Is Pornography Just Life Itself?

As a lifelong student and teacher of film and media studies, I have extensively examined the social and psychological impacts of pornography. As a feminist liberal and defender of free expression, I have wrestled with the pros and cons of censorship, and generally favour free expression despite my personal distaste for porn. I have heard endless debates on the subject, the contours of which are by now utterly predictable. I have engaged with the porn lobby’s arguments in their most robust form, not substituting straw men. I have listened and I have questioned my own prejudices and presuppositions. At the risk of putting myself to sleep, I want to begin by laying out the tiresome roadmap on this topic so that maybe, just maybe, I might launch the discourse in a new direction, if for no other reason than to disrupt the catatonic stagnation into which it has fallen.

Here is the current state of play:

Feminists point out the multitude of ways in which the dominant conventions of porn entail the objectification and degradation of women. They point out the exploitative and violent tropes and tactics that infuse its production and/or the psychological harm that consuming it inflicts, individually and/or collectively (on the culture at large).

In response, porn’s defenders point out that pornography is infinitely more varied than critics imagine and imply that opponents are naïve and ignorant of the nuances of the genre. They suggest that the kind of porn that would be acceptable to feminists exists, but that it simply does not cater to all (or most) tastes and kinks, hence it would be undemocratic as well as unrealistic to narrow human sexual arousal to the vanilla flavour that porn’s “Victorian” critics prefer. The fact that all variety of lurid content appeals to porn’s myriad consumers is evidence of innate psycho-sexual drivers in the human subconscious. Efforts by academics and feminists to sanitize this are futile and misguided. Alongside these home truths is the undeniable fact that rape fantasies are shared by both sexes, and females report being aroused by the idea of being the victim of rape and other forms of “violence”. (I can already hear the retort, ”Lots of men have abuse fantasies too!”)

The complaint that porn has a negative impact on others, including those involved in its production, or that it inflicts damage on the wider culture, are dismissed on two grounds. ...