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Authors: Linda Lemoncheck

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Page 123
grading to women in virtue of the patriarchal culture in which it is practiced. She states that "if [contemporary Western] prostitution were sufficiently transformed to make it completely nonoppressive to women, though commercial transactions involving sex might still exist, prostitution as we now know it would not."
54
Thus, Shrage notes that in a contemporary Western society imbued with patriarchal values, prostitution differs from marriage in that marriage does not necessarily involve relations of dominance and subordination.
One difficulty with these approaches is that they invest prostitution and pornography with negative normative content that closes the question as to whether sex work under current patriarchal constraints is degrading to women. Sex workers whose lived experience is that of freedom, mobility, and pride in their work are denied any philosophical foundation from which to contest such a view. While Shrage admits to an important cultural and historical incommensurability when it comes to sex work across cultures, she does not apply a similar incommensurability to the multicultural, diversely experienced community of women living in the United States. Indeed, she states that "the meaning of sex work in American society is
determined by
sexist, classist, and racist ideologies" (my italics) in a way that the meaning of sex work in social contexts absent those ideologies may not be. Shrage is certainly correct about much of contemporary American sex work; but to claim that sex work is necessarily oppressive to the women who practice it not only assumes that her interpretive categories for analyzing American prostitution cover every possible case but also denies prostitutes the ability to conceive of their sex work as in any way liberating to them.
55
Moreover, when sex work is
defined
as degrading to women, feminists cannot ask the questions "Is there anything wrong with prostitution?" or "Is pornography degrading?" without being redundant. Such definitions also preclude discussions of gay male pornography and are "conveniently expendable," to use Gayle Rubin's phrase, to fit the most violent or the least sexually suggestive material, making "pornography'' a buzz-word for any sexual depictions that feminists find objectionable.
56
Many feminists have defended their definitions of sex work on the grounds that they are only referring to
one type
of sex work. The sex work performed to produce "erotica," for example, would not be degrading to women because, in Gloria Steinem's words, such work is produced to depict "a mutually pleasurable, sexual expression between people who have enough power to be there by positive choice."
57
Individual models and actresses can be degraded in their sex work by producers heaping abuse on actresses' performances of "erotica" as well as "pornography," so Steinem is referring here to the degradation of women as a class through degrading depictions of sex. However, much of the sexually explicit material to which many feminists object simply depicts women happily serving men's sexual needs, most of which appear totally self-serving but none of which are expressly coercive, violent, or abusive. Such scenes are thought to be objectionable in that they depict women as mere sex objects of male lust, not as the sexual subjects of a self-determined life. For example, Diana Russell and Laura Lederer contend that even nonviolent pornography can encourage rape by depicting women "not . . . as human beings but as things."
58
Nevertheless, such pornography can just as readily evoke the "sensuous and voluptuous" sexual interest that would satisfy Eva Kittay's condition on erotica
 
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as the "lewd or prurient" interests she identifies with porn. Moreover, this latter description of pornography does not meet Steinem's condition that pornography be material whose message is "violence, dominance, and conquest."
59
Indeed, if sexual subservience is part of a woman's self-determined plan of seduction, she might wonder where to locate the objection of degradation.
Suppose, as some philosophers have suggested, that we add to mutual consent and mutual pleasure an
equality
of partnership that requires that the materials depict people satisfying each other.
60
Then, however, the requirement is too strong for still photographs, which necessarily describe only one instant or aspect in the life of their subjects (Do respectful lovers always and simultaneously respond to the needs of each other? How would a still photograph show this?); and the requirement is too weak to preclude s/m porn, which antiporn feminists reject but which, according to sex radical feminists, can depict consent, mutuality,
and
moral equality, just not equality of sexual roles. Kittay argues that since many viewers of s/m porn cannot see the moral equality that the practitioners promise, the sex depicted is illegitimate.
61
However, as I suggested earlier, moral equality is difficult to show even in more vanilla contexts; and Kittay's view confines s/m sex work to an interpretation solely in terms of a patriarchal ideology that eroticizes power in oppressive, not parodying or liberating, terms. Dominatrixes who do s/m work primarily because it pays well report that they are not aroused by it, much less oppressed by it, while others say that they can happily combine business with pleasure.
62
Alan Soble suggests that a speciflable set of internal and external cues can help us distinguish depictions of lovemaking from those of pure sex, or consensual from coercive s/m sex. However, one difficulty with Soble's suggestion is that if the same cues are not shared by all viewers, or if we cannot be sure that the intended cues are received, then we are as much at a loss for one single, appropriate interpretation as before. I agree that if feminists do not want to condemn all sex work, we need ways to distinguish the degrading from the nondegrading sort; but sexual and social bias, institutional setting, and personal taste and moral judgment will all have an effect on what is to count, for individual men and women, as legitimate sex and legitimate sex work. In short, the context in which the sex work occurs is just as important as, if not more important than, the content of the work itself.
63
Helen Longino recognizes the importance of context when she points out that sexually explicit depictions of women being degraded can be used as educational tools to help us understand the harm that pornography does (Longino's "moral realism"). Therefore, Longino adds, for sexually explicit material to degrade women, there must be "no suggestion that this sort of [degrading] treatment of others is inappropriate." Longino proposes that women are degraded in pornography when they are depicted as women whose sole purpose
ought
to be their sexual subordination to men, and women whose sole pleasure
ought to
consist in serving men's every sexual whim no matter how destructive or abusive. That is, the degradation must not just be depicted in pornography for it to be objectionable; it must also be
endorsed
.
64
The strength of Longino's argument rests on pornography's ability to both depict and endorse degradation. Exactly what does it mean to depict degradation and endorse it? Judith M. Hill makes the important point that being degraded requires more than being subordinated, exploited, or abused: degradation implies that the victim
 
