Some Thoughts on Video Pornography and Its Effects on Women in Australia
Lee Jones
This paper brings together the thoughts and feelings of a group of women who are actively opposing the spread of pornography through the video industry in Australia. Since February 1984 when our attention was focused on this issue by government moves to legalise the importation and sale of hard core video pornography, WAVE (Women Against Violence and Exploitation) has held workshops and demonstrations, made contact with women and women's groups, lobbied the media and government, and spent hours collecting and viewing samples of video pornography and discussing the whole issue. This process of informing ourselves, and others, has been intensely painful and at times overwhelming. It has filled us with rage and grief and caused us to question deeply. Most of all it has fired our commitment to fight with and for women against pornography, especially the hard core pornography which is now flooding the Australian market.
This paper is an attempt to describe the continuum which links sexism in media and advertising with soft and hard core pornography, and which links rape and individual acts of violence against women with pornography and global violence. We discuss the effects of video pornography in particular and our objections to it, particularly as it degrades, damages and destroys women. These and related issues such as those of censorship and civil liberties, which are brought up in defence of pornography or as justification for not fighting against it, are discussed in the context of the current video pornography boom in Australia and what can be done about it.
We make particular reference to government moves to classify and legalize hard core pornography, and take a position on this, not because we look to government policy or legal reform for any real solutions, but because we are faced with an immediate possibility of an already abhorrent situation being made worse. We believe that women's action on the proposed system of X rating for video movies will focus awareness and energy and contribute to an ongoing multi-faceted fight against pornography of all kinds and on all levels.
Pornography is the use of words or pictures that convey women as objects or commodities in sexually explicit situations which are degrading, demeaning and/or violent and abusive. Sex in this context is shown as enjoyable and exciting. Women may be shown as willing or unwilling participants. Either way they are robbed of humanness. The essential features of pornography are degradation, domination, humiliation, objectification, violation, annihilation and violence interrelated with sex. Women are the main subjects and targets of pornography. Individual women and women collectively are harmed primarily. Child pornography is rapidly increasing as the subject of pornographic material. Since the issues involved are not the same in all cases, since pornography thrives on the violent abuse of women in particular, and since there is least resistance or objection to this on either an individual or a social level, we are confining most of this discussion to women.
Pornography by its very nature does not exist as a static entity. It is self-propagating and self-promoting. To continue to exist and grow as an industry, it must constantly increase the levels of stimulation it provokes as its audience becomes numbed and desensitized. Because it is based on degradation and dehumanisation, the source of this stimulation cannot be found in increasingly sensitive and subtle portrayals of human sexual experience through heightened communication, mutuality, sensitivity and love. So instead, it goes the other way, to more and more crude physical levels, where physical sensation and stimulation is heightened by pain and, through violence and the infliction of pain, emotion is forced out from the deadness of objectification and non-feeling into an eruption of hatred. Hence the soft-hard core continuum… .
Pornography can be seen as a continuum, which begins in the area of advertising, media use of women for commercial purposes, and sexist media in general. We condemn sexist advertising and all forms of sexism in the media and see any moves to expose, check and eliminate it as consistent with and part of direct moves against pornography.
Erotica and Pornography
We distinguish between erotica (in its true sense and not in the euphemistic sense that the 'love art' shops use it) and pornography. Erotica is characterised by the depiction of mutual power and pleasure in sexual relations or interchanges between equal individuals. Since equality between the sexes does not exist anywhere in this society generally, and its media reflect this, this definition only has relative value. One could even say that true erotica cannot exist in this sort of society. We are not anti-sex; we acknowledge that there will be a large quantity of video material (usually R rated but sometimes even M and PGR rated), which shows women in an inferior, passive and sexually objectified and degraded role. Such material, by strict definition could not be called erotic, but we accept that by current standards it would be, and would not be banned or restricted from adult viewing. We are confining our focus to less questionable, and more immediately and seriously damaging material.
