SOURCE: Witt, Charlotte. “Pornography.” NWSA Journal 9, no. 2 (summer 1997): 165-74.

[In the following review, Witt places MacKinnon's Only Words within the feminist debate over pornography, contrasting her views with Nadine Strossen's Defending Pornography.]

With the Christmas release, to rave reviews, of The People vs. Larry Flynt, it seems that pro-porn philosophy, as argued by Nadine Strossen in Defending Pornography, and Avedon Carol in Nudes, Prudes, and Attitudes, is winning the culture war. The movie portrays Larry Flynt, the publisher of hard-core Hustler magazine, as a flawed but courageous defender of free speech. Frank Rich, in the New York Times calls it “the most timely and patriotic movie of the year”. Even critics, such as Ellen Goodman in the Boston Globe and Hanna Rosin in the New Republic focus on the movie's airbrushing of Flynt (in life he was fat and ugly, had five wives, and neglected his kids) rather than on feminist arguments against pornography, such as those made by Only Words, Power Surge, and The Price We Pay—as if the movie just needed a more attractive “hero” (Hugh Heffner?) and a better product (Playboy?). The invisibility of the feminist debate over pornography in reviews of The People vs. Larry Flynt makes a clear understanding of the terms of the debate all the more urgent.

Feminist debates over pornography originate in fundamental philosophical disagreement. Catharine MacKinnon and Nadine Strossen, whom I will take as representative of their respective viewpoints, do not inhabit the same world. Not only do they differ with regard to the central conceptual and legal questions surrounding pornography, but they differ ontologically—with regard to what is real—and epistemically—with regard to how we can know what is real. Moreover, their views of what language is differ in ways crucial to the debate over pornography. A grasp of these philosophical or theoretical differences helps us understand why it is that their two books do not directly engage with one another, even though they address the same issues and the same range of evidence, and why it is difficult for their feminist readers to compare and evaluate them. The same difficulty faces readers of Avedon Carol's Nudes, Prudes, and Attitudes (a Strossen-style, pro-porn argument for Great Britain), who try to compare its argument with Power Surge by Susan G. Cole, a Canadian ally of MacKinnon, and with the essays in The Price We Pay.

First the ontological differences. MacKinnon lives in a world in which categories like gender are socially constructed according to the blueprint of misogyny. Within this social reality, sexuality is not a natural or biological given (different, perhaps, in men and women) but part of the construction of women as inferior to men. One of the master's tools is pornography, which both depicts and is the subordination of women. The way that we can know this reality is to look at it, and to see it in a new way (view pornography as sex discrimination rather than as obscenity). The evidence that sexuality plays a central role in sex discrimination is also before our eyes in the statistics concerning rape, spousal battery, and sexual harassment. MacKinnon's holistic approach to evidence includes sexual crimes within sexuality as it exists in our culture, and she argues that the way that sexuality (as it exists in our culture) differs for men and women is a significant form of sex discrimination rather than a biological given.

MacKinnon's Hegelian-Marxist intellectual roots are evident in the way she approaches the question of individual choice and freedom.¹ In that tradition our identities are constructed through the mediation of public, social institutions and not through private psychological experience. In other words, our individual, private sexual identities, our desires, are formed through our culture's public sexual institutions. Because our culture is misogynist, its core sexual values include the rape, abuse, and sexual harassment of women—the very values that are depicted and enacted in pornography, which MacKinnon thinks is our culture's central sexual pedagogical institution. Pornography teaches misogyny to its users, and it does so by making misogyny sexual. MacKinnon's ontological view concerning the way that private and public are intermingled in constituting an individual's identity explains her extreme pessimism concerning the possibility of a vibrant, exuberant sexuality for women, given current social conditions and institutions. Both Power Surge and The Price We Pay contain chilling descriptions of the way that real-world misogyny shapes women's sexuality.

