Title: XXX: A Woman’s Right to Pornography
Author: McElroy, Wendy
Length: 243 pages
Genre: Non-Fiction, Women, Women’s Rights
Publisher / Year: St. Martin’s Press / 1995
Source: I purchased this at The Strand in NYC.
Rating: 4.5/5
Why I Read It: It sounded really interesting.
Date Read: 18/06/10
This book takes a hard look at the porn industry, feminism, and censorship and the intersection between those three things. Pornography often gets a bad rep, especially from a group of anti-porn and radical feminists. McElroy shows how this group has tried to silence debate, and control any discussions that did crop up. Some go so far as to say that pornography in and of itself is an act of sexual violence. In this book McElroy offers four things to combat that (from the introduction on page viii):
- A realistic picture of how the pornography industry works;
- A full-scale attack on the fundamental assumptions of anti-porn feminists;
- A forum from which the women who work in the day-to-day business of pornography can air their views; and
- A sense of how pornography benefits women and is essential to the health of feminism.
These are the four things that McElroy says are missing from the debate, and she does a great job of hitting each point.
One of the things she starts off with is the term itself. On page 48 she says “Words define the parameters of debate. They control thought itself.” And that is so true. So what, exactly, is pornography? The author does a great job of explaining how and why she came to the following definition, and claims that a great one is (from page 52):
Pornography is the explicit artistic depiction of men and / or women as sexual beings.
Another point that she makes often is that the history behind the rise of women’s freedom is intrinsically tied to the rise of sexual freedom. She includes a lot of historical information that I hadn’t heard of. She also includes information about anti-pornography laws that are used almost exclusively to suppress feminist and GLBT material rather than ‘regular porn’ (a recent example included on page 93 is the law in Canada derived from Butler v. Regina). She says on page 78:
The censoring of sexual words and images does not simply lead to the suppression of women’s sexual rights. It is an attempt to control women themselves. For women’s rights have traditionally been phrased in terms of their sexuality: marriage, abortion, birth control. To surrender one iota of women’s control over their own sexual expression is to deny that it is their sexuality in the first place.
McElroy discusses how we all have our own ideas when it comes to sex and sexuality and what is right or wrong. From housewife to porn star, everyone has a tendency to look down on others and label them as wrong. As the quote above indicates, women should have the right to make their own decisions, whether you agree with her decision or not is not the point. We shouldn’t be controlling what people choose to do.
Some of the arguments brought up by radical feminists make no sense. For example that even a woman’s signature for a porn contract isn’t worth anything because she was ‘obviously coerced into it’, from page 107:
According to radical feminists, even if a woman in pornography signed a contract with full knowledge, she can sue on the grounds of coercion. What legal implications does this have for a woman’s right to a contract? … For centuries, women have struggled against tremendous odds to have their contracts taken seriously. … A woman’s consent must never again become legally irrelevant.
The arguments in this book are incredibly well researched and documented. McElroy talks to a lot of people in the industry and clearly lays out the benefits. Porn, she says, gives us a way to play out our fantasies and to experiment without putting ourselves in any kind of danger. For women especially this is a great thing.
Some of the recommendations that the author suggests are to legalize prostitution so that sex workers get the protection of the law rather than being victimized by it. She also suggests that the porn industry should be better regulated as with real movies to ensure that there is no coercion, that contracts are always signed and always honored, and that actresses and actors are treated fairly and well. She includes a wealth of facts and information to back up these suggestions, way more than I could fit in one post, so I will simply ask you to read the book. It is incredibly informative.
Whether you agree or disagree with the author I think you ought to read this book because it really gives a human face to the women in the industry. Not only that, it presents their concerns and their thoughts. I think when ‘judging’ any industry you need to talk to the people in it and pornography is no different. It is there, you can choose to watch it or not, but each woman (and man) should be able to decide for themselves to watch (or not) and to participate (or not). If the industry is regulated as it should be, violence and coercion wouldn’t be an issue. By forcing it underground we simply make it more violent and dangerous for those a part of it.
In closing, I will quote McElroy’s own closing statement, from page 211-2:
I wondered if feminists who attack prostitutes as psychological incompetents had ever met women in the industry – not the victims who flee, but the majority who stay. I wondered if I could ever again blithely exhort sex workers to “stand up for yourself” when I now knew they could lose their children for following my advice. How many times through history have women had to defend themselves against self-proclaimed “protectors”? By defining myself as an advocate of sex worker’s rights – a protector – wasn’t I placing myself on a higher level than these “unfortunate” women?
Maybe sex workers are like every other type of women in our society. Maybe they just need a bit of respect. It’s a lesson I’m still learning.
