AN ANARCHIST DEFENSE OF PORNOGRAPHY

                              BAD Broadside #5


Pornography continues to be a controversial issue, including among
anarchists, whom one might expect to be among the strongest supporters of
free sexual expression.  However, many anarchists have criticized
pornography and some have supported and/or participated in the
anti-pornography movement, the members of which not infrequently strive to
prevent those wishing to view pornography from doing so.  Some anarchists in
Canada even went so far as to firebomb a sex video store, an activity which
many other anarchists either ignored or chose not to criticize.  Meanwhile,
those of us who defend pornography and freedom of expression, sexual or
otherwise, are dismissed as sexists and reactionaries.  Why is it that
supposed lovers of freedom and sexual liberation seem to forget their
principles when it comes to sexually explicit literature and pictures?
     The anti-pornography movement, including its anarchist members and
supporters, is not monolithic.  Some dislike dirty books and movies, but
support people's freedom to produce and consume such material.  They rely on
argument and protest in an attempt to change the attitudes of those who like
porn, encouraging them to refrain from indulging in it, and do not support
censorship.  Others, again including some anarchists, feel that physical
attacks on porn stores or government-mandated censorship are acceptable
tactics in the fight against porn.  While only the latter position is
censorious, and therefore unanarchic, the former position, which is
contemptuous of depictions of sex, is also problematic in a movement which
purportedly favours sexual freedom.
     Pornography is simply a depiction, in words or pictures, of sexual
activity.  Most people find sex a good, pleasurable activity, and looking at
pornography is sexually arousing for many people.  Anti-porn people
frequently say that the images of women in porn are degrading and offensive
to women.
     However, while some women certainly are offended by pornographic images
they find degrading, other women enjoy pornography.  (See for instance the
book CAUGHT LOOKING by Kate Ellis, et al, or WRITING SADO-MASOCHISTIC
PORNOGRAPHY: A WOMAN'S DEFENCE by Deborah Ryder.)  While the anti-porn
movement views women as a class, who all share the same goals and desires,
women are not a mass of automatons who all think and feel alike; some are
pro-porn and some are anti-porn, just like men.
     Additionally, the images of women in porn are no more sexist and
demeaning towards women than the images of women in most literature and
visual media, from novels to movies to TV to magazine ads.  In a sexist
society, most images of women are going to contain at least some of the
sexist attitudes common to both women and men.  Besides, some pornography
contains women characters who are very independent, self-motivated and
concerned with their own pleasure, especially in S/M porn where women are
frequently on top.  What bothers these people is not the image of women in
porn, which is like that elsewhere in society, but its sexual explicitness;
they are uncomfortable with sex.
     Anti-porn activists also claim that porn, with its allegedly degrading
view of women, is responsible for the attitudes and actions of men towards
women, and therefore is different from other forms of expression.  But, as
with other types of writing and pictures, porn generally shows what people
want to see and are comfortable with; it doesn't plant foreign ideas in
people's minds.  And, even in the few cases where novel ideas are introduced
to people in porn, they remain just that: ideas.  Men do not rape or beat
women because they see it in a movie.  Sexism, rape, and beatings of women
by their partners existed long before the widespread dissemination of modern
pornography, and societies with little or no porn are no less sexist and
violent than those where it is common.
      The claim that men are made violent by porn, besides being inaccurate,
is also based on a myth: that most pornography is violent.  Most porn is
composed of depictions of non-violent, consensual, mutually pleasurable sex. 
Some of it also contains S/M sex which, while including the trappings of
violence and involving (apparent) pain, is also consensual and mutually
pleasurable.
     There is certainly some porn which depicts rape or other coercive and
violent sex, but it is a small portion of the porn produced and consumed. 
Moreover, like violent non-sexual movies and books, it is simply a depiction
of a fantasy, made up by the author, or performed by consenting actors. 
Violent porn is no more real violence than are the HALLOWEEN movies.  And if
anti-porn people are truly concerned about the violence and not the sex in
porn, why is it that they protest only porn shops or destroy porn mags and
video store, while ignoring FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH and horror magazines and
books?
     One aspect of the whole phenomenon of porn that is often left out of
the discussion is that of homosexual porn.  Much of the pornography produced
today shows men having sex with men, with a growing proportion depicting
woman-woman sex.  The anti-porners tend to ignore homoporn because it gives
the lie to many of their arguments.  If depictions of inequitable sexual