Nadine Strossen's universe, in contrast, is populated by women (and men) freely choosing to enjoy sexual relations in a wide variety of ways, including the use of pornography. In Strossen's ontology there exist persons, endowed with free will and choice, whose autonomy, and hence standing as moral and political agents, requires full and free choice in the sphere of sex. The repressive forces that limit sexual freedom are either external to the individual—the heavy hand of government intervention and censorship—or internal—our superegos or psychological censors. That is, Strossen inhabits the world of classical liberalism with a contemporary twist in that she celebrates sexual freedom as an important piece of human autonomy for both women and men. Whether its source is external or internal, sexual repression is an enemy of individual freedom and autonomy. Women, in her view, have some catching up to do with men in the sexual arena, but she marshals the evidence of pornography, and women's use of pornography, to show that we have come a long way.

Strossen posits desire and choice as ontological givens, and she views them through a democratic lens—all sexual desires are equal, all sexual choices are equal. Human sexuality is diverse, imaginative, and transgressive—and its pleasures are equally anarchic. Of course, Strossen recognizes rape, battery and sexual harassment as impermissible crimes, but she does not see them as having any wider meaning with regard to sexuality or gender discrimination. And she sees them as crimes that are entirely unrelated to pornography, which is sexual expression, not sexual act. In making these distinctions, Strossen takes an atomistic approach to the evidence; by segregating sexual crime from sexuality (that inner hedonistic drive common to all humans), she finds no evidence of gender discrimination in sexuality—except the repression inflicted by our puritanical culture or our puritanical selves. Feminists, she argues, should fight sexual repression and sexual censorship. Nudes, Prudes, and Attitudes also identifies censorship as the true enemy of feminism.

Strossen and MacKinnon also differ crucially in their views of the language of pornography. In this century, philosophers of language can be divided into two camps. There are those who think that the primary function of language is to represent the world, and for these philosophers the central issue in semantics is truth: how does language mirror reality? Let us call this a representationalist theory of language. The other major philosophical school takes a pragmatic approach to language and views language as closely linked to action, and, in some cases, as action. Let us call this the pragmatic theory of language. Because Strossen is a representationalist and MacKinnon a pragmatist with regard to the language of pornography, they have very different views on what pornography is, what it does, and how it does what it does.²

For Strossen pornography is sexual expression; pornography simply represents sexual ideas. Questions about the meaning of pornography are simply questions about what it represents, and how it is to be interpreted. Because Strossen believes that pornography as sexual expression does nothing, she is sharply critical of MacKinnon whose antipornography argument appears to conflate words with deeds. On the question of the meaning of pornography, Strossen cites evidence that viewers disagree over its meaning, and she uses that evidence to argue for a subjectivist view of its meaning. “The concept that no text or image has any objective, fixed meaning, but rather has a different meaning for each member of its audience, is an integral aspect of the poststructuralist, or deconstructionist, movement that has been so influential in the humanities and social sciences in recent years” (146). A subjectivist view holds that a pornographic picture represents what its viewer takes it to represent.³

For MacKinnon, who explicitly adopts a pragmatist theory of the language of pornography in Only Words, it is a mistake to distinguish between what pornography says, its meaning, and what it does. For a pragmatist an expression, language itself, is an action, and MacKinnon argues that pornographic speech is a speech act and not only words. Moreover, she disagrees with Strossen's subjectivist view of the meaning of pornography. Meaning, for MacKinnon, is not determined privately (as a matter of subjective interpretation) but is fixed publicly by means of cultural norms and institutions. The meaning of pornography is not whatever each individual might think it to be—so that its meaning is subjective, unfixed, and unstable. Rather, pornography reflects and encodes the sexual norms of our culture, which MacKinnon believes are sexist and misogynist. The question of whether the meaning of pornography is a matter of individual interpretation or is established by cultural norms returns us to the contrast between a classical liberal position that stresses the individual and the subjectivity of meaning and a Hegelian position that stresses the role of culture in determining meaning.

