CMC Magazine / January 1, 1996
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Sexually Explicit Materials and the Internet, by Douglas Birsch
A Feminist/Human Rights View of PornographyA philosophical approach to pornography could be created by joining some feminists' ideas about pornography to the human rights approach to ethics. The Indianapolis ordinance struck down in the American Booksellers case was supported by antipornography feminists such as Catherine MacKinnon, but the court did not accept their view of pornography. The feminists seem to have argued that pornography is a kind of conduct, not speech. Pornography is not speech about sex, it is a form of forced sex. It is sexual reality that eroticizes inequality, hierarchy, dominance, and submission. MacKinnon claims that,
Pornography is a means through which sexuality is socially constructed, a site of construction, a domain of exercise. It constructs women as things for sexual use and constructs its consumers to desperately want women to desperately want possession and cruelty and dehumanization. 18She adds that, "If sex is a social construct of sexism, men have sex with their image of a woman." 19 Pornography creates one image of women, as accessible sexual objects, inferior, desiring to be used, abused, and dominated. Thus, pornography is the conduct that establishes the image of women as inferior sexual objects and creates a sexual reality. It is part of the reality of sex in a sexist society. I agree with MacKinnon that sexuality is socially constructed, and that pornography is an aspect of the sexual reality that constructs the contemporary view of women. [Cavalier's essay challenges this view] If pornography is sexual conduct, then the court's view that it is political speech is misguided. As conduct, it might be claimed that it should be protected by the right to liberty. Feminists, however, have argued that pornography harms women. Three types of harms are often identified:
The crucial issue for regulating pornography on the Internet then becomes whether pornography harms women.
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