ABSTRACT
From the mid-seventies to the early eighties, Andrea Dworkin gradually redefines pornography from an artifact of speech to a practice of sexual exploitation. In Pornography: Men Possessing Women, Dworkin writes that "the favorite conceit of male culture is that experience can be fractured." Every reference Dworkin makes to the pornographic image of women necessarily includes companion references to the societal context in which it exists. In "Pornography: The New Terrorism", Dworkin's first speech dealing exclusively with pornography, she discusses the political function of propaganda within a system of oppression. Only as people turn to Dworkin's analysis of the use of women in the production of pornography is it clear why she defines pornography as an institutional practice of Subordination instead of just an influential cultural artifact. Dworkin links together the artifacts and effects of pornography in an unusual and innovative way.
