Pornography

Since we last published an article on pornography (see ISIS Bulletin No. 18, Women and Pornography^ many important books and articles have been published which restate and refine feminist arguments against pornography. Below we have listed a few of these.

Pornography and Silence Susan Griffin Women's Press 124 Shoreditch High St. London E l ENGLAND £4.75.

This book argues that "pornography is an expression not of human erotic feeling and desire, and not of a love of the life of the body, but of a fear of bodily knowledge, and a desire to silence eros". Under the pornographer's desire to humiliate women (from which he derives sexual pleasure) is an intense feeling of humiliation of his own body. Thus the author suggests that only in healing the splits in the "pornographic mind", in our society — between men and women, black and white, spirit and matter — can we hope to end "culture's revenge against nature" and celebrate eroticism: the expression of the life forces through love.

M/F: a feminist journal Nos 5 & 6 (1981) 22 Chepstow Crescent , : London W.11. England.

This is a difficult and heavily academic journal which you cannot pick up to read over breakfast, or, for that matter, use in a fairly ordinary consciousness-raising or study group. The main thrust behind this issue of the journal is to deepen the debate on sexual politics, showing connections between psychical (in the area of psychology) relations and social relations. Thus, in one of the essays, " A feminist interest in pornography — some modest proposals", Beverly Brown questions some feminist
analyses of pornography that assert "women are treated as objects" or "sexual objects". She raises questions about feminist eroticism, phantasy and what is public and private in the area of sexuality. She examines the Williams Report on Obscenity as an example of social prescriptions and shows how feminist analysis can be diverted by this approach.

Another essay, "Rape — sexuality in the law" argues that rape is not a form of control of women's sexuality, but is concerned with a specific sexuality that is different for men and women. Delia Dumaresq looks at the issue of consent and the way sexuality is defined in law.

It is difficult to do justice to the complexity of analyses in this collection (which cover women and Shi'ism in Iran, the Oedipus complex, homosexuality, amongst others), but it is equally difficult to extract any meaningful central thesis running throughout the collection, which might help us towards a clearer feminist analysis of sexuality. Or, if it is there, it is not articulated clearly enough to be useful.

"Marketing Misogyny: The Economics of Pornography" Aegis Box 21033  Washington DC 20009 USA US$3.25.

Pornography, says author Martha Langelan, cannot flourish on a mass-marketed, industrial scale without two basic conditions: a deep cultural misogyny, which crushes human eroticism into the distorted and abusive framework of dominance and submission; and free enterprise capitalism, which will sell anything - even pain - for a profit. And it is on profit - on the $7 billion a year the porn industry generates, the economics of porn - that this article focuses, although it also discusses the social control aspect of pornography: how porn is peddling the "ideology of male dominance, in all its racist, sexist, and abusive varities". Also includes a bibliography.'

Abuse of Women in the Media Consumers'Association of Penang 27, Kelawei Road Penang : MalaysiaUS$3.30 (surface postage included).

This book traces how the media has been used to portray women as inferior beings and as sex objects in the areas of advertising, pornography, sex tourism, women's magazines, paperback romances, in humour, in T V programmes and films and in the newspaper coverage of women. One of the first books from a developing country to deal with the problems of women both in Malaysia and in the Third World.

Pornography: Men Possessing Women Andrea Dworkin Perigee Books 200 Madison Ave NY NY 10016 USA US$5.95.

Women have rarely looked at porn — here is an unblinking examination and graphic description of several pornographic publications and the uniting, underlying theme. "The major theme of pornography as a genre is male power, its nature, its magnitude, its use, its meaning. ... Male power is the raison d'Stre of pornography; the degradation of the female is the means of achieving this power." A powerful book. Highly recommended

"In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various sources of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change. For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives."

"To share the power of each other's feelings is different from using another's feelings as we would use a kleenex. And when we look the other way from our experience, erotic or otherwise, we use rather than share the feelings of those others who participate in the experience with us."

Audre Lorde

"The Erotic as Power"