex were not the same as the meanings those assigned 

within the community. They felt that dominant culture was 

not entitled to regulate their sexual passions and desires. x v l i 

As sex radical Pat Califia (a leather lesbian who is now a 

transsexual bisexual male) stated, "The line between word 

and deed is a thin one. A desire that cannot be named or de-

scribed is a desire that cannot be valued, acted upon or used 

as the basis for identity. " x v i i i Califia and others thought that 

the initiatives taken by the anti-pornography feminists 

sought to regulate acceptable and unacceptable sexual iden-

tities, a process that is dehumanizing and leaves individu-

als feeling isolated. 

E L E M E N T S S P R I N G 06 



Lesbians specifically found the radical feminists condem-

nation of female sexuality to be problematic. For them, the 

female body is sexual and desirable based on their own 

terms, not on the terms of men. I f feminists were fighting 

for the inclusion of women into society as autonomous and 

free individuals, then women should have the capacity and 

the right to chose when to consent to sex and went to re-

frain. Stating that no sex, even between adults, can be con-

sensual undermines the capacity of women to make the 

best decisions for their own lives. For many women, erotic 

experiences enhance their lives, and by denying the right to 

view pornography, the anti-pornography feminists were ac-

tually prohibiting women from being sexually aggressive, 

lustful, and nonconventional. This would reinforce the 

stereotype that women are sexually passive.x i x The critics of 

MacKinnon and Dworkin debunked the idea that all sex is 

male violence by claiming: 

whether sexual intercourse is a political act of men subju-

gating women depends upon its interpersonal context 

which determines, say, a woman's possibilities for initiat-

ing, negotiating, and refusing the act, as well as her ability 

to define the place of vaginal intercourse in the entire sex-

ual and social exchange.xx 

Some critics of the anti-pornography feminists even claim 

that pornography enables women to experience the same 

sexual freedom as men, which is necessary before one can 

hope to have social equality. Autonomous individuals must 

have the right to explore sexual pleasures and to pursue the 

lifestyle of their own choice. None of the defenders of 

pornography advocated things such as bestiality, pe-

dophilia, or rape, but did staunchly defend the sexual 

choices of two consenting adults.™ 

Many critics of MacKinnon and Dworkin argued from the 

perspective of the First Amendment. Legal theorists argued 

that the scope of the Ordinance brought forth by 

MacKinnon and Dworkin was much too large; it allows for 

the potential censorship of novels, art, plays, movies and 

other cultural media that make any reference to sexuality 

involving the female body. This scope contradicts the 

essence of the amendment, which states that the impact of 

speech cannot be grounds for the government control of 

speech. Enacting such policies encourages a totalitarian 

control on the population by the government.™ 1 

C O N C L U S I O N 

The debates over pornography exposed serious controversy 

and conflict within the feminist movement. Both sides rec-

ognized the negative and exploitative characteristics of 

pornography, such as reinforcing images of male domina-

tion within society. Many felt a ban on pornography, how-

ever, would do more harm than good for several reasons. By 

ascribing which types of sexual behaviors are acceptable 

(and which are not), the government would be unjustly reg-

ulating the identity of its population. Those who defended 

pornography criticized the radical feminists for not recog-

nizing the way the female body can be sexual in the terms 

of other women and not merely as the object of men's pleas-

ure and desire. The attempt to ban all pornography may 

have resulted in an attempt to establish strict norms about 

sexuality. For many people, sexuality is an important, per-

sonal, and exciting aspect of their lives that they would 

never want to be regulated by the government. While just 

what constitutes appropriate sexuality remains a topic of 

debate, many modern men and women have found ways to 

form sexual communities in which they can freely explore 

pleasure and eroticism in any way they please. 

E N D N O T E S 

i . MacKinnon, 66 

i i . Dines, 19 

i i i . Dworkin, 29 

iv. Duggan, Hunter, and Vance, 131 
v. Douglas, 14 
vi . Goldstone, 10 
v i i . MacKinnon, 69 
v i i i . Dworkin, 30 
ix. Dworkin, 30 
x. MacKinnon, 67 
xi . Dworkin, 30 
xi i . MacKinnon, 62-63 
x i i i . Carse, 2 
xiv. Dines, 20 

T H E P O R N O G R A P H Y W A R S : E X P L O R I N G TWO D I S T I N C T F E M I N I S T I D E N T I T I E S 



xv. Califia, 174 
xvi. Seidman, 109 
xvii . Califia, 12, 13,18 
xvii i . Califia, 19 
xix. Seidman, 109-111 
xx. Seidman, 112 

xxi. Seidman, 114 

xxii . Emerson, 81 

R E F E R E N C E S 

Califia, Pat. Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex. San 

Francisco: Cleis Press: 2000. 

Carse, Alisa L. "Pornography: An uncivil liberty?" Hypatia 10.1 

(1995): P- 155-

Dines, Gail. "The Visual Landscape and the Politics of 

Pornography Production." Iris 33 (1995): p 16. 

Douglas, Carol Anne. "Pornography: Liberation or Oppresion?" 

off our backs 13.5 (1983): p. 14. 

Duggan, Lisa, Nan Hunter, and Carole S. Vance. "False 

Promises: Feminist Antipornography Legislation in the U.S." 

Women Against Censorship. Ed.Varda Burstyn. Toronto: Douglas 

& Mclntyre, 1985. 130-151. 

Dworkin, Andrea. "Against the Male Flood: Censorship, 

Pornography, and Equality." Harvard Women's Law Journal 8 

(1985). 

Emerson, Thomas I . "Pornography and the First Amendment: 

A Reply to Professor MacKinnon." Yale Policy and Law Review 

130 (1984). 

Goldstone, Bobbie: "The politics of pornography: the pornogra-

phy of politics." off our backs 1.14 (1970): p. 10 . 

MacKinnon, Catherine A. "Francis Biddle's Sister: 

Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech." Feminism Unmodified. 

Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1987. 

Seidman, Steven. Embattled Eros: Sexual Politics and Ethics in 

Contemporary America. New York: Routledge, 1992. 

E L E M E N T S : : S P R I N G 0 6