An argumentative essay after reading Pornography is a Civil Rights Issue for Women & Feminism is for Everybody
Summary: Feminists should have the freedom to consume or produce pornography. It is in the biological nature of females to have sexual desires and impulses to consume porn. Yet, this fact has been covered and unknown for the longest time. This is a form of sexism that needs to address in the pornographic industry while progressively solving the genres of porn extremely oppressive to females. Problems that exist within producing porn are the effect of societal structural problems since most females within the porn industry are forced into it by the rooted patriarchy of the society that created systematic sexism and oppression of females. Simply addressing porn’s regulation isn’t enough, radical changes within the structure are necessary. Objectification of women and commercialization of porn are facts that exist within the porn industry, but neither of these is a sufficient reason for not letting feminists consume or produce porn, nor does this action help solve the existing problems.
Essay:
Andrea Dworkin discusses how pornography is viewed by people as a form of freedom in her article Pornography is a Civil Rights Issue for Women. She said: “Certainly, it is freedom for those who do it. Certainly, it is freedom for those who use it as entertainment, but we are also asked to believe that it is freedom for those to whom it is done.” This statement breaks down pornography into people who consume pornography and feminists who produce pornography. I believe these two have vast differences and should be discussed separately.
Consuming and producing are very different actions, especially within the pornographic industry. Andrea Dworkin mentioned in her book that many females are forced to produce pornography, even though not necessarily by individuals, but in ways are by the systematic problems of society. While the action of producing pornography is an action that isn’t simply individual rights, the consumption of porn is much simpler and straightforward. Consuming porn is an action out of our human nature: desire. There would be a significantly greater population of females who claim to be feminists and consumes pornography than those who claim to be feminists and produce pornography.
Consumption of things, as a concept in general, bonds tightly with personal choice and individual freedom. Should we interfere with a female’s personal choice just because of her feminist identity? My answer is no. The ultimate goal of feminism is to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression, while I admit these problems exist and severely affect the women within the pornography industries, I cast doubt on how feminists not consuming porn would reach this goal when this underregulated sexist industry still thrives and exist. While Andrea Dworkin argues that women in porn are precepted as passive erotic objects, many critiques question whether porn is victimizing to women. In history, pornography has been understood as a genre created by men and for men (Hardy, 2009), which women wouldn’t enjoy consuming. But, according to more recent research, women can and do achieve sexual pleasure by consuming pornography (Hambleton, 2016; Liberman, 2015; Taormino et al., 2013). The forever-long patriarchal and traditional presumptions and requisite of women being the appendage of her one and only male fails to acknowledge women’s needs and desires. This is a form of sexism that has been undermined by most people. Though I admit that certain genres of existing porn do have very oppressive elements that remain to be unregulated, uncomfortable, and wrong which unarguably needs strict regulations and activists to fight against, these are not the reason to ban feminists from consuming porn. Currently, the solution for feminists, who have contradictory feelings about the genre for being feminist and yet deriving pleasure, is through watching purely feminist pornography to satisfy their needs (Ciclitira, 2004: 293). While they could continue to enjoy the pleasures of consuming porn, they could also progressively work on eliminating sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression of females within the industry.
I agree with Andrea Dworkin that most women are forced into the pornography industry regardless of what they believe. What they believe as a personal choice might come from the structural oppression of females, leaving pornography as their only choice. This comes from the macroscopic environment of the workforce, the rooted patriarchy of the global society. Males are still dominants of most jobs. Countless industries and jobs have intensive wage gaps between gender. Female CEOs rarely happen. These structural problems lead females, in desperate need of money to pay rent and debts, to enter the pornography industry. For example, if a girl who claims to be a feminist, but like Bell Knox, whose family couldn’t afford ivy league university even after the offered financial aid and scholarship, wants to get money, the quickest and most accessible way is through pornography. Because of gender biases and oppression within the plumber industry, where only 5.3% of people in that industry in the U.S., are female(, she is unable to do this part-time job as a plumber even though it has a high salary. She therefore might be forced to be tortured, physically oppressed, and degraded. This is a societal norm that is wrong in its existence. There is no freedom of choice. Females, whether they are feminists or not, should never be forced into producing porn. I agree with Bell Hooks that this problem should be addressed through radical changes of the societal structure. For feminists who enjoy producing porn as a job, I respect and believe in their existence. The best solution for them is to advocate and produce feminist pornography, but never the degrading type of porn. Though some feminists (like Bell Knox) might enjoy doing it, its degradation of females that is highly oppressive and brings severely negative influences. Like feminists who consume pornography, feminists who produce porn should progressively work on eliminating sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression of females within the pornographic industry.
As I have stated, I do not think all porn objectifies women; moreover, according to scientific research, women also have the desire to consume and produce porn. As pornography’s commodification already happened, it is less important to argue whether commodifying desire is right or wrong. Take a simple example, water is a necessity for all human beings. Humans are unable to survive without water. However, people living in the 21st century have to pay money to get water. Waters have prices ranging vastly different from brand to brand. People may argue that it isn’t right to commercialize water, but since this industry has already developed, it is almost impossible to kill this industry to a stage where no one has the right to commercialize it. Even if there are a group of people who are refusing to pay or even drink the commercialized water, this wouldn’t change what the majority of people do. This analogy can be very simply put in the pornographic industry. Simply disallowing feminists to consume pornography is not going to make any changes to the existing problematic industry. Every other people who aren’t a feminist wouldn’t be able to see the reasons behind doing this action. Females and males would only see the fact that feminists are against pornography. A seemingly against human nature action. They might think that maybe feminists just don’t enjoy this type of sexual pleasure. This is a ridiculous misunderstanding that I would never want feminists to be misconceived as. This is also the central reason why I disagree with this statement.
Bibliography:
Hardy S (2009) The new pornographies: Representation or reality. In: Attwood F (ed.) Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture. London: IB Tauris & Co., 3–18.
Daskalopoulou, Athanasia. Women’s Consumption of Pornography: Pleasure, Contestation, And ..., journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0038038520918847. Accessed 13 Aug. 2023.
Hambleton A (2016) When women watch: The subversive potential of female-friendly Pornography in Japan. Porn Studies 3(4): 427–442.
Ciclitira K (2004) Pornography, women and feminism: Between pleasure and politics. Sexualities 7(3): 281–301.
Taormino T, Parreñas Shimizu C, Penley C, et al. (2013) The Feminist Porn Book. New York: The Feminist Press.
Team, Z. (2021, March 8). What percentage of Plumbers are female?. Zippia. https://www.zippia.com/answers/what-percentage-of-plumbers-are-female/
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