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deserves
the treatment receivedthat she is perceived, by either her tormentors, herself, or the public at large, as
unworthy
of anything better.
65
This analysis is consistent with Longino's claim that the subordination of women in pornography is degrading, because it is endorsed as well as depicted. Given this analysis of degradation, however, it is unclear how a photographer might unambiguously depict such an endorsement on the part of either the subordinators or the subordinated, or instill such a perception in the viewer. A woman photographed as appearing pleased to be sexually accessible to any man who wants her does not alone constitute her own or anyone else's perception that she is subordinating her sexuality to dominating men or that she is worthy only of degradation. Indeed, such a photograph is consistent with a woman's initiating such encounters after an honest and self-reflective assessment of what sexually excites her most. Moreover, this image is also consistent with the subject's belief that if she does not appear to enjoy herself and mollify those who would gratify themselves at her expense, only worse (and equally undeserved) treatment will follow. Those whom she services may simply have targeted her as an easy mark, to vent their frustration at work or to fulfill a gang initiation requirement; but this is not equivalent to their contemptuous abuse of her because she (or any woman) deserves it. Thus, the degradation must be inferred by the viewer, not from any pleasure taken in her accessibility, subordination, or abuse but from the depiction of a woman whose sole purpose is to serve men sexually. Since it is not inherently degrading to depict a woman acting with a single purpose (imagine Mother Teresa serving the poor), the degradation must be inferred from the depiction of a woman whose sole purpose is (heterosexual service. Consequently, some feminists have argued that depicting unconditional female sexual service is degrading to women, even if depicted as initiated by women, because
such depictions are situated in a patriarchal culture that endorses the sexual subordination of women
, reinforcing the sexual abuse and exploitation of, and violence against, women in that culture.
However, such arguments must be advanced without assuming that sex work subordinates women and without requiring that all women who work in the porn industry contribute to the degradation of women; otherwise, we beg the question of the moral status of sex work in
any
context. Moreover, such arguments need not claim that all heterosexual sex is degrading to women, since feminists can specify more liberating contexts within patriarchy in which nondegrading sex occurs. While some antiporn feminists appear to adopt the view that heterosexual sex and violence are synonyms in a misogynist society, not all feminists critical of the sex industry agree. One result of such a condemnation of heterosexual sex has been the alienation from feminism of sex workers and of women outside the industry who regard such an attitude as repressively antimale and antipleasure.
Nevertheless, even if the sexual subordination of women is depicted in a patriarchal society that endorses it, it is still unclear whether or how pornography and, by implication, pornographic modeling or acting recommends or endorses women's degradation. In the same theater in a single cultural setting, some people may see a recommendation of women's subordination and a "come hither" look in a pornography model's smile, especially if she is only doing what a viewer expects; others may see only sex that outrages, disgusts, or disturbs them. Still others may simply enjoy an unanticipated arousal, oblivious to any social messages about women that the de-
 
Page 126
pictions might send. Depicting me happily indulging in large quantities of raw liver without any suggestion that this is inappropriate does not itself count as an endorsement of the indulgence. The saturating repetition of this message in a culture already predisposed to encourage the eating of raw meat probably
would
count as an endorsement, even propaganda, but then any objection to the depiction would be an objection to the cultural ideology and its gastronomic attitudes, not the depiction itself. Using this analogy, attacking pornography is only attacking the symptomin fact, one among many symptoms that include romance novels, soap operas, fashion advertising, and music videosand not the disease.
66
One reason that some feminists have made efforts to show a causal connection between pornography and violence against women is to argue that eliminating pornography is itself an attack on the "disease" of a misogynistic and androcentric culture.
What this discussion suggests is that even if we were to argue that pornography were successful at
being
an endorsement of degradation, the further question remains as to whether the endorsement is
successful at persuading
its audience to act on its endorsement. As Alan Soble has pointed out, celebrities endorse all sorts of products that we are not automatically persuaded to buy. Not all men (or women) react and feel the same way about pornography or about sex work generally, nor will such reactions necessarily remain consistent over time. In the same society, some men enjoy pornography and strip bars but eschew prostitutes; others never pay for commercial sexual excitement.
67
F. M. Christensen has argued that women exert enough power in sex by their approval and disapproval of men that pornography simply does not maintain the unilateral control over women that feminists think. He contends that sex is so shame-laden in Western culture that feminists find humiliation and degradation in porn where there is only sex. What is degrading to Christensen is telling men that their sexual desires are always exploitative and degrading, or that men are so depraved as to be driven to violence by pornography.
68
Alan Soble suggests that it is men's powerlessness in the wake of feminist advances at home and at work that is expressed in pornography, not men's power. Laura Kipnis echoes this view when she calls pornography a failed attempt at power over women, expressive of "compensatory mechanisms and empty signifiers" that reveal the impotence of men's sexual fantasies.
69
My sense is that such claims tend to underestimate the extent to which a patriarchal culture reinforces the sexual subordination of women by using many sources, of which pornography is one. The fact that not all readers of violent porn are motivated to rape does not mean that hard-core pornography has no effect on a male readership bombarded with images of the sexual accessibility of women, nor does it mean that pornography cannot encourage many men to express dominance and control through sex. Companies pay celebrities enormous amounts of money for their endorsements, so at least some people think endorsements do make a difference. Indeed, without
my
acting on an endorsement of a product, I may still persuade
others
to buy it. Similarly, the simple fact that many men are not made violent by pornography is no reason to think that pornography does not succeed in endorsing violence against women in people's minds. This endorsement can then be communicated to others in ways that are successful at persuading them to act on the endorsement or to adopt attitudes degrading to women.

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