WE REFUTE THE LEGAL FICTION THAT PRETENDS PORNOGRAPHY IS MERELY ANOTHER FORM OF “SPEECH” DESERVING OF CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION. PORNOGRAPHY CONSISTS OF REAL ACTS COMMITTED UPON REAL PEOPLE, CAUSING THEM REAL HARM. IT IS THEN DISTRIBUTED IN THE REAL WORLD, WHERE REAL MEN, AND UNFORTUNATELY, SOMETIMES REAL WOMEN USE IT TO REALLY HURT REAL PEOPLE OVER WHOM THEY HAVE POWER.
Pornography lies about women’s sexuality. It depicts women as inviting and enjoying sexual violence, degradation, and humiliation.
Pornography perpetuates racist and anti-Semitic, sexist stereotypes. By fetishizing bondage and torture, particularly of “submissive” Asian women, and by eroticizing atrocities like slavery and Nazism, pornography exacerbates hate crimes against these groups.
Pornography is the primary form of sex education in our country. It teaches young men, in particular, contempt for women, and reinforces rape myths.
Pornography creates a hostile environment in our homes, in our workplaces, and in our communities. It glorifies and eroticizes sexual violence, making women and children, in particular, vulnerable to harassment and abuse.
Pornography does not exist in a vacuum. It is predicated on, and reinforces women”s social, sexual, and economic subordination in a male supremacist culture. Because it arises directly from women’s oppression, it is a systematic form of sex discrimination. Accordingly, the production, distribution and use of pornography constitutes gross human rights violation. Continued First Amendment protection of pornographic material contributes to maintaining women’s second class status. Without new approaches, which recognize pornography as a civil rights violation, its harm to individuals, and women as a class remains unredressed.
To pornography’s apologists, and protector’s we unequivocally reiterate. Pornography is indefensible. -from WHISPER’s leaflet handed out at Nadine Strossen’s appearances to promote her book, Defending Pornography.