Revisiting the Porn Debate

In his confirmation hearing earlier this month in Washington, attorney-general-to-be Alberto Gonzales told senators he intended to make obscenity prosecutions a focus of his tenure as the nation's chief prosecutor.

On the same day in Las Vegas, the nation's pornographers were gathering for the kickoff of the annual Adult Entertainment Expo, where they show off the material that might well make them the target of Gonzales' efforts.

Although the pornographers were a bit nervous about a conservative administration, they knew they had little to worry about; their $10 billion industry has become ever more mainstream and normalized in the past couple of decades. And when any critique does surface, the pornography industry has made effective free-speech arguments (it's not accidental that pornographers created a lobbying group called the Free Speech Coalition).

Unfortunately for the culture, both sides in this debate are off target.

The conservative forces typically want to control sexuality and are willing to use antiquated and potentially repressive obscenity statues to do it. The pornographers want to derail any criticism of the often blatant misogyny of their product and are willing to wrap themselves in political principles to do that.

But after spending three days at the pornography convention to film interviews for a documentary, it's clearer than ever to me that we have to go beyond that tired framework. Gonzales' potential legal action will only polarize debates and limit the discussion of the crucial questions about pornography and about our culture.

It is typical that liberal-minded people, when facing censorship, would rush to defend pornographers' right to produce whatever they want, even if the products objectify, humiliate and violate women. But shouldn't we ponder what we are defending and what kind of value system supports that defense?

One of the most popular booths at the expo was for the BangBus, which consistently drew large crowds of almost entirely male fans. What's the BangBus concept? One of the producers explained that the videos show men in a large van, picking up what appear to be women on the streets, talking them into having sex, and then degrading them in some way – dropping them off in desolate places, not giving them money promised, or throwing their belongings out the door.

BangBus was hardly the most shocking, cruel or brutal pornography being offered on the exhibition floor in Las Vegas. Much of it can't be described for a general audience. There are few boundaries that haven't been pushed, as pornographers race to the shocking, ridiculous and humiliating, connecting visceral reactions to sexual pleasure. As an Asian woman, I found the racist stereotypes used in certain genres of pornography particularly oppressive.

Pornography encourages people to disregard others' pain for one's own pleasure. Many people I interviewed acknowledged that, based on their own experience and knowledge of the human body, certain sex acts they've watched in films likely would have been painful for the female performers. However, they argued that since the performers were paid, it was not the viewers' concern, and they acknowledged that they get aroused watching it. That mentality helps create a world in which a producer can brag about having originated a popular video series that shows women gagging during forceful oral sex.

Although pornography is often rationalized as a celebration of women's sexuality and liberation, some gonzo pornographers were direct about their anger and contempt (or their imagined customers') for women. When asked why he used certain brutal sex acts in his films, one producer replied that when a man gets angry at his wife, he can imagine she is the one being violated.