The Dog Collar Murders (5 page)

Damn. Now that had sounded interesting.

I set off, somewhat reluctantly, to the workshop given by my friend Janis Glover the lawyer. She made a fairly lengthy presentation on the Minneapolis Ordinance that had been drafted by Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon and vetoed by the mayor, but that had become the standard for much of the antipornography legislation the government and local communities were contemplating.

After Loie’s passion the legal approach was infinitely cooler and more judicious. At first I couldn’t get into it at all. Much of what Loie had said was still ringing in my ears: “The Constitution was written by white male slaveholders.” “The First Amendment has no meaning for women who cannot express themselves.” But gradually I began to listen to Janis talking about the difficulties of applying the ordinance, or ones like it, to reality. Unlike previous legislation having to do with obscenity and pornography, this ordinance had tried to make it an infringement of women’s civil liberties to create and distribute pornography.

“Although Dworkin and MacKinnon claim to be against censorship, the new civil laws, which would allow individuals to sue the makers, sellers, distributors or exhibitors of pornography, would have the same censoring effect as criminal laws against obscenity. Materials could be removed from bookstores and libraries by the courts, and bookstores and publishers and librarians might have to deal with endless suits from individuals.”

I found myself thinking of the workshop on current research and wishing there was a better way to distinguish between the different forms of pornography. Violent pornography, for instance, should maybe have a completely different name—aggressography?

“What Dworkin and MacKinnon did that was very innovative, but potentially legally unsound, was to define pornography as sex discrimination. Complaints could be filed in the same way that complaints are filed against employment discrimination. The courts then would have the final say on whether the materials submitted to it fit the definition of pornography; if yes, the courts would have the authority to award monetary damages and to issue an injunction preventing further distribution of the material.”

“But that was the great thing about the Minneapolis Ordinance,” someone argued. “It would have put the legislative power in the hands of feminists.”

“Not necessarily,” said Janis. “Although women would have the power to file suit, the courts would have the final say on whether the materials submitted to it fit the definition of pornography. I don’t need to remind you that the courts aren’t exactly filled with progressive feminists.”

“But legislation is the only possibility of stopping porn. It’s used against racism—you don’t disagree with censorship of racist materials?”

“I’m not sure that censorship ever works,” said Janis. “Or that you can equate racism with pornography. I suppose I have a well-based fear of legislation doing the work that education should do. The combination of ignorance about sexuality that’s fostered in our school systems and the hysteria of the New Right over abortion, homosexuality and AIDS make me very dubious that a law like the one proposed in Minneapolis would work to most of our advantage. Perhaps the ordinance would have focused so much good attention on sexual violence against women that it would have been worth it. My own feelings are that in this case the harm outweighed the potential good.”

After the last workshop the conference participants began to gather in Pigott Auditorium to hear the closing speeches. I hadn’t reconnected with Hadley all day and didn’t see her now. I found June and Penny sitting together and joined them. June was dressed in red overalls and a little red beret that looked fetching against her dark skin; Penny was without Antonia for once and appeared a little frayed around the edges.

“Where were you all day?” I asked them.

“Just got here. I was at the mailing and June was with her kids. But June persuaded me that I should hear Gracie London.”

“She’s related to you or something, isn’t she?”

“She used to be married to my cousin, the one who’s being a journalist down in Oakland now. She was the first white person to marry into our family, wasn’t that a trip. That was during the civil rights days and everyone was pretty suspicious. Now they like her a lot, even though she and Tad got divorced. The funny thing is, her kids identify as black, so she’s still the only white person in the family. The only lesbian too.” June winked at me. “So far.”

Hadley hadn’t come in yet. Restlessly I got up and moved to the back of the auditorium where I could look for her.

One of the organizers came on stage and thanked everyone for coming and making the conference such a success. She made about thirty-five announcements, from asking that Karen From Childcare please return to the Childcare Room, to telling us about four or five upcoming events. Finally she introduced the first speaker.

“For many of us, Gracie London is a familiar figure in Seattle. She has been active since the mid-sixties in civil rights and feminist issues. She founded the first reproductive rights groups in Washington State, was a founding board member of Rape Relief and is currently active in the anti-apartheid struggle. In addition to being a full professor of sociology at the University of Washington, she is the author of two books—
Understanding Women’s Sexuality
[applause] and
Thinking About Abortion
[applause and some boos], and she is currently at work on a third book with the working title,
Enough Already: Sexuality Is Not the Only Issue
[an equal mixture of laughter and hisses]. Gracie London.”

A good-looking woman in her late forties walked up to the podium. She had short salt and pepper hair and an upbeat, no-nonsense air. She looked more like a company president than a sociology professor.

“When I was first asked to take part in today’s conference I declined. Like many of you, I’m sure, I have come to be more and more ambivalent about saying what I think about sexuality and pornography, indeed, of knowing what I think about sexuality and pornography. Twelve or thirteen years ago, when I published my book on female sexuality, the situation seemed a lot simpler to me. Women’s sexuality had been repressed and misrepresented for centuries; once we understood that, we could take it in new directions, develop a sexuality that was for ourselves. At the close of the eighties, that no longer seems such an easy prescription. Our sexuality is still repressed and misrepresented; young girls and boys get virtually no information on contraception, abortion rights are under attack, and the feminist movement is polarized on this issue as on no other.

“What I’ve come to speak to you about is about why the issue of pornography has become
the
issue. Asking that question has become more important for me than simply stating a position on the subject. If I had been asked to do that, to debate the anti-censorship side of the pornography debate, I would not be here today. I simply could not stomach another rehash of the same tired old discussion, even with such an illustrious debater as Loie Marsh. Instead I wish to put to you some questions and come up with some possible answers as to why the issues of pornography and violence against women have become so central.”

