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i
PORNOGR APH Y
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PORNOGR APH Y
A Philosophical Introduction
Mari Mikkola
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3
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by WebCom, Inc., Canada
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Contents
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vii
Contents
Bibliography 263
Index 281
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ix
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments
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xi
Acknowledgments
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xii
1
Chapter 1
Introduction
What Is Pornography?
1.1. TASK OF THE BOOK
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Introduction
1. Throughout I will use the italicized expression pornography to denote the concept, while
‘pornography’ denotes the term. When I speak of pornography without italic or single-
quotes, I am talking about the real-world phenomenon.
2. Bignell, “Playboy Is Art, Not Porn, Says Hefner Heir,” The Independent, January 6, 2013,
https://w ww.independent.co.uk/ n ews/ p eople/ n ews/ playboy- i s- art- n ot- p orn- says-
hefner-heir-8439849.html. Accessed August 7, 2018.
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Introduction
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Introduction
than they might at first seem. Indeed, different sides on the debate
might not even disagree with one another, contra appearances.
In light of these difficulties and (apparent) disagreements, this
book examines philosophical pornography debates with the aim to
steady and clarify the waters. It does not put forward one overarching
argument throughout but rather evaluates relevant arguments
thematically. In so doing, the book has three broad goals. First, to
conduct a comprehensive and careful investigation of different phil-
osophical positions for and against pornography, which will provide
much needed clarity on how pornography and other key notions are
(and should be) understood. The book hence also clarifies what dif-
ferent views are theoretically and politically committed to. Second,
to investigate important methodological issues by considering
how empirically adequate existing philosophical positions are rel-
ative to the sizeable pornography industry. This will involve also
considering alternative pornographies that are said to be feminist,
“female-friendly,” and nonheteronormative. Third, to enrich extant
philosophical debates by examining how discussions in different
subareas (like feminist philosophy and aesthetics) intersect with and
profit from one another—something surprisingly absent in contem-
porary philosophizing over pornography. Although my investigation
in this book advances unapologetically from an analytic feminist phil-
osophical perspective, it will be neutral about pornography’s moral
status at the outset.3 One of the big lessons to emerge from this work
is that given how complex a phenomenon pornography is, it is far
3. To clarify: analytic feminism combines the practical focus of feminism as a political move-
ment to end sex-and/or gender-related injustices with common analytical methods (e.g.,
conceptual analysis and systematic argumentation). Feminist philosophy aims both to cri-
tique patriarchal social structures by utilizing mainstream philosophical tools and to shape
mainstream philosophy with the help of feminist political insights. It offers a way to do
politically informed philosophical investigation without being restricted just to political
philosophy.
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Introduction
from easy (if not impossible) to say that all pornography is harmful in
some sense or that pornography does no harm at all. Our evaluative
judgments about pornography must be made in a piecemeal fashion,
and the prospects of making general normative claims about pornog-
raphy are poor. However, as I will argue, this does not preclude mean-
ingful philosophical work on pornography. There is still much to be
done, as will become clear from the pages of this book. Nevertheless,
before we can see what work still needs to be done, let us briefly look
at what work has already been undertaken by way of background and
in preparation for the discussions to come.
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6
Introduction
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7
Introduction
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8
Introduction
4. Andrea Dworkin (1981) rejects the distinction between inegalitarian pornography and
egalitarian erotica. For Dworkin, the latter is simply a high-class variant of the former.
5. Quick note about terminology. In this book I will use ‘trans*’ as an inclusive umbrella term
to capture a multitude of gender nonconforming identities. The term ‘transsexual’ is typ-
ically used to refer to individuals who use medical means and technologies to alter their
bodies, so that their bodily presentation conforms to their gendered sense of self (Bettcher
2009). By contrast, ‘transgender’ refers to
people who “do not conform to prevailing expectations about gender” by presenting
and living genders that were not assigned to them at birth or by presenting and living
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Introduction
genders in ways that may not be readily intelligible in terms of more traditional
conceptions of gender. (Bettcher 2009)
Trans* is contrasted with ‘cis’ that denotes (roughly) women-born-female and men-born-
male, who have typical gender identities and presentations. ‘Trans*’ is also considered to be
more inclusive than ‘trans’ by including a wider range of gender nonconforming individuals,
who may or may not consider themselves to be transgender.
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Introduction
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1
Introduction
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Introduction
a real definition does not steer the debate off course, but elucidates
pornography itself. This is apparently what the participants in the de-
bate are after, due to which Rea takes any definition of pornography
that seeks to revise it to be impoverished.
A different line of attack comes from prominent liberal
philosophers. Even while denying that pornography is somehow
valuable, these philosophers intensely critiqued the Dworkin-
MacKinnon view during the late-1980s and early-1990s. Ronald
Dworkin (1991) famously claimed that the Dworkin-MacKinnon
position was based on a “dangerous confusion” between negative
and positive liberty. This is the well-known distinction between
enjoying freedom from some interference and having the liberty to
do something. Our negative liberty may be restricted in a manner
that is consistent with free speech protections. However, the view
that pornography silences women seeks to argue against pornog-
raphy by appealing to women’s positive liberty to be heard and to
make speech acts. Such guarantees are not within the remit of the
law though, and the law need not protect the freedom to make cer-
tain claims, such as those of cranks and flat-earthers. R. Dworkin
further rejects the view that pornography causes women’s subordi-
nation and silencing in general by appealing to the lack of available
empirical evidence that supports such a causal story. (We will return
to this point in c hapter 2.) Then again, William Parent holds that the
Dworkin-MacKinnon definition of pornography is philosophically
indefensible because subordination is “an action or a practice en-
gaged in by human beings and directed against other beings . . . the
logic of ‘subordinates’ requires that it have some human action or
actions as a subject” (Parent 1990, 208). As books, magazines, and
images are not human beings, antipornography feminism commits a
category mistake: pornographic materials simply are not the sorts of
things that can subordinate. Joel Feinberg (1985) in turn argues that
feminist arguments against pornography made in terms of a “harm
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Introduction
6. For more on these liberal critiques and an introduction to the relevant free speech debates,
see Watson (2010) and West (2013).
