Porn - Philosophy for Everyone: How to Think With Kink (15 page)

But why should we accept the Harm Principle? Why not, for example, censor immoral speech or false speech? According to Mill, one reason why we should never suppress speech is that an expressed opinion might be correct.
⁵
Or, even if we are quite certain that an opinion is wrong, its presence reaffirms our own opinions – keeping them from degrading into mere dogma. Freedom, or autonomy, in general is valuable at least in part because it allows individuals to experience and observe a variety of experiments in living. A diversity of experiments in living allows people to learn from one another, and thus contributes to long-term progress for society as a whole, while also allowing people to develop their individuality as human beings. Ultimately, individuals are the best judge of what is best for them. Individuals have unique access to information about what makes them happy.

According to this principle, then, pornography should not be restricted – or censored – unless it causes harm. In accordance with respect for individual autonomy and freedom of expression, the state ought to allow individuals to live according to and express their own values, rather than imposing values upon them and restricting their conduct – unless the conduct causes harm to others (and even then the state ought to consider whether restricting the conduct will result in greater harm than the harm that the particular conduct might cause).The consumption of pornography may be seen as merely a matter of private morality. Pornography produced by consenting adults for private adult consumption causes harm to no one else, and thus is not the state’s business.

Nevertheless, while the intention of pornography is to arouse, not to harm or persuade people to cause harm, it may actually cause harm or implicitly endorse a viewpoint that leads to harm. For example, it may be that violent pornography endorses violence against women, and that consumers of such pornography are thereby more likely to commit acts of violence against women. In this case, pornography may not be protected by the Harm Principle. Indeed, this is just the right approach to attack pornography and support censorship within the context of political liberalism – namely, to show that pornography either constitutes a harm itself or directly leads to harm. The remaining sections address these kinds of attempts to support censorship of pornography within this context.

A Clear and Present Stranger

If violent pornography directly causes harm or alters its consumers’ desires or beliefs by non-persuasive or non-rational means, then censorship of it would not violate the Harm Principle.What is meant by “nonpersuasive” or “non-rational” means? We may distinguish between two ways of influencing people.
⁶
Non-rational influence would include speech of a certain pitch that excites the aggression center in the brains of its listeners, causing in them strong urges to act violently even if they do not understand what is being spoken; or a command that affects your behavior only if you understand its meaning, but which is given to you while you are drugged or under hypnosis. Persuasive or rational influence would include, for example, articles written by academics, speeches made by campaigning politicians to voters, or the speech of fundamentalist ministers to their congregations.The important difference is whether the influence allows the listener to shape his or her response or whether the influence renders the listener powerless in responding. Non-rational, persuasive speech, if it incites the listener to violence, for example, is not protected by the Harm Principle.

Does pornography have a kind of non-rational influence on its consumers such that they are compelled to violence? Of course, arousal itself is harmless. What needs to be shown is that violent pornography causes violence against women through a substantial non-rational means. If it were shown to instill in its consumers an ideology of violence toward women through a process similar to subliminal suggestion or hypnosis, for example, then censorship of it would not violate the Harm Principle.
⁷

A ban on violent pornography to reduce male violence against women may in fact be consistent with the Harm Principle.The principle does not protect speech insofar as it non-rationally affects its hearers’ mental states, and perhaps violent pornography affects its consumers in just that way.
⁸

Even if it could be shown that pornography has this affect on its consumers, it may be difficult to argue that it is any more influential in this way than misogynistic jokes or songs, or other non-pornographic speech that condones sexual violence.We must also consider whether pornography’s negative effect is greater than that produced by other professions in which women largely service men (for example, secretarial labor).There may be some differences.
⁹
First, people might believe that it is especially wrong, so it will then disproportionately fuel negative images. Second, the particular image of women in pornography is more of an image of inferiority than that of women secretaries. Nevertheless, a policy of censorship would not only fail to promote the wellbeing of women, but also exacerbate associated wrongs.
¹⁰
It would render women who work in the pornography industry more vulnerable (by pushing it “underground” rather than eliminating it), raise the dilemma of the “double bind” (i.e., it would deprive some poor women of one way to improve their economic condition), and reflect a view of women that contributes to their inequality (for example, the view that sex makes women dirty).This concern may be grounds for some moral condemnation, but not for censorship.Various kinds of speech (for example, sexist jokes), books, television, cinema, and video games may also have similar influences on their consumers, but this is insufficient reason to legally ban them.

Another possibility is that pornography reinforces preexisting desires or urges to harm women by conditioning, in which behaviors or desires are reinforced. A consumer of pornography may desire to commit acts of sexual violence against women, and this desire is reinforced by pornography through the strong, rewarding pleasures of arousal, masturbation, and orgasm. Reinforcement of such desires increases the likelihood that the consumers will act according to those desires against real women. But does pornography reinforce harmful desires? Perhaps the desire that gets reinforced is, for example, a desire to masturbate to violent pornography. In fact, if this use of pornography is a kind of self-reinforcing catharsis, then censoring it could be counterproductive, increasing rather than decreasing actual violence.

Perhaps pornography conditions its consumers to be sexist – to desire to control women or seek out submissive sexual partners. Perhaps arousal through pornography reinforces a desire to keep women politically and economically subordinate in the real world. Even if this is the case, however, sexist pornography may not be alone in contributing to these desires. Traditional Judeo-Christian-Islamic teachings about women, marriage, and family, for example, may play a similar role. If such teachings are protected by the Harm Principle despite their contribution to sexism, then pornography, to the extent that it contributes to sexism, is also protected.

