Pornography

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Pornography is writing, graphics, or imagery depicting sexuality. The word comes from the Greek, meaning "writing about prostitutes".

Definition Issues

The meaning of "pornography" fluctuates according to use and historical context. Criteria such as exploitation, violence, and obscenity have lead to very divergent interpretations of the term.

There is also debate over the difference between pornography and erotica: whether a distinction exists at all, and what it might be if it does exist.

The Pornography Industry

Commercial and non-commercial pornography

Depictions of sexuality and sexual behavior are multicultural, date back to prehistoric times, and appear in many historical contexts, both religious and secular. In a capitalist context, pornography is most often created by a market-driven industry, and done outside the market. In the 21st century, it is possible that the Internet is making it possible for home-grown, noncommercial pornography to outpace industrialized pornography. The representations of sexuality in and out of the market overlap, but are not identical: while both are inevitably influenced by the dominant patriarchal ideology, market forces (and perceived or imagined market forces) create different pressures on the commercial pornography industry than exist on pornography created out of the market.

Commercial pornography happens across all media, and the economic supremacy of men, as well as a higher interest in pornography among (most) men than among (most) women drives the content. A common and well-documented criticism of commercial pornography is that it both exploits actual women, enriching men at women's expense, and reinforces sexist ideology in favour of male supremacy in order to cater to this market. At the same time, a pro-sex, pro-pornography thread of feminist theory also exists, taking the position that pornography is an area in which women can reclaim and celebrate their own sexuality. Proponents of this position point out that because most porn customers are men, virtually all porn stars (both in still photography and film/video) are women. A man may be well known as a pornography performer, but his name will not sell videos, and thus he can't command higher pay for his performances. Nonetheless, it remains true that the vast majority of producers and backers are male, so most of the money in the industry flows to men.

Commercial pornography that does not exploit actual women at the stage of production may nonetheless ideologically advocate the exploitation of women in order to sustain the shape of the market in which it is exchanged. Simultaneously, however, (especially if produced by women) it may provide women with the freedom and space to examine their own fantasies, and to move away from the cultural hegemony of male-driven sexualization. Independent women-produced and scripted pornography, for both heterosexual and lesbian audiences, has been around for thirty years now, and is available through both market-driven and noncommercial channels.

Non-commercial pornography, such as fan fiction proscribed by copyright law from entering the market, can be made without exploiting real women, but the removal of pornography from the market does not necessarily dissociate it from culturally pervasive sexist ideology. One feminist pro-pornography argument is that learning to dissociate from sexist ideology is a process, and woman-generated and woman-audience-driven pornography is one means of moving that process forward.

Thus, it is possible for pornography to attempt to reach a market other than the heterosexual patriarchal male consumer -- but to halt women's exploitation within the pornographic market, and to remove its sexist ideological content, it would be necessary to destroy the foundations of patriarchal economic power, which extend beyond the limits of the pornography industry.

Pornography and Prostitution

The pornography industry is clearly related to the prostitution industry, if not in terms of business connections, then in terms of means of production: both rely on actual people being paid to have sex.

However, pornography actors often differentiate their jobs from prostitution, because they have different relations of production: pornography creates a product, whereas prostitution creates a service. A woman appearing in a pornography video, for instance, has a different relationship to the purchasers or renters of the product that her work creates than the relationship a prostitute has to her client. In the case of pornography, the woman is having sex with other sex workers, not with the people paying for the sex. In either case, the worker may control the means of production--if she supervises the sales of the video or the transaction with a client--or others may have control if they produce the video or control the exchange of money with a client.

Both industries, and the sex worker industry more generally, currently thrive on the exploitation of women as sexual objects for men's consumption. Male prostitutes and sex workers for a male audience comprise a significant percentage (but by no means a majority) of sex workers in all categories, and male prostitutes and sex workers for a female audience are a tiny fraction of the whole. In our patriarchal society, the prevailing assumption, borne out in the majority of cases, is that pornography is made by men for men: the role of women in pornography is most commonly to serve as actors behaving in ways that the male producers believe will please the male audience. Again, this fits some definitions of prostitution, but not others: women in the pornography industry, as throughout the sex work industry, have widely varying experiences and opinions, from those who find the work liberating and empowering through those who consider it "just a job" to those who find it oppressive and dehumanizing.

Pornography Markets and Feminist Concerns

As mentioned above, attempts at creating less exploitative pornography, or making pornography designed to appeal to women or lesbian consumers, have been going on since the early 1970s. In addition, a large amount of male-on-male pornography is marketed towards men, and women do not generally appear. However, the largest market within pornography is aimed at heterosexual male audiences and consumers. Critiques of the overwhelming oppression of women within the industry are usually aimed at that larger share of the market. The smaller markets do not significantly shape the overall market, and critics would argue that those smaller markets cannot revolutionise the industry in its wider context as an expression of patriarchy.

Feminist sex worker activists argue that a significant part of the problems of worker safety and health stem from the criminalization of sex work; that the underground economy of prohibition is riskier than an open and above-board economy that could be regulated without being criminalized or punished. However, other feminists, while critiquing sexist enforcement of prostitution and pornography laws (such as those that punish hookers but not johns) argue that criminalization is effective in minimizing abuses such as sexual slavery; sex trades; underage sex tourism; teen prostitution; and so on.

Literary pornography is a comparatively small and far less lucrative sector of activity compared to the billion-dollars-a-year pornographic film industry which features actors. Other pornographic industries, in manga and anime, however, have significant economic effects, but employ only voice actors or no live actors at all.