7. Not everyone holds that this is necessary. Lorna Finlayson (2014) has more recently argued
that MacKinnon’s claims are coherent and contentful even without an appeal to Austin’s
speech act theory.
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Introduction
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Introduction
1.5. METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS
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Introduction
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Introduction
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Introduction
8. Actually, contra Rea, the Dworkin-MacKinnon definition of pornography was not intended
to be stipulative and revisionary. Rather, they took their definition to be descriptive of ac-
tual pornographic materials. At the time even critics appreciated this point in accepting that
examples of violent and degrading pornography that fit the Dworkin-MacKinnon defini-
tion are “abundant and depressing” (Feinberg 1985, 147). What such critics nevertheless
objected to was the generalization that all pornography is of this kind. So, MacKinnon and
Dworkin are not to be reproached for offering a definition that stipulatively revises the no-
tion of pornography; their mistake was to offer an overly generalized account of pornography.
9. The latter refers to the relatively recent phenomenon of ex-partners (usually, male)
distributing sexually explicit or suggestive images of their ex-partners (usually, female) on
the Internet without the latter’s consent and in an effort to humiliate them.
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Introduction
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Introduction
1.6. STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK
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Introduction
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2
Chapter 2
Subordination
Causal and Constitutive
2.1. INTRODUCTION
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S u b o r d i n at i o n : C a u s a l a n d C o n s t i t u t i v e
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P o r n o g r aphy
2.2. THE SUBORDINATION CLAIM
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2. Langton’s work on pornography and objectification has more recently been published in her
2009 book Sexual Solipsism. By and large, I will refer to the original versions of her papers to
clarify the historical trajectory of various debates and views put forward.
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P o r n o g r aphy
(if successful) will have performed the same action as uttering the
words.3
According to Langton, although some critics of MacKinnon
and Dworkin have appreciated pornography’s locutionary actions
(depicting subordination) and its perlocutionary effects (causing
subordination), they have failed to grasp pornography’s illocutionary
force. This is what the constitutive subordination claim homes in on.
With the help of Austin, we can see that the claim is perfectly sen-
sible, coherent, and not committing a category mistake (as Parent
[1990] claims). Illocutionary force hinges on satisfying certain fe-
licity conditions. First, whether the speaker’s intentions are satisfied;
after all, illocutionary speech acts are not just idle noises but inten-
tionally performed actions. Second, whether the speaker achieves up-
take: the hearer recognizes the particular intended illocution being
performed. Third, whether the speaker is authoritative relative to the
intended illocution’s domain. (Not all successful illocutions require
satisfaction of these conditions, but the ones relevant to pornography
do.) Consider again the earlier example of warning. In order for my il-
locutionary act to succeed, I must intend to warn (rather than merely
exercise my vocal cords for no apparent reason), the audience must
recognize my intention to warn (rather than think I am joking), and
I need to be somehow authoritative to do so (something about me
must not prevent me from being taken seriously). Now entertain the
oft-cited example where I am an actor on stage and see a fire break
out behind the audience. I shout “Danger, fire!” intending to warn,
but the audience takes this to be part of the play. In this case, there
3. Note that speech acts are not equivalent to action by speech: for instance, in uttering
“Danger, fire!” I made my vocal cords vibrate. But clearly this is not sufficient to have
performed the intended illocution of warning. This difference is further demonstrated
by the example of using a sign to perform the same illocutionary action: my vocal cord
vibrations are absent (there is no action by speech), but I can still perform the same in-
tended illocutionary speech act.
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P o r n o g r aphy
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S u b o r d i n at i o n : C a u s a l a n d C o n s t i t u t i v e
4. To clarify: not all pornography that depicts violence is inegalitarian nor does inegali-
tarian pornography necessarily involve violent depictions. For instance, BDSM (bondage-
discipline, dominance-submission, sadism-masochism) pornography may depict violence
but, for reasons discussed later on, it is not eo ipso inegalitarian (though of course on other
grounds it might be). For now, I will use ‘violent pornography’ as shorthand for ‘violent
inegalitarian pornography’. This denotes pornographic depictions that are violent and
sexually explicit in a way that “as a whole eroticize relations (acts, scenarios, or postures)
characterized by gender inequity” (Eaton 2007, 676).
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5. Of course, there are many positive stories from female performers in pornography too.
These will be discussed in c hapter 7. Nevertheless, it is important to bear in mind that pos-
itive stories do not cancel negative ones or render the pornography industry beyond moral
and legal critique. It simply demonstrates that the issue of harm is highly complex and that
the industry is multifaceted.
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6. See also Stark (1997) for a more recent variant of the view that pornography caters to men
who have a predisposition to find its message compelling.
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P o r n o g r aphy
32
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