What we find in these books, therefore, is a conflict between two worldviews, two ontologies, two stories about what is given and what is constructed, two depictions of social reality, two accounts of what pornography is and how its meaning is established. How can we decide between them? I think that the pervasive use of pornography in the sexual harassment of women by men reveals the inadequacy for feminists of Strossen's liberal defense of pornography. Neither Strossen's view that pornography is merely sexually expressive language nor her claim that its meaning is purely subjective allows us to understand how and why it is used to discriminate against women in the workplace. In contrast, I think that MacKinnon's explanation of the connection between pornography and sexual harassment supports the utility of her theoretical perspective for feminists.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND PORNOGRAPHY

The Supreme Court has recognized two kinds of sexual harassment: (1) quid pro quo harassment occurs when a job benefit or opportunity is conditioned upon an employee granting sexual favors to a supervisor; (2) hostile environment harassment occurs when “verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual's job performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment.”⁴ In theory, sexual harassment in the workplace and in education is an entirely separate phenomenon from the production and consumption of pornography. In fact, however, pornography, and other forms of sexual expression, frequently play a central role in both kinds of sexual harassment.

Several of the essays in The Price We Pay describe the use of pornography in workplace sexual harassment. “A Weapon to Weaken: Pornography in the Workplace” by Olivia Young and “Like a Smack in the Face: Pornography in the Trades” by Barbara Trees are first-person accounts of pornography directed against women in a work setting. And “Pornography in the Workplace” by Dorchen Leidholdt describes the legal history of sexual harassment and pornography in the workplace. Pornography and sexual expression were also a major element in the sexual harassment case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against Mitsubishi Motor Manufacturing of America, in 1996. According to the EEOC, more than five hundred plaintiffs may be eligible for ＄300,000 in damages; it is the largest sexual harassment case in the nation's history.

For MacKinnon, who wrote a pioneering work defining sexual harassment as sex discrimination and successfully argued the first case before the Supreme Court, the connection between pornography and sexual harassment is direct, given her views on what pornography is. MacKinnon believes that pornography, like other kinds of sexual harassment, is a type of sex discrimination. Just as the words “Did you get any this weekend?” are viewed by the courts as an act of sexual harassment, so, too, is the showing of pornographic films in the station house. “The point is, for fifteen years courts have shown real comprehension that what might be called speech, if forced into an abstract First Amendment mold, are in fact acts of inequality, hence actionable as discrimination” (49).

MacKinnon argues in Only Words that pornography is “performative”; it is a speech act that does something in what it says. In making this claim, MacKinnon is adopting the pragmatist view of language as action expressed in J. L. Austin's phrase “to say something is to do something.” For example, in the appropriate circumstances saying “I do” is the act of marrying. In the appropriate circumstances, the words “Whites only” constitute an act of racial discrimination.⁵ And, in appropriate circumstances, the display of pornographic images is an act of sexual harassment that can be prosecuted as a violation of civil rights.⁶

For Strossen, the connection between pornography and sexual harassment is contingent, and depends on the agent's intention. Since for Strossen pornography is sexual expression, it is not an act of any kind. Therefore, it is not an act of sexual harassment. Because Strossen implicitly adopts a representationalist view of language, she understands pornography as an example of the expression or representation of sexual ideas. As such, it is speech and not action, and the issue of free speech is central. What makes sexual expression constitute sexual harassment depends on how it is used: “Sexual expression—along with all other expression or conduct—might well constitute sexual harassment, if—but only if—it is used in a certain way” (126). Indeed, Strossen is critical of “hostile environment” sexual harassment cases that do not require a determination of the agent's intention to harass the victim.

But Strossen's criticism is mistaken. For the question of whether or not pornography (or any other sexual expression) constitutes a case of sexual harassment cannot turn on the agent's intent since for men the display of pornography or use of sexual language might sincerely be intended as entertainment or as a joke. Our common sense and our courts have rendered the unanimous decision that the agent's intent cannot be the determining factor in all cases of sexual harassment.

For MacKinnon, however, you do not need to determine that the agent intended to harass in order to transform expression into discrimination, words into deeds. Rather, since she thinks of pornography as a speech act, it is simply by virtue of saying what it says that pornography does something—in this case it harasses and, therefore, discriminates. It is not necessary to determine that the agent intended to harass the victim to determine that a hostile work environment prevails.

