Abstract
The present essay takes as its point of departure the resurgence of the anti-porn argument claiming that pornography is harmful. It focuses especially on philosopher Rae Langton’s attempt to use speech act theory to defend the anti-porn position of Catherine MacKinnon. Langton’s argument is critiqued for assuming that we can ascertain the function of pornography without considering the situations of its use. It hence runs counter to the particularizing intent of speech act theory as such, which emphasizes the need to study speech in context. Rather than dismiss the anti-porn position Langton defends as faulty, the essay suggests that it remains an incontrovertible facet of the pornographic situation, and as such should be dialectically engaged. In the second half of the essay, therefore, the reasoning that informs the antiporn position is shown to be incompatible with the recurrent claim that porn is the expression of a male desire to dominate women. Rather, a closer look at Langton’s defense of the anti-porn argument helps us see that pornography is the expression of cognitive possibilities unique to the historical conditions that have brought it forth, and as such is every bit as self-conflicting as is capitalism itself.
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Notes
Subsequently, this source will be cited in the text without name and date.
For background and details on the ordinance, see MacKinnon and Dworkin (1997).
John L. Austin (1911–1960) was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University. In 1955, he delivered the James Lectures at Harvard, which subsequently formed the basis for his most important work, How to do things with words (1962). In it, Austin advocates the examination of the way words are ordinarily used in order to elucidate meaning and by this means to avoid philosophical confusions.
Langton was to my knowledge the first person to take a speech act perspective on pornography, but several critics have followed suit; see Hornsby (1995). McGowan, likewise, follows Langton not only in arguing that pornography is a speech act, but in taking MacKinnon’s definition of pornography as given, yet claiming that she is “not interested in arguing for the truth of MacKinnon’s constructionist claims,” but aims “only to show both that and how her claims could be true” (McGowan 2005, 23). She goes on to distinguish between “Macpornography” and pornography on the grounds that MacKinnon’s definition of pornography as “the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women, whether in pictures or in words” departs from the standard understanding of the term. This is spurious, however, since MacKinnon has repeatedly made clear that in her view all pornography subordinates women. West does not rely on speech act theory, but echoes Langton in claiming that she “will not be defending the claim that consumption of pornography does in fact silence women in the requisite way, and so in fact violates women’s right to free speech. For that is an issue that cannot be decided a priori from the philosopher’s armchair” (West 2003, 3). Wieland (2007), in contrast, expands Langton’s argument by providing an account of how pornography may be said to have authority, but rejects her argument on the grounds that it leads to intolerable results. Saul (2006) critiques Langton along lines similar to those suggested in this article, namely that it does not make sense to view pornography as speech acts without considering the context of its use; Bianchi (2008) in turn critiques Saul’s critique; Mikkola (2008), finally, makes short thrift of Bianchi. See also note 8 below.
Langton’s exchange with Jacobson (1995) makes evident that she is aware of Strawson’s view but dismisses it because Jacobson claims his argument in no way depends upon Strawson’s account (see Langton 2009, 82). But even if Jacobson is wrong to suggest that he can counter Langton’s reasoning independently of Strawson, surely Langton ought to register that Strawson’s explication of Austin—it is notably not an interpretation—renders her argument null and void independently of Jacobson’s argument.
For a discussion of pornography and the First Amendment conception of free speech, see Koppelman (2008).
These objections are not new, indeed, Sexual solipsism is to a considerable extent composed of essays that respond to critiques of her original discussion of the issue. Ronald Dworkin dismissed MacKinnon’s argument that pornography silences women on the grounds that it “is premised on an unacceptable proposition: that the right to free speech includes a right to circumstances that encourage one to speak, and a right that others grasp and respect what one means to say” (Dworkin 1993, 38). Dworkin's article is a review of MacKinnon's Only Words. He also maintains that the argument that pornography is harmful is unconvincing, and that therefore the claim that pornography subordinates women if true can only be true in a weak sense, and thus is offset by the counterargument “that everyone has an equal right to contribute to what I called the ‘moral environment’—even people whose tastes reflect no ‘ideas’ but only very offensive ‘prejudices, life styles, and cultures’” (MacKinnon and Dworkin 1994, 48). Jacobson (1995) grants that Langton’s “explication of the silencing argument succeeds in making MacKinnon's claim both literal and coherent,” but objects that it does so only “at the cost of defensibility” (67). According to Jacobson, Langton confuses illocutionary disablement with perlocutionary frustration, or to put it in less technical terms, she fails to distinguish between the inability to perform the act of refusing, and the fact of not being listened to. Leslie Green grants that it is not inconceivable that pornography could silence and subordinate women, but contests Langton’s claim that pornographers have the sort of authority necessary to do so, and suggests “that illocutionary disablement does not in itself amount to an objectionable kind of silencing” (Green 1998, 303). More broadly, he objects to Langton on the grounds that pornography is not a monolithic entity, and as discourse is simply not conventional enough to be the object of speech act theory (Green 1998, 304–305). Judith Butler, finally, who has done a great deal herself to highlight the performative dimension of language, rejects MacKinnon’s notion that pornography subordinates women on the grounds that MacKinnon wrongfully transposes the predominantly visual register of pornography into a linguistic register, even into “an efficacious performative” (Butler 1997, 67) that is, into a speech act which is somehow always felicitous, regardless of situation. In effect, then, MacKinnon’s argument presupposes that pornography has the authority of a divine subject, who always gets its will. Furthermore, in arguing that pornography violates women’s rights in recontextualizing their intended meanings, MacKinnon and Langton alike fail to register that such recontextualizations of utterances can also be—and has historically been—a source of empowerment (Butler 1997, 92–95).
