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The Pornography of Violence

I’m glad to see that conversation is continuing within the comments for my post on pornography and global warming. I’m going to jump back into that conversation soon, although I am starting to worry that the thread has gotten so long that it may be daunting for newcomers to read it all the way through. So, I’m also going to start breaking out some of the questions that have arisen into separate posts.

An opportunity to do so arose today, when I became aware of the dispute between the Humane Society of the United States and Amazon.com concerning Amazon’s sale of dogfighting videotapes and cockfighting magazines. This case goes right to one of the questions raised by Diana Russell in Making Violence Sexy.

If it’s not okay to force dogs or birds to fight to the death, why is it okay to force dogs or birds to fight to the death in order to take pictures of it? And, if it’s not okay to force dogs or birds to fight to the death in order to take pictures of it, why is is okay to sell those pictures? Does taking pictures of an illegal or immoral act in order to sell those pictures for profit somehow negate the illegality of immorality of the filmed act? How?

This is the same question raised by many feminists about pornography. We know — yes, know — that many of the real sexual acts depicted are in fact rapes, whether or not they are portrayed as such within the fictional story depicted in the pornography. If it’s not okay to rape women, why is it okay to rape women in order to take pictures of it? And, if it’s not okay to rape women in order to take pictures of it, why is it okay to sell — or buy — those pictures? Does taking pictures of a rape magically convert the rape into an act covered by the right to free expression?

I said that we know that many, if not most, of the sex acts depicted in pornography are, in fact, rapes. How do we know this? As I reported in my original post, because the preponderance of women and men who have come forward from the pornography industry to testify about its abuses have said so. Since much of that testimony was collected, the problem of sex trafficking [google the phrase for more information] has become much worse due to the ease of border crossings associated with trade globalization. In the USA alone, tens of thousands of women are enslaved in brothels or forced to dance in clubs, under armed guard 24 hours a day and with legitimate fear of murder should they try to run away. Many of these women, including Eastern European women who will not look “foreign” to American porn consumers, end up in pornographic magazines and videotapes. When you buy porn, chances are you’re buying rape.

Let me deal directly with the problem of disbelief. I’m a pretty credible person. I’m smart and sufficiently educated in research methodology to read, assess, and synthesize research findings. When I say, in my book, that research shows that trauma has this or that effect on the hypothalamus or corpus callosum, nobody doubts me. But, when I say that the accumulated evidence shows that many of the sex acts portrayed in pornography are rapes, skepticism arises. Why?

When we don’t believe the sex workers who have come forward to tell the truth about the things that have been done to them (or we don’t believe the feminists who believe those women), aren’t we doing the same thing as the mother who doesn’t believe the daughter about what daddy did to her last night?

Just like that mother, maybe we don’t want to believe what the truth about pornography tells us about the men in our everyday lives. Maybe we don’t think we can bear to see the substrate of sexualized violence that infuses our culture. Maybe we fear that, if we let ourselves know — really know — about that violence, our everyday lives will become as nightmarish as that of the narrator in Ntozake Shange’s extraordinary poem, “with no immediate cause”.

And isn’t that the same fear that keeps many otherwise animal-friendly people from letting themselves believe the things that animal activists tell them about circuses and meat? That everything will turn upside-down? That the secondary pain of seeing the animals’ pain at every lunch counter and grocery store will be too much to bear?

I don’t believe what you say about what happens to those cows on dairy farms. I don’t believe what you say about those women in pornographic films. The reasons behind the disbelief are the same: (1) I don’t want to think about the implications of that pain; (2) I don’t want to feel my own empathy with that pain; and (3) I don’t want to give up whichever of my pleasures depend on that pain.

One more note about disbelief to bring us back to the dogfighting/cockfighting controversy that motivated this post: The only other topic about which I am consistently disbelieved is the rehabilitation of fighting roosters at our sanctuary. I regularly get email messages from men calling me a liar or a silly, deluded female for reporting accurately on what I have learned about roosters from my direct work with them and my reading of the scholarly literature on cockfighting.

Just like the men who watch and believe rape pornography in which women resist but then come to enjoy sexual violation — and, yes, we know to the level of certainty possible with ethical social science research that men who watch rape pornography do become more likely to commit rape — the men who watch contrived cockfights (or their filmed depictions) come to believe that roosters want to fight to the death. In fact, the roosters are acting under duress, legitimately fearing for their lives and often (like the women in pornography) doped up to increase the likelihood that they will act in ways consistent with the stereotypes men have of them.

Rape will happen either way, so leave our porn alone!

LOL sperm changed his name and yes rape happens so does murder

How did you still know it was him?????????????? I understood it because of all the !'s, .'s and ?'s!!!!!!!!!!!!

dirty stuff. shouldn't be allowed on the internet.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GOOD LUCK ON THAT YOU FUCKEN WEIRD ASS PSYCHO.

FUNNIEST THING I'VE HEARD ALLLLL DAAAAYYYY.

WOW.

Oh yeah, that person thinks oddly. There is no way in hell pornography is rape. People enter the porn industry through their own free will. And as far as I know, like any other movie actor/actress, if they don't wanna do the things in the script and play the part, then they don't have to lol.

Some sexually frustrated need porn. Without it they would be driven to rape.

Rape isn't about sex

That's not true, some is, some isn't. There are always people that do it for the sex, others for control, and others to feel like God. You can't blanket statement it.

Maybe others just enjoy the feel of nice BlackFox asshole.

I MEAN human asshole.

i dont get it

Maybe others just enjoy the feel of nice BlackFox asshole.

I MEAN human asshole.