On the other hand, violent pornography may be a far more potent conditioner than anything else we have compared it to in this section, including sexist, but non-violent pornography.
¹¹
Consumers of sexist pornography likely do not fantasize about keeping women at home to raise children, but consumers of violent pornography might fantasize about committing the very acts that they are viewing. While the arousal caused by sexist pornography may give it no greater ability to reinforce sexism than that of sexist jokes, religious teachings, and the like, the arousal caused by violent pornography may have a much greater effect. It may reinforce a desire to sexually assault women. If consumers of violent pornography act on these desires, then violent pornography is contributing to an increased number of sexual assaults. Censoring pornography with the goal of reducing its availability may then reduce the total amount of sexual violence against women.

Nevertheless, as we have seen above, evidence is needed to support the claim of a direct link between the consumption of pornography and acts of violence – rather than merely the reinforcement of desires, which may or may not be acted upon. If consumption of pornography may only possibly contribute to harm, then it is still protected by the Harm Principle. Finally, even if satisfactory evidence was shown that violent pornography directly causes sexual violence, only a very specific type of pornography would be in trouble. Erotica and sexist, but non-violent, pornography would not be included in the objection – not unless it were shown that they too directly cause sexual violence.The objection that pornography should be censored because it directly leads to sexual violence is on shaky ground.

Enema of the State

An opponent of pornography might claim that the liberal approach to pornography fails to understand it in the context of women’s subordination and inequality.The liberal approach excludes the patriarchal dimension of our society from scrutiny. In our society, relations between men and women are unequal.They occur in a context in which women are in a state of social, political, economic, and personal subordination to men, i.e., a patriarchal context. Seen in that context, pornography will be seen as playing a role in maintaining that subordination and inequality. Pornography may be seen as the portrayal of women as sexual objects for the satisfaction of male desires. The Harm Principle, insofar as it protects pornography in this context, is protecting expression that perpetuates the subordination of women. Or, perhaps censorship of pornography is consistent with the Harm Principle if we understand the concept of harm widely enough.The harm of pornography, on this view, is that it makes the patriarchal context arousing.The harm is in eroticizing subordination, and this is contrary to the value we all place on autonomy – a value which grounds our interest in the Harm Principle in the first place.We must consider whether limiting some freedom of expression may better serve the protection of autonomy overall.

One of the important differences we have pointed to between child pornography and other pornography is that other than in child pornography the people involved are consenting to their role in its production. Also, except perhaps in some of the most explicitly violent pornography, women portray women who consent to and enjoy their role in satisfying male sexual desires.The appearance of consent seems to let this pornography off the hook, especially in light of the Harm Principle. But consensual pornography allows for the eroticization of subordination. Pornography eroticizes this patriarchal context, but gives it the air of legitimacy by showing it in a context of consent. Pornography is thus playing a special role in sustaining a patriarchal regime.While censoring pornography may appear on the surface to be contrary to the value of autonomy, on closer inspection we may see that doing so actually promotes more autonomy overall – by restricting one means by which the patriarchal regime is perpetuated. What seems like a context of consent is really a disguised context of coercion – hidden perpetuation of patriarchy. The consent of women in pornography – both in the portrayals and in their participation in its production – is manufactured. Even if women themselves complain that they are consenting and thus no harm is being done, they are simply taken in by the patriarchal social context in which they are immersed.
¹²

The failure of the liberal approach to recognize this objection to pornography is a result of failing to recognize that not only the state wields coercive power over individuals. Classes and groups also have and exercise this power. The Harm Principle limits the coercive power of the state, but fails to address – and may perpetuate – other pernicious social relations. Social oppression may be at least as powerful as political oppression, and is more easily disguised, such as by the appearance of consent. Pornography exerts a social coercion over men and women, a coercion that is masked by the appearance of consent. Not only does pornography target men – reinforcing the patriarchal regime in which they live – but also succeeds in getting women to cooperate in their oppression.

The problem with this objection is that it is difficult to demonstrate that pornography does this to any greater degree than many other elements of our social lives.We may agree that to make a complete determination of the moral status of pornography in our society we must consider the fact that in our society pornography happens to play a role of entrenching the beliefs that oppress women. We can agree that we ought to work to subvert patriarchal and oppressive beliefs and attitudes, but this is not best accomplished by censorship of everything that contributes. Literature directed at women that supports the subordination of women is perhaps far more objectionable on these grounds than pornography. For example, romance novels, insofar as they eroticize the subordination of women, may have a greater effect than pornography at sustaining a patriarchal status quo. Furthermore, there may be far more effective ways to sustain inequality than eroticization, especially for private consumption. Inequality pervades our social context in a variety of ways; why regard pornography as especially problematic? Literature or films that contain themes of domination of women, which are far more widely consumed, and which are presented in a much more familiar context, seem more problematic. So, too, with children’s literature that aims at directing children to eventually adopt unequal adult roles (consider
Cinderella
).
¹³
To support censorship of pornography on these grounds would seemingly justify and require censoring far more than pornography – indeed, whatever supports male fantasies of domination or encourages women’s fantasies of subordination.The objection really amounts not to an objection to sexually explicit materials, but rather to institutionalized inequality of men and women, in any medium.