Implications for Policies and Practice

Debates about pornography up until the late 1970s were dominated by moral and legal arguments made in a framework that pitted religious conservatives who support traditional sexual mores against liberal defenders of sexual freedom. The feminist critique of pornography, growing out of the anti-rape and anti-violence movement, rejected that dichotomy and introduced a harm-based, civil-rights approach to the question ( Dworkin, 1988 ; MacKinnon, 1987 ). Rooted in the real-world experiences of women sharing stories through a grassroots movement, the feminist critique highlighted pornography's harms to the women and children:

•  used in the production of pornography;

•  who have pornography forced on them;

•  who are sexually assaulted by men who use pornography; and

•  living in a culture in which pornography reinforces and sexualizes women's subordinate status.

From this perspective, instead of focusing exclusively on narrow questions of causation, we can see that pornography's impacts on the lives of all women and children -- and especially those who have experienced violence and sexual violation -- can be important. For example, if a woman is raped by a man she is dating who has in the past tried to force her to use pornography with him, the question of whether or not his pornography consumption was a causal factor in the rape may not be the most important issue. Instead, it would be important to examine how pornography was one component of a pattern of abuse in the relationship. This suggests that advocates in domestic and sexual violence work should ask survivors about the role of pornography in the abuse perpetrated against them.

While boys have long found ways to obtain pornography even though it is illegal to sell such material to minors, their access to hard-core pornography in the age of the Internet and VCR/DVD player has become steadily easier . And at the same time that pornography has become more mainstream, the mainstream media have become more pornographic . So, not only are men exposed to more -- and more extreme -- pornography at younger ages, but so are girls, with effects on their conception of their own sexuality.

It is also important to recognize that pornography is but one aspect of a huge sex industry, which includes not only mass-media sex but phone sex, strip clubs, massage parlors, escort services, street prostitution, and sex tourism. And sexuality -- especially women's sexuality -- is used in increasingly more explicit ways to sell products of all kinds in advertising and marketing. This leads to what may be the most crucial question about pornography: What kind of human feeling, empathy, and intimate connections are possible in a world in which bodies are used so routinely in the process of selling and also are for sale virtually everywhere we turn? The implications of that are potentially dramatic, not only in the realm of sexual and domestic violence, but also in those areas of our lives that we want to believe are untouched by the domination/submission dynamic of patriarchy ( Jensen, 1997 ). Pornography is important not only for the specific effects it has on an individual man's behavior, but for its role in shaping our conceptions of the body, gender, sexuality, and intimacy.

People who raise critical questions about pornography and the sex industry often are accused of being prudish, anti-sex, or repressive, but just the opposite is true. Such questions are crucial not only to the struggle to end sexual and domestic violence, but also to the task of building a healthy sexual culture. Activists in the anti-violence and anti-pornography movements have been at the forefront of that task.

In Brief: Pornography and Sexual Violence

Commercial pornography in the United States is at the same time increasingly more normalized and more denigrating to women. There is understandable interest in the question about the connection between pornography and sexual violence. Rather than asking "does pornography cause rape?" we would be better served by investigating whether pornography is ever a factor that contributes to rape. In other words, Is pornography implicated in sexual violence in this culture?

There are limits to what research can tell us about the complex interactions of mass media and human behavior. But from both laboratory research and the narratives of men and women, it is not controversial to argue that pornography can: (1) be an important factor in shaping a male-dominant view of sexuality; (2) be used to initiate victims and break down their resistance to unwanted sexual activity; (3) contribute to a user's difficulty in separating sexual fantasy and reality; and (4) provide a training manual for abusers.

These conclusions provide support for the feminist critique of pornography that emerged in the 1970s and '80s, which highlighted pornography's harms to the women and children: (1) used in the production of pornography; (2) who have pornography forced on them; (3) who are sexually assaulted by men who use pornography; and (4) living in a culture in which pornography reinforces and sexualizes women's subordinate status.

People who raise critical questions about pornography and the sex industry often are accused of being prudish, anti-sex, or repressive, but just the opposite is true. Such questions are crucial not only to the struggle to end sexual and domestic violence, but also to the task of building a healthy sexual culture. Activists in the anti-violence and anti-pornography movements have been at the forefront of that task.

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