ABSTRACT
Suppressing pornography will harm women struggling to develop their own sexualities: History teaches us that any crackdown on sexually explicit material always falls the hardest on experimental presses, alternative artists, small theaters, and the like. Accusations that pornography harms women amount to a powerful form of backlash against new sexual forms. The consequence is a blanket of inhibition. The antiporn feminists argue that pornography is to be interpreted in a literal way—if it's a picture of a woman being fucked while lying across three tall stools in a coffee shop, it's a picture of an embarrassed, uncomfortable, and unhappy woman. Opponents of pornography often argue that women in pornography are seriously harmed while doing the work and that eliminating pornography would help these women escape from abominable conditions. Finally, and perhaps most important, suppressing explicit sexual materials will harm women by strengthening the power of the conservative religious lobbies.