Soft Core Pornography
By this we mean material which by its sexually explicit nature, degrades women and is suggestive of or represents attitudes and behaviour towards women, which reduce them to subordinate, sexually obsessive and/or subjugated objects without individual identity, worth or merit. Such material is not 'just a bit of harmless sex'. It is a subtle form of institutionalized violence against women, even if it does not include specific representation and promotion of physical and sexual violence against them. We see the availability of this in video movies (probably in large quantities) as unavoidable at this stage, but would insist that it be subject to classification and review. Because the content of soft core pornography is changing fast, it is now often hard core pornography in disguise.
Hard Core Pornography
Hard core pornography suggests that violent physical and/or sexual abuse of women is an acceptable, desirable means of sexual stimulation and gratification. The content of such pornography includes rape, pack rape, forced insertion of objects into a woman's body, urination or defecation on her, necrophilia, fetishism, sadomasochism, torture, mutilation and murder and all forms of sexually violent, cruel and debasing sexual acts against women. Any of these may or may not be actually performed on an unwilling or unknowing subject. In more and more movies, the violence that is shown is real, not simulated. It is hard core pornography as we define it here that we are specifically moving against.
Specific Effects of Video Pornography
The specific effect of video pornography is to make the impact and effect of pornography more widespread and pervasive. Something that is seen in your own home takes on an air of normalcy and acceptability. It is taken into a personal, private area of life. Traditionally men's world of power, money and sex has been kept outside the home. Video pornography extends man's domain more completely into women's living space. While not every woman is going to be directly affected by having to watch, or go out of her way to avoid watching pornography in her own home, many will. Video machine distributors have said that they aim by 1985 to have a video machine in every home. In the past year their sales went up from 11 to 25 per cent, and video shops are heavily stocked with soft and hard core pornography. Thirty million out of the $ 120 million that Australians spent on video movies last year went on pornography. The more pornography is easily and widely available and the more the levels of sexual violence in movies escalate, the more insidious and far reaching will be the damage done to women, children and society. Despite proposed legislation to restrict sale to minors, video pornography gives children easy access to unsuitable or seriously damaging material on film. The age limit doesn't stop teenagers drinking in pubs or getting older children to buy alcohol for them. It will not stop children hiring or buying videos either. Their access to pornography at home, especially, will increase.
The Effects of the Proposed X Rating for Video Movies in Australia
As with the legalization of the importation of pornography, the proposed X rating for video movies simply gives legitimacy to an existing situation which is actually already out of control. There is an enormous quantity of hard core pornography available in this country. So-called X rated films are available, as are triple-X and unclassified video movies. Shops have them on their shelves or in special backrooms. While supposedly waiting for the go-ahead from the government to sell them, many have gone ahead already and are selling them quite openly.
This situation is already bad enough. Creating a new X rating will not change anything for the better. Many videos which would be refused classification under the new system are presently on sale. Legalization of hard core pornography will simply flood the market and allow for even more extreme material to be sold, largely because it will be impossible to enforce the law. Even now, police are unable to control the illegal sale of pornographic material. If the new legislation comes in, it will mean that even worse forms of pornography may be sold under the false X rating which any distributor could have put on a movie. Many will probably not even bother to do that. In New South Wales there are less than 20 vice squads, whose job it is to locate and seize pornographic movies which are not supposed to be sold, and more than 2,000 video outlets! The chances of prosecution are about nil.
Our Position on the Proposed System of Video Classification in Australia
We oppose the legitimization and legalization of hard core pornography through the removal of restrictions on importing pornographic material, and through the introduction of a system of classification of video movies which would include an X rating for hard core pornography. We object to this on principle, and would like to see a video film censorship board established with a rotating membership of at least 75 per cent women. This rotating membership would be designed so as to counteract the desensitizing effect of watching quantities of this type of material. We would like to see all films (with sexual content) subject to compulsory classification. We would also insist that all proposed legislation in draft form be available to the public, for thorough discussion. The opinions of a variety of women and women's groups should be given particular weight. We want the regulation which concerns the legalized importation of pornographic material to be revised. Most pornographic material comes from overseas, and often exploits women from Third World countries in the making of it. Serious attention should then be given to the prevention of the growth of a similar industry in this country.
