Porn - Philosophy for Everyone: How to Think With Kink (14 page)

Jonathon Dollimore, in his book
Death, Desire, and Loss in Western Culture
, echoes Freud in his pithy remark: “Death inhabits sexuality: perversely, lethally, ecstatically.” It is not hard to succumb to the romantic notion of the epic battle waged within between eros and thanatos, just as it is easy to romanticize a sense of fullness and wholeness before the ravages of AIDS. It becomes crucial, then, to understand the importance of fantasy in the negotiation of these desires. Bareback pornography nostalgically houses and nurtures these fantasies, for better or for worse. Equally important are the social repercussions of what we do with these fantasies in the realm of the social, the interpersonal, and the communal. The demonization of gay barebacking practices will not make them disappear. Future dialogue will be crucial to discern the many nuanced ways we may have of letting desire and pleasure speak to personal responsibility and accountability to the futures of others and ourselves.

NOTES

1
I am thinking of jokes and mantras that persisted well into the 1990s, such as “AIDS Cures FAGS.”

2
I use “gay” and “queer” interchangeably throughout the essay. When I use “gay,” “I generally intend to describe male same-sex orientation and sexual acts. When I use “queer,” I emphasize same-sex practices as consciously oppositional to heterosexual identity.

3
Jeff Palmer admitted his HIV-positive status, and then retracted the statement, insisting that HIV and AIDS are not medically linked, and that whereas he formerly had AIDS, his illness was a product of drugs and negativity. He claims to now be free of disease.

4
I use “racial diversity” here only in the sense of its being relative to mainstream porn. While the number of black and Latino performers is much higher than mainstream porn, the genre is still predominantly white. There are, however, mainly explicitly racialized bareback porns like
Barrio Bareback Gangbang
and
Black & White Bareback
.

5
Paul Morris,“No Limits: Necessary Danger in Male Porn,”
Treasure Island Media
(July 15, 2009).
www.treasureislandmedia.com/TreasureIslandMedia_2007/ paulsPapers.php?article=noLimits.

PART III

BETWEEN THE SHEETS
Porn Ethics and Personal Relationships

TAIT SZABO

CHAPTER 6

STRANGE LOVE, OR
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Porn

Going Deep

Pornography has a long history, but perhaps it was the 1970s that saw the beginning of the massive industry it has become, with films such as
Deep Throat
(1972),
Behind the Green Door
(1972), and
Debbie Does Dallas
(1978). And let us not forget the influence of magazines such as
Playboy
and
Penthouse
, as well as pornography on the World Wide Web. Pornography has its fans, but it also has opponents. It has faced legal, moral, and religious opposition. Our focus here is to examine the case for the censorship of pornography. We will see that in accordance with the Harm Principle, censorship is unjustified. The Harm Principle protects pornography against censorship despite concerns about sexual morality, concerns that pornography causes violence against women, or concerns that it supports the patriarchal domination of women.

The Porns of Our Lives

Any philosophical examination of pornography ought to begin with a clear understanding of what exactly it is that is under examination.We will regard as pornographic any sexually explicit representation intended to produce sexual arousal in its audience. Pornography may serve as an instrument for obtaining a sexual catharsis. It may be a substitute for a sexual partner. Not all sexually explicit material counts as pornography – that it be intended to cause sexual arousal is a necessary feature. So-called “slasher” films that depict naked women in sexual situations – and who usually meet a violent end – do not count as pornography. In
Hostel: Part 2
(2007), for example, several American college girls traveling throughout Europe become the victims of a gruesome torture club.Violence and sexuality are mixed in a way that pushes boundaries, but the film does not cross the line into pornography. It may be intended to offend and frighten, but it is not intended to sexually arouse. In fact, “slasher” films have sometimes served as warnings for the young against promiscuity or premarital sex. In films such as those in the
Friday the 13th
series it is often the sexually active teenagers who are the first to die.The audience of such films may be seeking something with graphic depictions of sex and violence, but they are not seeking sexual catharsis or a sexual substitute. Whatever criticisms may be raised against such films, they are not pornographic.

Sexually explicit material that is intended to cause arousal comes in many forms. The pornography found in
Playboy
magazine, for example, does not typically contain explicit themes of domination or sexism – we will refer to such pornography as non-sexist erotica, or just erotica. Some pornography, while not containing explicit domination themes, is nonetheless sexist. For example, sexually explicit films in which women are portrayed as conforming to an insulting, derogatory stereotype – the silly, stupid, and servile “empty-headed bimbo,” for example – would fall into this second category. So, too, would films portraying women in positions of socioeconomic subordination happy to provide sexual services on command – the female secretary eager and ready to perform fellatio on her male boss in his office, for example. Of course, not only pornography may be sexist in this way – non-pornographic films, for example, may contain the same portrayals of women. A third category of pornography includes explicit domination themes, such as photos of naked women on their hands and knees while wearing dog collars and leashes. The final category of pornography contains depictions of violence – women being tied up, tortured, or raped, for example. In violent pornography the victims may be depicted as enjoying and consenting to the sexual acts or as being unwilling and terrorized.

We must be careful when identifying material as pornographic – whether some material counts as pornography will not always be obvious or uncontroversial. The film
Secretary
(2002), for example, contains a portrayal of a female secretary who engages in a submissive sexual relationship with her dominant male employer. On the surface, the film may appear to be a sexist, sexually explicit film containing themes of male domination, but a closer viewing reveals an exploration of the boundaries of human sexuality and love. The film received an
R
rating from the MPAA and is not generally regarded as pornographic. Perhaps we have missed a distinguishing feature of pornography in our analysis of it above which would allow us to distinguish pornography from films such as
Secretary
, or perhaps
Secretary
ought to be regarded as pornographic after all. Rather than become weighed down in definitional matters, however, we will proceed as follows. Along with the distinctions explained above, we will trust ourselves to recognize pornography when we see it. Also, we must not have a definition of pornography that is so broad that everything counts as pornography or so narrow that nothing does.Where there is controversy as to whether some material ought to be regarded as pornographic, we will not concern ourselves with it. We will avoid the controversy, because if it can be shown that even material that is regarded as pornographic without controversy – especially material that is sexist, degrading, and violent – should not be censored, then we need not concern ourselves with material that would be even less troubling.