Langton is citing American Booksellers Inc. v. Hudnut, 771 F2d 329 (7th Cir. 1985).
The footnote reads in full (with emphasis added by Dworkin): “MacKinnon’s article collects empirical work that supports this proposition. The social science studies are very difficult to interpret, however, and they conflict. Because much of the effect of speech comes through a process of socialization, it is difficult to measure incremental benefits and injuries caused by particular speech. Several psychologists have found, for example, that those who see violent, sexually explicit films tend to have more violent thoughts. But how often does this lead to actual violence? National commissions on obscenity here, in the United Kingdom, and in Canada have found that it is not possible to demonstrate a direct link between obscenity and rape or exhibitionism. The several opinions in Miller v. California discuss the US commission. See also Report of the Committee on Obscenity and Film Censorship 61–95 (Home Office, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1979); Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution, 1 Pornography and Prostitution in Canada 71–73, 95–103 (Canadian Government Publishing Centre 1985). In saying that we accept the finding that pornography as the ordinance defines it leads to unhappy consequences, we mean only that there is evidence to this effect, that this evidence is consistent with much human experience, and that as judges we must accept the legislative resolution of such disputed empirical questions. See Gregg v. Georgia, 428 US 153, 184–87, 49 L. Ed. 2d 859, 96 S. Ct. 2909 (1976) (opinion of Stewart, Powell, and Stevens, J.J.).”
In a footnote she also advances Andrea Dworkin’s description of a photograph and caption in Hustler (Langton 2009, 138 n64).
When the claim is repeated at later points in the argument, Langton says that she “received in her junk mail a catalogue of pornographic material in which Ordeal was marketed as pornography” (188); “It was marketed that way in junk mail I once received” (263).
Contrary to the majority of gay and lesbian critics, Kendall argues that there are no grounds for distinguishing between gay male porn and heterosexual porn in this context. Langton, for her part, simply ignores the challenge that same-sex pornography poses to the argument that pornography is essentially misogynist, despite the fact that critics like Waugh (1995), Burger (1995), Dyer (1998), Champagne (1997), Cante and Restivo (2004) and many others adamantly and eloquently argue otherwise.
She fails to report that this article is a response to and critique of Fisher and Grenier (1994), who argue that porn effect studies commonly do not show what they claim to show.
On a more generous reading, Langton when speaking about pornography could be taken to talk not about pornography in general, but merely a particular subset of pornography, namely that which causes harm. Thus Roadevin (2010) argues that “Langton uses a revisionary definition of pornography which is different from the one we usually use.” In Roadevin’s view this entails that it is therefore “no criticism of Langton to say that pornography usually is not like this or that we do not use the term in this way” (76). Notwithstanding the fact that this leaves the issue of how “harm” is to be defined unaddressed and fails to consider whether one can plausibly assume that such harm may not come with compensatory effects (drilling for oil causes harm to nature, but it comes with compensatory effects of a wide array), one need but substitute for “pornography” some other general category to realize how problematic this line of reasoning is. If (some) Russians are rapists, is there cause to enforce laws against (all) Russians?
Paul notably does not account for her methodology, but claims that she bases her contention on the evidence of a study conducted by Bryant and Zillman (1982) some three decades ago, which was thoroughly criticized already on its original publication. She refers to the study as “a landmark experiment conducted 25 years ago—still one of the most thorough, balanced, and powerful studies on pornography” and claims it shows “just how watching pornography alters viewers’ perceptions of sexuality” (Paul 2005, 77). She fails to mention that the study has been severely critiqued, that other researchers have failed to repeat its results (Donnerstein et al. 1987), and that non-laboratory studies have come to the opposite conclusion. Davies (1997) found no correlations between the number of pornographic videos a man had rented and his attitudes toward feminism and rape, and argues that her findings suggest that calloused attitudes toward women may not be generated by sexually explicit videos but are more deeply ingrained in our society. For a critique of Bryant and Zillmann’s experimental work, see Brannigan (1987); and Christensen (1986); for their replies, see Bryant and Zillmann (1986, 1987). On a more general level, the difficulties with using experimental methods to establish a link between pornography use and violence towards women are discussed by Childress (1991), who lists (1) the unreal nature of lab violence, (2) lack of real punishment or social control, (3) respondents' inhibitions while being observed or interviewed, (4) the use of willing college students as the norm, (5). an experimenter demand effect, (6) publication of studies, mainly if they have positive results, (7) lack of precise definitions of violence and aggression, and (8) the ethical inability to produce real violence as factors compromising the results of such works.
For testimony to a similar effect, see for instance Kimmel (1989).
For an important and nuanced counter-statement to the notion that women have little taste in pornography, see Smith (2007). It is true that Playgirl’s readership includes gay men, yet according to editor Nicole Caldwell, Playgirl’s own statistics suggest its “readers are 60 % female, 40 % male” (e-mail to the author, 2008-05-06).
For a more elaborate argument to the same effect, see Bersani (2010).
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Ullén, M. The Solipsism of Pornography: Speech Act Theory and the Anti-Porn Position. Sexuality & Culture 17, 321–347 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-012-9154-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-012-9154-1