ABSTRACT
Pornography is the enduring target of much ethical and political debate. Objections to hardcore pornography tend to follow one or both of two principal rationales: (1) (heterosexual) porn objectifies women, leading to misogynist attitudes; (2) pornography desensitizes the viewer and leads to copycat behaviour (‘standard’ porn leads to rape; sexually violent (BDSM) porn leads to murder). These are, then, respectively, an assertion about the ways in which the form and content of porn structure spectatorial attitudes (a debate that might take place within academic film studies, as well as sociology or political activism); and an assertion about the (causal) relationship between viewing a representation and acting in the world. They are often harnessed together in the service of feminist anti-pornography rhetoric, such as that produced by Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon in the 1980s. In works such as Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1981) and Intercourse (1987), Dworkin offered readings of written and visual
pornography that sought to demonstrate the dehumanizing and objectifying qualities of male-produced heterosexual pornographic representations of women:
the female is the instrument; the male is the center of sensibility and power … The object’s purpose is to be the means by which the lover, the male, experiences himself: his desire. … the object, the woman goes out into the world formed as men have formed her to be used as men wish to use her.1