No sign of Hadley, though from where I was standing I had a good view of the open door leading to the lobby. It was empty except for a lone monitor looking at her watch. Through the glass doors of the lobby a walkway was visible, leading through trees to the rest of the campus. Under the trees I could just about make out two figures. The one who faced me was Nicky Kay, with a leather jacket covering most of her S/M costume. She was still wearing her dog collar and leash, though, and I shuddered a little to think what the passing Jesuits must be thinking about this conference. The person she was talking to could have been a man or woman wearing a trenchcoat and a cap.

Gracie was warming up to her speech, but it was almost too much effort to listen to it. Compared with Loie, Gracie was low-key and far too rational. Perhaps we’d gotten too used to the chest-thumping evangelism of our favorite feminist speakers, who could make us respond with our hearts, not our heads.

“To many women, male hatred of women seems the only way to account for the fact that pornography seems to be increasing, for the fact of more and more women coming forward with stories of incest in childhood and physical abuse in their relationships with men. The view that supports these facts is based on acceptance of a certain biological interpretation of history—that men have used the penis as a weapon against women to force them into subordination. Anything that contradicts those assumptions—from the election of a government leader like Margaret Thatcher to the vocal presence of lesbian sadomasochists—is simply dismissed as male-identified behavior. Lesbian batterers are male-identified, female executives are male-identified, women in positions of political power are male-identified, women who don’t call themselves feminists are male-identified, and women who don’t agree with the views of the anti-pornography group are male-identified.

“One might reasonably ask, given the long list of women who, though they were born female, grew up female and consider themselves female, are not female-identified, who
is
female-identified?

“The answer, quite simply, is that you may identify as female if you identify as a victim or if you identify with women who are victims.”

Outside Nicky and the figure in the trenchcoat appeared to be deep in discussion, if not in argument. Probably he was a reporter, lurking around the fringes of the conference. Or maybe he was propositioning Nicky. I saw her put her hands up to the dog collar around her throat; it looked like she was removing it.

“Those of us who disagree with women like Loie Marsh are not Uncle Toms or traitors to our class. We simply disagree.

“We disagree with the premise that there is one root cause for the inequalities of power between women and men and that that cause is male hatred of and sexual violence towards women. We do not say that this culture is not full of hatred towards women’s bodies and violence towards women—to do so would be absurd, when all around us we see evidence of such hatred and violence. But we do not believe that that is the root cause, only one of many factors in the social construction of male/female inequality. Pornography and rape do not explain why there is so little daycare available for boys and girls; they do not explain why women in this country earn between fifty-nine and sixty-three cents for every dollar earned by a man. Pornography and rape do not explain why black women earn less than white women or why women in other countries earn least of all, sometimes only pennies a day. Pornography and rape do not explain why so few women are the heads of profitable businesses or charitable organizations, why so few women are mayors, governors, congresspeople and presidents. They do not explain why there is war—if men hate women so much, why do they kill them individually on the streets rather than massacre them in the thousands as they do their fellow men during wartimes?”

I glanced through the doors again. Nicky and whomever she’d been speaking to were gone. Now Gracie began to come to her conclusion, but I felt almost indifferent. Gracie said what she thought, while Loie told us what to think. That was the difference: Gracie made mental demands, Loie made a heartfelt appeal. In my intellectual weariness I found myself longing for Loie to rise up, like a Biblical prophet, to tell us all what was wrong and what we should do.

“To believe that maleness is intrinsically evil is a deliberate strategy and, I think, quite arbitrary. Almost all of the anti-porn activists are white, yet they do not seem to believe that whiteness is intrinsically
evil
, even though, as far back as we know, people of lighter skin have tortured, murdered, exploited and patronized their darker brothers and sisters. A good many of the anti-porn activists are from middle- or upper-class homes, yet they do not seem to believe that it is intrinsically
evil
to have been born into social privilege, even though for all recorded history, the rich have killed, exploited and patronized the poor. Few of the anti-porn activists are disabled, but they do not make a point of telling us that it is intrinsically
evil
to have been born able-bodied, though there has never been a time when the disabled have been respected and cared for as contributing members of the society.

“The point is not which ‘ism’ is the root cause of oppression in our civilization, which sex or class or race is the most oppressed. The point is about the social construct of power. Those who have power will never willingly give it up—whether that power is based on gender, wealth or white skin. For power is never or rarely given up—it is seized. Not by people who are passive victims, but by people whose oppression empowers them to act and, I submit, by people who, when and if they manage to obtain power, will quite likely find the means to abuse it in very much the same ways.”

T
HERE WAS A SILENCE
after Gracie had finished and then, a series of diverse applauses, from thunderous in some quarters to subdued and thoughtful in others, splashing against each other like waves in a choppy sea. Some people seemed confused by the ambiguity of Gracie’s ending note, and I heard a woman nearby say to her companion, “Is she saying women are as bad as men?” During the pause before Loie was introduced, a number of people came in and found seats down in front. I wondered if they were Loie-supporters who’d been boycotting Gracie’s speech. Hadley was among them; I grudgingly caught her attention and we both slipped into the seats Penny and June had been saving for us. She raised her eyebrows several times to express what an exciting event this was, but I ignored her. I was pretty sure she’d been hanging out with Miko and didn’t like that one bit.

“I’m sure this speaker needs no introduction,” said the conference organizer, and then proceeded to give her a very long one. Naturally, for Seattlites, the most important fact was that Loie had been born in Seattle. That alone was worth all the articles published, the speeches given. The audience whooped at the word “native.”