by Diana E.H. Russell
Proponents of the anti-pornography-equals-censorship school deliberately obfuscate any distinction between erotica and pornography, using the term eroticafor all sexually explicit materials (e.g., Pally, 1994; Strossen, 1995). In contrast, most anti-pornography feminists consider it vitally important to distinguish between pornography and erotica (see Itzin, 1992; Lederer, 1980; Russell, 1993) While condemning pornography, most of us approve of, or even advocate, erotica.
Although women’s bodies are the staple of adult pornography, it is important to have a gender-neutral definition that encompasses the various types of pornography, including gay pornography and child pornography. Animals are also targets of pornographic depictions. Hence, I define pornography as material that combines sex and/or the exposure of genitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior. However, this book will exclude gay and child pornography, and focus on pornography that abuses or degrades women.
Erotica refers to sexually suggestive or arousing material that is free of sexism, racism, and homophobia and is respectful of all human beings and animals portrayed. This definition acknowledges the fact that humans are not the only subject matter of erotica. For example, a scene in the documentary on insects titled Microcosmos, in which two snails “make love,” was highly sensual and erotic. I remember seeing a short, award-winning erotic film depicting the peeling of an orange. The shapes and coloring of flowers or hills can make them appear erotic. Many people find Georgia O’ Keeffe’s paintings erotic. However, erotica can also include overtly or explicitly sexual images.
Canadian psychologists Charlene Senn and Lorraine Radtke (1986) conducted an experiment using slides that demonstrate the significance and meaningfulness to female subjects of distinguishing between pornography and erotica. First, these researchers categorized the slides into three groups:
-violent pornography
-nonviolent but dehumanizing pornography
-erotica (material that was nonsexist and nonviolent)
Then they administered tests of the mood states of their subjects in response to these three categories of slides. They found that both the violent and the nonviolent dehumanizing slides had a negative effect on the mood states of the women subjects, whereas the erotic images had a positive effect (Senn&Radtke, 1986, p.15-16; also see Senn, 1993). Furthermore, the violent pornographic pictures had a greater negative impact on the women than did the nonviolent dehumanizing pictures. This shows that a conceptual distinction between pornography and erotica is both meaningful and operational. Experiments conducted by psychologist James Check replicate this finding (Check & Guloien, 1989).
My definition’s requirement that erotica must be nonsexist means that the following types of pictoral materials qualify as pornography:
- Sexually arousing images in which women are consistently shown
naked while men are clothed.
- Pictures in which women’s genitals are displayed but men’s are not
- Images in which men are always portrayed in the initiating,
dominant role
Racist pornography that focuses on people of color typically combines racism and sexism. Yet racism is also manifested in depictions of white women who embody many white males’ narrow concept of beauty (very thin, large-breasted, and blonde), since the obvious inference is that women of color don’t qualify as sufficiently attractive or beautiful. This form of sexualized racism pervades pornography.
The term abusive sexual behavior in my definition of pornography refers to sexual conduct that ranges from derogatory, demeaning, contemptuous, or damaging to that which is brutal, cruel, exploitative, painful, or violent. Degradingsexual behavior refers to sexual conduct that is humiliating, insulting, and/or disrespectful: Examples of degrading sexual behavior include urinating or defecating on a woman, ejaculating in her face, treating her as sexually dirty or inferior, depicting her as slavishly following men’s orders and eager to engage in whatever sex acts males want, and/or calling her insulting names such as “bitch,” “cunt,” “nigger,” “whore,” while engaging in sex.
Feminist philosopher Helen Longino (1980) described typically abusive and degrading portrayals of female sexuality in many pornographic books, magazines, and films, as follows:
Women are represented as passive and as slavishly dependent upon men. The
role of female characters is limited to the provision of sexual services to men.
To the extent that women’s sexual pleasure is represented at all, it is
subordinated to that of men and is never an end in itself as in the sexual
pleasure of men. What pleases women is the use of their bodies to satisfy male
desires. While the sexual objectification of women is common to all
pornography, women are the recipients of even worse treatment in violent
pornography, in which women characters are killed, tortured, gang-raped,
mutilated, bound, and otherwise abused, as a means of providing sexual
stimulation or pleasure to the male characters. (p.42)
What is objectionable about pornography, then, is its abusive and degrading portrayal of females and female sexuality, not its sexual content or explicitness.
A particularly important feature of my definition of pornography is the requirement that it appears to endorse, condone, or encourage abusive sexual desires or behaviors. These attributes differentiate pornography from materials that include such abusive or degrading sexual behavior for educational purposes. Movies such as The Accused and The Rape of Love, for example, are not pornographic because they present realistic representations of rape with the apparent intention of helping viewers to understand the reprehensible nature of rape, as well as the agony experienced by rape victims.
My definition of pornography differs from the current legal definition, which focuses instead on material that is judged to be obscene. It also differs from the definition that I used in previous publications, which limited pornography to sexually explicit materials (e.g., Russell, 1988). I decided to broaden my definition to include materials like slasher films, record covers, and cartoons that meet my definition. In doing so, I am returning to the conception of pornography that we formulated in Women Against Violence in Pornography and Media (WAVPM), the first feminist anti-pornography organization in the United States (see Lederer, 1983).
Some other feminists, however, have included sexual explicitness as a defining feature of pornography. Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon (1988), for example, define pornography as “the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words” (p.36). Unfortunately, Dworkin and MacKinnon’s definition fails to distinguish between materials that depict women as dehumanized sex objects for educational purposes (like the movie the Accused-which I consider nonpornographic) and materials that degrade women for males’ sexual entertainment and/or sexual gratification.