Viewing pornography as a speech act, of course, does not establish that it is a harassing act, a discriminatory act. Indeed, one could accept MacKinnon's pragmatist views on the language of pornography and reject her account of what kind of speech act pornography is. The kind of speech act pornography is, is determined by its content or meaning, and on this point (i.e., the content or meaning of pornography) MacKinnon and Strossen differ markedly. As we will see, what they think pornography means, as well as the way in which they think we ought to determine its meaning, reflects the different theoretical commitments of MacKinnon's Hegelian perspective and Strossen's classical liberal viewpoint.

THE MEANING OF PORNOGRAPHY

According to Strossen, pornography—from very soft to hardest core—is a good thing for women's sexuality. It is good for the women who choose to make it (and quite generally to participate in the sex industry) and it is good for the women who choose to use it. Furthermore, it is not just sexually good for women (helping them to enjoy rich and satisfying sex lives), it is also politically good for women; political equality for women includes equal sexual expression and freedom. And pornography is not good simply for women, it is also good for a culture's political life and freedom; greater pornography in a culture correlates with increased political freedom.⁷ Indeed, given the picture that Strossen draws of the benefits of pornography for women's sex lives and for their equality with men, her book is a veritable celebration of the political and liberatory benefits of pornography rather than a principled defense of a sad and sordid industry in the name of free speech.⁸

Strossen's hymn of praise to pornography employs the fundamental assumptions of classical liberalism. Hers is a world of individuals who freely choose to express their sexuality using or making pornography. Sexual desire, like Descartes' reason, is common to all persons, and can be directed toward a vast array of activities and objects. Pornography simply represents those activities and objects, and its meaning is as fluid as sexual desire itself. The value of pornography for women lies not in any particular “message” it delivers to or about us, since its message depends on individual interpretation. Rather, its value lies in its ability to weaken the sexual repression that has been particularly damaging to us.

However, given the positive role of pornography in the sexual lives of women, and given the fact that it has no fixed, general, or social meaning, the role of pornography in sexual harassment is genuinely puzzling. Why is it that displaying pornography is sexual expression for a man but sexual harassment of a woman? At this point the philosophical differences between Strossen and MacKinnon emerge. For Strossen, whose ontology includes persons whose sexuality and desires are givens, it is a genuine puzzle why the personhood of some (men) is not threatened by sexual desire, while the sexuality of others (women) conflicts with their personhood.

MacKinnon, in contrast, because she thinks that sexuality and desire are socially constructed rather than givens, explains the conflict in terms of misogyny, which is the way that sexuality and desires are organized in our culture. Because a person's individual sexuality is mediated by social institutions, and because our social institutions are oppressive to women, the conflict between sexuality and equality is just part of what it is to be a woman under patriarchy. MacKinnon notes, “Were there no such thing as male supremacy, and were it not sexualized, there would be no such injury as sexual harassment” (60). Pornography is one way in which male supremacy is sexualized, and for that reason displays of pornography are acts of harassment and discriminate against women.

Strossen's argument that pornography is a good thing for women deprives her of the resources to explain why pornography can constitute sexual harassment that discriminates against women. That displays of pornography harass and discriminate against women cannot be adequately explained by reference to the agent's intent because that intent could be simply sexual expression and pleasure (e.g., the showing of pornographic films in a police station). MacKinnon's interpretation of pornography within the social framework of patriarchy explains not only why pornography displayed in the workplace is sexually harassing of women but also why men, in the same workplace, might consider it to be enjoyable sexual expression.

It might be objected that MacKinnon's approach seems overinclusive, since its explanation of why pornography in the workplace is sexually harassing is that pornography is a sexually subordinating speech act. But, whatever its merits as an explanation of pornography as sexual harassment on the job, this view might seem implausible applied to the private use of pornography, since it is unlikely that many men (or women) view pornography in private with the intent to subordinate anyone.