All that having been said, let us remind ourselves that not all pornography is identical. The wide scope of pornography is an immediate reminder that we should not necessarily expect to draw the same conclusions about all pornography. Child pornography is wrong and ought to be legally prohibited. Pornography produced without the consent of the people being subjected to sexual violence – as in so-called “snuff” films, for example – is also wrong and ought to be legally prohibited.
¹
These claims are taken as uncontroversial and without need of justification. But we may agree about the status of child pornography and snuff films without agreeing that pornography involving consenting adults is similarly objectionable and ought to be similarly censored.

Dial M for Missionary

Why are we concerning ourselves with all these distinctions and definitions? Of what concern is sexism, domination, or violence? That may all be problematic, but perhaps we do not need to get that far into it – the trouble with pornography is the sex! Sex is supposed to be part of an emotional relationship, isn’t it? Porn stars engage in sex for money. The sex in pornography is not a reciprocal expression of loving desire, but rather the consenting to sexual acts with the consolation of payment. Sex for money? Porn stars are prostitutes! Prostitution is wrong – at least that may be the common opinion – and it is legally prohibited just about everywhere.
²
And if porn stars are prostitutes, then pornography should have the same moral and legal status as prostitution.

Let’s slow down a moment.That objection seems too obvious to have gone unnoticed – and it hasn’t. The objection was the subject of an importantly relevant court case,
California v. Freeman
(1989).
³
According to the court decision, porn stars are not engaged in prostitution, because their genitals do not come into contact for the purpose of causing each other sexual arousal in return for payment.The prostitute, through genital contact, intends to cause sexual arousal in the client. The porn star, on the other hand, is an actor or actress, portraying sexual arousal. The porn star, in other words, is paid not for causing sexual arousal through direct genital stimulation, as the prostitute is, but rather for acting out sexual activity and arousal. This is an important difference as far as the courts are concerned.

Why doesn’t this settle the matter for us? First, even if pornography is not regarded by the law as equivalent to prostitution, there may be independent reasons to censor it. Second, even if pornography were regarded as equivalent to prostitution, this would only push the question back a step – we would have to examine whether prostitution ought to continue to be legally prohibited. Nevertheless, while we will not be able to rely on the simple argument that porn stars are prostitutes, there still may be a sufficient argument for censorship. That argument may not need to depart far from where we began this section. Porn stars may not be prostitutes, at least not in the eyes of the law, but they are engaged in loveless sex, and that’s still wrong – isn’t it?

Let us examine that idea. Just what is wrong with loveless sex? Even if lovemaking – which is what we will call sex that involves the mutual expression of love – is better than loveless sex, loveless sex might be quite good! Consider an analogy: a well-aged red wine from Napa Valley may be better than boxed wine from New Jersey, but some people may happen to like boxed wine from New Jersey – especially if the alternative is no wine at all! Furthermore, even if loveless sex is worth less than lovemaking, or even if it is valueless without love, it does not follow that engaging in it, filming it, photographing it, and so on ought to be prohibited. Finally, if pornography were objectionable on these grounds, the same case could be made about other sorts of sexual activity, such as premarital sex and promiscuity.This objection may justify legally prohibiting all sexual activity that is not part of a loving relationship.While this may appeal to some opponents of pornography, it likely will not appeal to all of them, and is a much harder position to maintain.The objection is far too broad.

Perhaps the problem is not about relative value, but rather that loveless sex undermines – or diminishes the value of – lovemaking. For example, if pornography were widely available, then fewer people would have an incentive to be in a committed, loving relationship in order to obtain sexual catharsis, and thus fewer people would be engaging in sexual activity that involves the mutual expression of love. If we think that it is a good thing that there are mutual sexual expressions of love, then we might want to remove from society those things of lesser value that present obstacles to achieving more of this higher value. If, for example, an increasing availability of boxed wine had the result that fewer and fewer people enjoyed superior wine, then we may have a reason for decreasing the availability of boxed wine – assuming at least that we think people would be happier drinking bottled wine and that we ought to be enacting policies to maximize people’s happiness. But wait right there – what about those assumptions? What if some people are really happier drinking boxed wine? If so, then we would be making them worse off by taking away their boxed wine. If we want to claim that their preferences are mistaken – that they do not know what is good for them, for example – then we are imposing a value judgment upon them, and that may be something we should not do.

For Your Thighs Only

The context for considering the censorship of pornography is a context of political liberalism.We are citizens of a liberal democratic republic, of which one of the fundamental guiding principles is the Harm Principle, explicated by John Stuart Mill in
On Liberty
:

The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. . . . The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
⁴

What this means is that the only good reason to restrict conduct, including speech or expression, is to prevent harm to others. Harmless conduct – even if it is regarded as immoral – should not be restricted. Even some harm should be permitted, such as some harms to which a person consents. Persuasive speech may create a risk of harm, but this alone is also insufficient to justify restricting that speech. On the other hand, some speech is very likely to cause harm directly through its persuasive effects. The Harm Principle affords no protection to speech that, for example, contains a specific and immediate incitement to criminal conduct. Nor does the Harm Principle afford protection to shouting a false cry of “fire” in a crowded theatre.