ABSTRACT

Pornography, according to feminist theorist Jane Caputi, is a worldview, a way of thinking and acting that sexualizes and genders domination and submission, from the bedroom to the war room, making domination masculine and submission feminine, and making both the essence of sex. Dominance is celebrated in gay pornography in myriad ways. Gay pornography is paradigmatically based on highly gendered concepts of male-over-female power. The invidious system of dominance at work in gay pornography, capturing Gay political imagination and subverting Gay political energy, is not new. In heteroarchal societies, homophobia, the fear of homosexuality, has proved an incredibly effective tool for powerful men to use in the control of less powerful men, encouraging male-on-male group conflict in the name of masculinity. Women used and abused in/by heterosexual pornography have been told that pornography must be protected because it is an idea, art, fantasy. Usually, Gay defenders of pornography also believe that protecting pornography is integral to protecting freedom of speech.