encounters between men and women are degrading to women, why aren't
similarly inequitable encounters between men and other men (which are very
common in all-male porn, with its tops and bottoms) degrading to men?  And
if they are degrading to men, why isn't such porn offensive to men,
especially bottom men?  And, if there is S/M imagery and (pretend) violence
in this porn, why doesn't this result in widespread violence against men,
and even rapes of men?
     A discussion of such issues never takes place, since most of the people
who oppose heteroporn are unwilling to talk about, let alone criticize,
queer porn because they do not want to risk being seen as "homophobic" or
otherwise politically incorrect.  This is due to the fact that porn has
often been seen, rightly, as libratory by homosexualist men (and recently
also by some homosexualist women), and is a much more open part of
mainstream life for queer men than heteroporn is in straight society. 
Because of this "politicization" of queer porn, any discussion of homoporn
by the anti-porners, few of whom are homosexualist men, is likely to be
criticized by gay liberationists as "anti-gay", and thus effectively
suppressed.  This is unfortunate, since such a discussion would show the
fallacies in the anti-porn arguments.
     Even though it seems odd that sexual liberationists and anarchists
would find porn offensive, it is certainly true that people have different
tastes.  Just because I like porn doesn't mean that you should.  But if one
finds something offensive, one should simply avoid it, and thereby avoid the
offense.  However, anti-porners are not content with this strategy when it
comes to porn.  They feel that if it offends them, it must offend others,
primarily women, and they take it upon themselves to protect these others
from it.  Additionally, since they feel it leads otherwise non-violent,
women-loving men onto the path of violence and sexism, they feel they need
to prevent men from seeing porn as well.
     As stated above, anti-porners differ on the strategy they employ to
achieve these ends.  While those who rely on argument and protest to
influence others to avoid porn are preferable to the censors, their ideas
about people are problematic for those with an anarchist perspective.
     People are free agents who make choices and decisions based on what
they observe, hear, and otherwise experience, and are responsible for the
outcome of these choices.  The libertarian way to deal with other free
agents who choose to view or read materials of which one disapproves is to
let them see these books or movies and then discuss the material with them
and try to convince them of one's point of view.  The issue should be
debated in a free marketplace of ideas, a marketplace where all should feel
free to view the images or writings under discussion, not simply take the
word of the Puritans that porn contains degrading or harmful images or
words.
     People who pressure porn dealers to stop distributing porn, and who
encourage others to avoid porn based on someone else's experience of it,
while engaging in a non-coercive and therefore acceptable form of activity,
do not respect the decision-making ability of others.  Nor do they trust the
strength of their own arguments when up against a person's own experience of
pornography.  Such people feel that others need to be protected (in large
part, from themselves) by those more enlightened, i.e. the anti-porn people. 
Urging others to restrict their experiences and rely on the opinions of
others in such matters as reading and viewing preferences, including the
reading and viewing of porn, while not unanarchic, is certainly illiberal.
     More objectionable to anarchists, however, are the anti-porn activists
who are frankly censorious.  While we have not come across any anarchists
who endorse laws banning porn, many anarchists support destruction of the
property of porn dealers.  Destruction of films and books which some people
wish to sell to others who voluntarily seek to buy them is just as much
censorship as any government-mandated law.  While sharing the views of the
other anti-porners who seek to protect others form porn, these people go a
step further and use coercive force to achieve their ends.  This is totally
incompatible with the kind of voluntary society sought by most anarchists,
and should be denounced by all freedom-lovers.
     Pornography, like any other form of entertainment, can be good or bad,
based on the individual merits of any particular work.  However, as a genre
of literature or film, it is no better or worse or good or evil than any
other.  If porn is bad or sexist, the best strategy is to criticize it and
discuss it with others, and/or make good, non-sexist porn, not suppress it.
     Sex and its depiction are a source of pleasure for many and our freedom
to indulge in both should be defended, or at least tolerated, by anarchists. 
Censors, including those who claim to be anarchists, are the enemies of
freedom, and anarchists who support them call into question their commitment
to a free society.

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                      Boston Anarchist Drinking Brigade
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                               February, 1992