History of pornography and the women's movement

Within feminism and the women's movement, pornography has been a subject of significant controversy. State and religious regulation of pornographic and erotic imagery has often been tied to state and religious regulation of female sexuality and reproductive rights. The "free love" movement, a western feminist political movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries, argued for the liberation of sexuality. In the US and England, the literature expressing these views was censored as so-called pornographic or obscene literature.

Feminist critiques of pornography as an industry and as a cultural practice in the 1970s (see especially Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon; see also Kate Millett) were accompanied in the west by significant change in access to contraception, the "sexual liberation" movement, and the "gay liberation movement", leading to the "feminist sex wars", a polarizing debate about pornography and sexual practice in the women's movement. (See the Barnard Conference; Gayle Rubin.) Women's bookstores and women's centers sometimes refused to carry materials they deemed sexually exploitative of women, such as SAMOIS' lesbian SM anthology, Coming to Power. Proposals to create new regimes of legal regulation of sexuality led to some implementations of Catherine MacKinnon-style legislation. These have led to state interception and censorship of some feminist and lesbian works on sexuality; their effectiveness in redressing their feminist authors' critiques has yet to be evaluated. (US Minneapolis; Canada Little Sisters)

In the 1990s, the so-called feminist sex wars largely died out; "sex-positive feminism" largely replaced them, and queer, leather, and sex worker activist movements often worked together to improve working conditions for sex workers, safe sex practices in communities, legal rights of sex workers or sexual minorities, and to study sexual history and practices. However, while the "feminist sex wars" as a discrete historical debate ended, feminist interrogation of sex practices and the sex industry continue. In particular, some feminists have critiqued sex-positive feminism for its failure to engage with exploitative labor practices and the broader patriarchal culture in which sex practices take place. While distinguishable from the earlier anti-porn feminist positions, these critiques argue that sex-positive feminism focuses solely on the reclamation and celebration of female sexuality to the exclusion of analysis of the cultures within which sex practices (and particularly sexual economies) occur.

In the US, feminist engagement with pornography has taken on renewed urgency under the conservative regimes of the 1980s through the current time, which have fostered and fomented a moral panic about child sex abuse. The legal restrictions on minors' sexuality (minors meaning less than 18 years old in most jurisdictions, but ranging from 16 to 21 in various US states) have led to significant infringements on young women's rights of access to reproductive health care, and to significant abuses of lesbian and gay youth. These contemporary regulations and abuses echo older regulations of sexuality that particularly affected women and gay men, but that are now restricted primarily to young adults.

The regulation of and restrictions on youth sexuality have also led to significant curtailment and infringements of information targeted to youth about sexuality, under the same laws aimed at curtailing exploitation of youth in pornography, and access by youth to pornography. In the late 1990s and early 21st century in the US, the moral panic around child sex abuse has led to numerous efforts to regulate speech and expression. These have led to significant suppression of feminist and queer content, such as information about breast exams; teen gay & lesbian support groups; feminist science fiction; and so on. One recent federal statute attempted to criminalize images that appeared to be of youths under 18 years old, thus leading to concerns about comic books and animation. Samuel R. Delany, who has pushed the bounds of sex in SF, has published some of his pornographic works with blatantly fictitious ages (see, e.g., Equinox).

The study of porn ("porn studies") has lately become a recognized albeit somewhat small and fringe-y academic field. Feminist scholarship within porn studies typically recapitulates the sex-positive feminism positions, with little feminist scholarship from the porn-critical feminist position.

Some issues of current interest include:

  • Legal status of sex workers and sex work
  • Unionization of sex workers
  • Sexual exploitation of minors by adults, and regulation of minors' sexuality by adults (family) and the state

Pornography & literary genres

Opinions differ about the distinction between pornography and erotica: whether a distinction exists at all, and what it might be.

While the film and pictorial pornographic industries have long been dominated by material produced for a male audience (largely straight but with a substantial gay minority), a significant market of text-based writings for a female audience developed starting in the 1970s in the English-speaking romance market. These included primarily contemporary romances (Harlequins, Silhouettes, etc.) with lines dedicated to more or less sexually explicit works and so-called "bodice-rippers" (historical romances that could include quite explicit scenes of sex). By contrast with the historical market for textual porn aimed at men, which typically included little or no characterization and only enough plot to get the characters together, these stories were primarily marketed as fiction, with erotic content embedded within a plot (however formulaic) and characterization (however thin). Men's pornographic writings were found in pornographic magazines (e.g., Penthouse "letters") and as individual books, usually sold at porn stores and in newsstands with porn magazines.

Beginning in the 1970s, a new market for explicitly female-oriented text writings began, described as "erotica". "Erotica" typically had a somewhat more narrative quality than men's textual porn; its level of sexual explicitness varied. Over time, "erotica" has developed into a recognized (if not quite respected) genre of its own, and reclamation of older erotic texts (such as the stories by Anaïs Nin) created a literary history to accompany the new market. The literary history, and the evolving market, focused on men along with women as audience; however, female-targeted erotica is still a very significant component of the erotica publishing market. Literary histories of erotic writing find a wide variety of erotic writing from mainstream writers as well as earlier markets of commercially produced erotic writing. State and religious suppression of such work is a common theme historically and in the present-day.

Amateur-written pornography (as distinguished from pornography written to be sold commercially) primarily developed out of female audiences; slash is typically amateur fanfiction written by women, for women, with sexual or romantic content. Famously it began with women writing "Kirk/Spock" slash (see Joanna Russ's essay on the subject in Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans, and Perverts). Slash is typically thought of as writing that creates gay relationships between male characters from a work of fiction, although it has expanded and is also used to refer to lesbian relationships and even straight relationships that are "non-canon"; or at its broadest, simply used to refer to fanfic oriented toward various "pairings" whether canonical or non-canonical.

Related Titles

Feminist SF porn/erotica writers, editors & publishers

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