James Check often uses the term sexually explicit materialsinstead of pornography, presumably in the hope of bypassing the many controversies associated with the term pornography(Check & Guloien, 1989, p.159). However, these scholars have not, to my knowledge, defined what they mean by sexually explicit materials. Because I am unclear about what sex acts qualify as sexually explicit, it is impossible to evaluate the advisability of using this term in my definition.
Some people may object that feminist definitions of pornography that go beyond sexually explicit materials differ so substantially from common usage that they make discussion between feminists and nonfeminists confusing. I would argue, however, that there is no consensus on definitions among either of these groups. Sometimes there is a good reason for feminists to employ the same definition as nonfeminists. For example, in my study of the prevalence of rape, I used a very narrow, legal definition of rape because I wanted to be able to compare the rape rates obtained in my study with those obtained in government studies. (see Russell, 1984) Had I used a broader definition that included oral and anal penetration, for example, my study could not have been used to show how grossly flawed the methodology of the government’s national surveys is in determining meaningful rape rates. If, however, there is no compelling reason to use a definition with which one disagrees, then it makes sense for feminists to define phenomena in ways that best fit feminist principles.
Unlike Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, most feminist have not attempted to create a definition that would meet legal standards. They devised a definition which, if implemented, would enable someone who has been coerced into pornography, assaulted because of it, or subordinated by trafficking in it, to attempt to prove in a court of law that pornography harmed her (1988, p.36). More specifically, they defined (and continue to define) pornography as “the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words” that also includes one or more of nine conditions, including the following three examples:
(i) women are presented dehumanized as sexual objects, things, or commodities;
…or (vi) women’s body parts-including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or buttocks-are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts;…or (ix)
women are presented in scenarios of degradation, injury, torture, shown as
filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these
conditions sexual.
The use of men, children, or transsexuals in the place of women in [the
paragraph] above is also pornography.
Unfortunately, the nine conditions formulated by Dworkin and MacKinnon are typically overlooked by those intent on simplifying it.
Returning to my more concise definition, it should be noted that it does not include all the features that commonly characterize such material. For example, even though pornography frequently depicts female desires and sexuality inaccurately, I have not included this feature of pornography in my definition. It has been shown, for example, that pornography consumers are more likely to believe that unusual sexual practices are more common than they really are (Zillmann & Bryant, 1989) This is hardly surprising in view of the many distortions about female sexuality that pornography typically contains.
Sexual objectification is another common characteristic of pornography that I have not included in my definition. It refers to the portrayal of human beings-usually women- as depersonalized sexual things, such as “tits, cunt, and ass,” not as multifaceted human beings deserving equal rights with men. As Susan Brownmiller (1975) so eloquently noted,
[In pornography] our bodies are being stripped, exposed and contorted for the purpose of ridicule to bolster that “masculine esteem” which gets its kick and sense of power from viewing females as anonymous, panting playthings, adult toys, dehumanized objects to be used, abused, broken and discarded. (p.394)
However, the sexual objectification of females is not confined to pornography. It is also a staple of mainstream movies, ads, record covers, songs, magazines, television programs, art, cartoons, literature, and so on, and influences the way that many males learn to see women and even children. This is why I have not included sexual objectification as a defining feature of pornography.
Inconsistencies in Definitions
Many people have commented on the difficulty of defining pornography and erotica, declaring that “one person’s erotica is another person’s pornography.” This statement is often used to deride an anti-pornography stance, as if the lack of consensus on a definition on pornography means that its effects cannot be examined.
However, there is no consensus on the definitions of many phenomena that we nonetheless are willing to take a stand on. Rape is one example. Legal definitions of rape vary considerably in different states. The police often have their own definitions, which may differ from legal definitions. If a woman is raped by someone she knows, for example, the police often “unfound” the case because they are skeptical about many acquaintance and date rapes. Hence, such crimes are rarely investigated. This practice certainly has no basis in the law.
If rape is defined as forced intercourse or attempts at forced intercourse, the problem of figuring out what exactly constituted force remains. How does one measure it? What is the definition of intercourse? Does it include oral and anal intercourse, intercourse with a foreign object, or digital penetration, or is it defined only as vaginal penetration by the penis? How much penetration is necessary to qualify as intercourse? How does one determine if an attempt at rape has occurred?
How does one deal with the fact that both the rapist and the rape survivor quite often do no believe that a rape has occurred, even when the incident matches the legal definition of rape? Many rapists, for example, do not consider that forcing intercourse on an unwilling woman qualifies as rape because they think the woman’s “no” actually means “yes.” Many women think they have not been raped when the perpetrator is their husband or lover, even though the law is most states defines such acts as rape.
Fortunately, few people argue that because rape is so difficult to define and because there is no consensus on the best definition of it, it should therefore not be considered a heinous and illegal act.
Similarly, millions of court cases have revolved around arguments as to whether a killing constitutes murder or manslaughter. No one argues that killing should not be subject to legal sanctions just because it takes a court case to decide this question. The fact that the lack of consensus on how to define pornography is used to discredit any attempt to impose legal restraints on it, or even to express strong opposition to it, whereas no similar argument is made in response to the lack of consensus on definitions of rape and murder, highlights the ideological motivation behind this reasoning. The validity of this point is further substantiated by the fact that nonconsensus on the definition of pornography did not prove to be an obstacle to making pictorial child pornography illegal.
Hence, it is reasonable to conclude that the fixation of pro-pornography advocates on the difficulty of defining pornography is merely a strategy that they employ in their efforts to derail their opponents by making anti-pornography policies appear futile.
(for complete bibliography, please refer to Dangerous Relationships, Diana E.H. Russell) —©Diana E.H. Russell, Sage Press 1998 pg. 9