We do not feel that a specification of particular forms of sexual violence is sufficient grounds for censorship. The entire content of a film, its message implications and potential effect need to be considered in the light of a thorough analysis of pornography, its nature and effects, and in the light of an absolute commitment on the part of the board to eliminate the legal availability of hard core pornography.
We also consider that community awareness of the content of these films, and research into discussion of their effects especially by women, is essential. Action and campaigns to promote further awareness of, and action against pornography are important to counteract the relentless marketing push of the pornography industry and give the cry for civil liberties more meaning and value.
Censorship and Civil Liberties
One of the main objections to any stand against pornography is founded in the issue of censorship and civil liberties. While we are wary of censorship and its abuse, and share a commitment to the preservation of the individual's right to freedom of choice, expression and action, we also feel that 'freedom' which is achieved at the expense of others is not freedom in any worthwhile sense.
We do not live in a totally free society. We accept social restrictions that are for the safety and well-being of people in that society. We do not sanction murder or child abuse or even robbery. Individual rape and sexual violence against women are illegal, because they violate women's rights or well-being directly. Why then do we not see pornography for what it is — institutionalized rape and sexual violence against women which harms both women involved and women generally. Why is it that it is sexually stimulating for men to see women being hurt, humiliated, tortured? Why is it that the right to sexually abuse women or the right to watch this abuse for entertainment and sexual gratification is favoured over the rights of the women who are subject to the abuse, and the rights of those who find it totally objectionable, don't want to be exposed to it, and don't want to live in a world where the quality of life is being constantly eroded by it? It seems that where it is a question of the gratification of men's sexual desire or fantasy, all other human considerations and concerns seem to pale into insignificance.
We feel that the degree of pornographic material available on video film is so extreme as to take the relevance out of the censorship and civil rights argument altogether. Focus on censorship as an issue denies the political context of the society we live in. We live in a patriarchal society where men own women and have the right to do what they want, regardless of the cost to women. To challenge pornography is to directly challenge men's belief that they own women. That is why it is resisted, as any move to equalize men's and women's power is resisted, and in the area of sex, man's right to a woman's body is being threatened.
If every video shop in Sydney started selling instruments of torture specifically designed for use on black people or Jews, and stocked their shelves full of video movies showing how to use them for the purpose of sexual stimulation; if movies were made showing men being castrated, or having their genitals mutilated, and an industry were created out of the subjugation, sexual exploitation and sadistic abuse of men there would be a public outcry and immediate, unequivocal government reaction. But because it is women, there is silence and endless, self-centred, irrelevant argument on the pros and cons of censorship and the meaning of civil liberties.
When one really starts to think about it, the issue of pornography becomes overwhelming — the money and vested interest behind it, the consequences of it, the resistance to any real examination of what pornography is and what its effects are. Pornography is both symptom and cause of the state of society. Like nuclear weaponry, it is not going to disappear through protest. But we can fight to stop its proliferation, we can fight to expose its origin, we can challenge the ignorance, passivity and powerlessness that keeps us from seeing and acting. We can challenge everything that has power over. We can challenge the fact that it is men who hold this power and abuse it, and women who suffer. We can find power from within ourselves and can use our power, not to destroy and degrade, but to build our awareness, strength and integrity, and claim our right to live and be seen and treated as free, independent, self-respecting and respected individual human beings.
We feel that it is women who see most clearly what pornography really is, feel most deeply what it does to us and object to it most strongly, and fight most fiercely against it. It is our bodies, minds and existence which are at stake. And our actions, as women, speak loudest in this aspect of our struggle for survival.