This objection relies on the view that the meaning of pornography depends on the subjective intentions of its users, however, and MacKinnon rejects this position. She does not think that a man must have a subordinating thought or intention in order for pornography to subordinate women. Rather, she thinks that its meaning is socially fixed by a culture whose sexual institutions discriminate against women. For women (but not for men) sexuality does conflict with personhood; for women (but not for men) normal sexuality includes rape, exploitation, and abuse.⁹ Pornography both reflects and propagates these differences; it shows the rape, exploitation, and abuse of women as pleasurable for them, and, in the showing, it sexualizes discrimination.

No one in the current media debate about The People vs. Larry Flynt thinks that the meaning of what is depicted in Hustler is elusive or subjective; it is “vile, racist, scatological, pig-ugly, and violently women-hating porn” in the words of Hanna Rosin. This observation, worthy of MacKinnon herself, is left to hang in space, crowded out by affirmations of the importance of free speech, and condemnations of Larry Flynt's bad character and lifestyle. Perhaps this uneasy mix of reality, principle, and personality is a good thing. Could it be a sign of conflicting intuitions about whether Strossen's pro-pornography stance, and its underlying assumptions, are adequate for feminist thinking about pornography? Perhaps the canonization of Larry Flynt, First Amendment Saint, is the reductio ad absurdum of the liberal argument that asks women not only to defend, but also to celebrate Hustler magazine.

Notes

1. I would like to thank Cynthia Freeland for her ideas on MacKinnon and Hegel.

2. For a discussion of pornography and speech acts see Dwyer. The papers by Rae Langton and Jennifer Hornsby in Dwyer do an excellent job of explaining speech act theory and its application to the pornography debate.

3. There is no necessary connection between Strossen's representationalist view of language and her subjectivist account of the meaning of pornography (and sexual expression). Many representationalist are objectivists concerning meaning, and they would not be persuaded by Strossen's argument from disagreement. It does not follow from the fact that viewers disagree over the meaning of a pornographic picture that its meaning is subjective.

4. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines on Discrimination because of Sex, 29 CFR Part 1604.11(a) (1985), quoted in Strossen.

5. For a discussion of this example, and a persuasive account of how we might understand certain speech acts as discriminatory and subordinating, see “Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts” by Rae Langton in Dwyer.

6. In the theory of speech acts, context and circumstances play an important role. Saying “I do” is the act of marrying only in a certain culture and under certain circumstances. Similarly for pornography. If, for example, pornography were shown in a lecture on misogyny in American culture (or in a lecture comparing Japanese with American misogyny), then it would not constitute an act of sex discrimination.

7. Strossen makes these claims concerning the benefits of pornography in chapters 7 and 8 of Defending Pornography. The sexual benefits of pornography for women are supported by the following evidence: (1) quotations from women who like pornography, (2) statistics on women's use of pornography alone or in couples (3) the claim that even its opponents (MacKinnon and Dworkin) like it and make it, (4) the fact that pornography is used to treat sexual dysfunctions, (5) the fact that pornography delivers information about sex, and (6) the fact that it validates women's desires, especially their rape fantasies. To support (2) Strossen cites the growing use of pornography by women; according to a study by Redbook magazine, nearly half of respondents said they watched pornographic movies, and women, alone or in a couple constitute 40 percent of the adult videotape rental audience (Strossen 144).

8. In Nudes, Prudes, and Attitudes Avedon Carol does not extol the liberatory value of pornography to the extent that Strossen does, but she does argue broadly that “anti-pornography activism is not merely a useless device for eliminating sexism and violence, but also a disaster for feminists, women in general, and society as a whole” (ix).

9. Of course men are sexually abused and raped in prison, for example; but this is an abnormal context for male sexuality, not the norm.

Works Cited

Dwyer, Susan, ed. The Problem of Pornography. Wadsworth, 1995.

Goodman, Ellen. “The Sanitizing of Larry Flynt.” Boston Globe 19 January 1997: 7E.

Rich, Frank. “Larry Flynt, Patriot.” New York Times 12 October 1996: 15.

Rosin, Hanna. “Hustler: Larry Flynt, Scum Chic.” New Republic 6 January 1997: 20.