pornography
Tisdale agrees with MacKinnon
"always the Man who is the standard-bearer of what is obscene and forbidden" (Talk Dirty to Me 153)
Harm?
-"in pornography the violence IS the sex" -male domination -free speech of men silences free speech of women -obscenity laws -dehumanization of women
What would happen to porn if women controlled it?
-Broaden the voice of women -Broaden the scope of the genre -Broaden the power-base of women
Pornography in Canada Law
-Criminal Code Section 163.1 (obcsenity law) -Distinction - pornography btwn consenting adults is legal, child pornography illegal -difficult to define pornography -difficult to demonstrate "harm" (nudity/objectification --> unexplicit/degrading) -internet and ease of access ("affordable, accessible, anonymous") -key concerns with HARM: consent, aggression, violence; "undue exploitation" (163.8)
MacKinnon 162
-It seems essential to the kick of pornography that it be to some degree against the rules -but it is never truly unavailable or truly illegitimate -Obscenity law helps keeps pornography sexy by putting state power - force, hierarchy - behind its purported prohibition on what men can have sexual access to
Jacobellis vs. Ohio, 378 US 184 (1964)
-Les Amants movie -I KNOW IT WHEN I SEE IT
Gender issue
-built on male perspective -not considered a women's issue -power relations
Criminal Code 163 notes
-connection w/ sex -standard is flexible (sensitive to shifts in public acceptance) -liberal (emphasis on choice)
Difficulties
-difficult to define pornography -difficult to demonstrate "harm" (nudity/objectification --> unexplicit/degrading)
Tisdale disagrees with MacKinnon
-disagrees that pornography is necessarily violent -can be used to "open men's minds, give them ideas, teach an expanded sense of normality" (154)
Sallie Tisdale: Arousal
-if more women were involved in porn, it would change the way women are portrayed to men in porn -agrees w/ MacKinnon - it's always the man who sets the standard for what is obscene + forbidden -but disagrees that porn is necessarily violent - it can be used to "open men's minds, give them ideas, teach an expanded sense of normality" (154) -"Porn needs to change, improve, and it's women who will do that improving, and not by ignoring it"
Religion + Pornography
-illicit desire -objectification -idolatry -violence
Institutionalized Misogyny
-pornography is a gender issue -"men treat women as who they see women as being"
Defining Pornography
1. material that is sexually explicit 2. designed primarily to produce sexual arousal in viewers (consumers) 3. in a way that is inherently transgressive
Sallie Tisdale
Arousal
porneia
Christianity New Testament sexual immorality
Zina
Islam unlawful sexual intercourse (ex. btwn individuals who are not married to each other)
Pornography & Obscenity Law
Jacobellis vs. Ohio, 378 US 184 (1964)
PORNOGRAPHY
Sexually explicit material designed primarily to produce sexual arousal in consumers in a way that is inherently transgressive
Brian McNair
Striptease Culture
point of porn =
arousal
Criminal Code 163
for the purposes of this act, any publication a dominant characteristic of which is the UNDUE EXPLOITATION OF SEX, or of SEX AND ANY ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING subjects (crime, horror, cruelty, and violence) shall be deemed to be obscene (8)
pornosphere
obscene texts proliferate and become more accessible
Striptease Culture
public commodification of personal intimacies
the 'good' of porn
sex "separated magically from reproduction, marriage, and the heterosexual couple"
Pornographication
the iconography of pornography becomes commonplace