Introduction
Nowadays, pornography has become easily accessible to many due to the latest development of technologies. However, there exist controversies regarding it; some state that pornography should be allowed for the sake of freedom, others argue that the harm it causes is formidable.
In this paper, we will discuss an article related to the issue and see that its author, Susan Brison, provides a number of strong reasons why pornography is harmful and why there is no specific moral right to it.
The Harmfulness of Pornography
In her article, Brison (2005) discusses the problem of pornography and its harmfulness, as well as the moral issues related to the topic. Importantly, Brison defines pornography as “violent degrading misogynic hate speech (where ‘speech’ includes words, pictures, films, etc.)” (Brison, 2005, p. 238). (This definition is very evaluating, which is, in our opinion, utterly redundant if the strength of her arguments is taken into account.)
An important point that the author makes is that pornography, which often depicts humiliation, battery, rape, etc. of women, promotes a sexist type of culture where these things are acceptable (Brison, 2005, p. 240).
Just as showing a product in an advertisement inclines people to buy it, depicting violence in pornography strongly inclines men (who are the audience of porn movies) to believe that what they see is what sex should look like. Seeing women being degraded sexually leads to a culture where they are perceived as inferior in other spheres of life.
The sexist culture, importantly, is harmful not only to women but also to men. Furthermore, it is also stressed that pre-teens and teenage boys are often exposed to pornography, and they, in fact, obtain their idea of sex from the movies where women are, in most cases, severely abused (Brison, 2005, p. 240). This also significantly adds to the sexist culture, sexual crime, etc.
Another important point that the author makes is related to the consent of the women who star in pornographic movies. It is related to the way in which many females (often adolescent girls) get in the porn industry. A typical scenario is when a girl becomes raped in the street and then gets into hands of a pimp who convinces her (through words, humiliation, and violence) that she is unworthy and her only purpose and opportunity in this life is to be a prostitute. She then ends up forced to be filmed in porn movies.
Another typical scenario is a girl traveling to a different country in order to seek a better fate, but instead getting trapped there with no documents, money, or shelter, and ending up in the porn industry. These girls or women might appear to consent to being humiliated and raped in the movie, but this is often a result of the intimidation coming from the pornographer and of not seeing any ways out of the situation they are trapped in (Brison, 2005, p. 238-240).
As for the women who indeed out of their free will agree to work in pornography depicting the humiliation and violence, Brison (2005) provides an analogy with scabs who agree to work for lower wages and in worse conditions than workers who have gone on strike, which makes it much harder for the laborers to demand a fair payment and appropriate working conditions (p. 240).
The analogy is apt, as the movies depicting any women (consenting or not) being humiliated, raped and beaten still harm virtually all the women in the world (and men, too), by promoting the sexist culture where rape, violence in sex, sexual murders, forced prostitution, etc. are acceptable and even wanted, and the unwilling porn actors, for such culture creates further demand for pornography depicting abuse.
Moral Issues of Pornography
Brison (2005) also discusses problems related to the moral aspects of pornography. According to her, an author named Andrew Altman claims that there is a certain moral right to sexual arousal via pornography, which falls not even under the right to free speech, but under a right to sexual autonomy, one that also covers the rights to use contraceptives and engage in homosexual sex (as cited in Brison, 2005, p. 244).
However, she argues that Altman provides no reasons why sexual arousal is morally different from other types of arousal (such as racial animosity) or bodily pleasures (such as eating the brain of a living monkey or man-eating) which are not morally acceptable (Brison, 2005, p. 245-246).
In fact, it is stressed that anything can lead to sexual arousal, including “photos of dead, naked bodies piled in mass graves in Nazi death camps… or looking at photos of lynched black men” (Brison, 2005, p. 246). Therefore, there exist not any special “moral rights” to pornography.
Interestingly, Altman claims that, even though pornography arguably does make it harder for women to be equals to men in sexual life, the liberal society where pornography is allowed is still better for women than a society with traditional sexual morality (as cited in Brison, 2005, p. 247). Brison (2005), though, advocates for an alternative society with a progressive morality, where the connection between sexuality and violence would be broken (p. 247).
Assessment of the Article
In our opinion, the arguments that Brison (2005) provides are very reasonable and well-placed. What is important here is that the author shows the serious harm that pornography causes. Moreover, the very fact that girls get trapped in the porn industry and have no way out, are raped and beaten on a daily basis, and have their lives turned into ruin and constant painful torture undermines any possible claims of “moral rights” to pornography containing abuse.
Besides, the harm done to the rest of the population who are not directly involved in the industry is also formidable; such pornography promotes the sexual violence, and, even if not directly, the opinion that women are inferior on many levels.
This is, in fact, bad for everyone. The harm to women is obvious: inequity, sexual crime, etc. It might be harder to see the harm to men, but the simplest example of it is when a man’s female relative or friend gets abused, maimed or killed in a sexual crime.
Besides, the fact that pornography usually depicts very beautiful women and muscular men who radiate masculinity distorts the reality of sex and, arguably, makes sex “in real life” worse for all its participants due to the constant comparison of oneself to these actors, possibly promoting the inferiority complex and increasing the levels of disappointment.
We may also add that there might exist pornography that is not harmful. There is, for instance, a conception of feminist porn (Leite, 2012); in such porn, partners (who also do not look like “superstars”) willingly engage in sex free of abuse for mutual pleasure. Such pornography might even promote equity and be beneficial in a number of other ways. However, this issue needs further consideration.
Conclusion
As we were able to see, Brison (2005) provides a number of strong arguments that pornography as it exists today causes much damage, and that there should be no specific moral rights to it. Clearly, it is best to dispose of abusive porn and find other, non-harmful ways that help satisfy the sexual needs of people.
References
Brison, S. J. (2005). “The price we pay”? Pornography and harm. In A. I. Cohen & C. H. Wellman (Eds.), Contemporary debates in applied ethics (pp. 236-250). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Leite, F. C. (2012). Good for Her: Empowerment scenes in feminist pornography. Ciberlegenda, 1(26), 167-178.