The Porn-Loving People vs. Noam Chomsky
Michael C. Moynihan | July 24, 2008, 5:00pm
Trawling YouTube's daily list of top "activism" videos, I found this wonderful, horrible clip of Noam Chomsky pontificating on the evils of pornography. Chomsky first defends himself against the charge that he himself is complicit in promoting pornography because, back in 2004, he was interviewed by Hustler magazine. But, he tells his interrogator, he "had never heard of The Hustler" until someone told him "what The Hustler was." Chomsky, a prolific emailer, apparently didn't know that The Google could have provided him with much information on The Hustler and its filthy contents.
Pornography, says the sage of MIT, is "disgraceful," "a humiliation and degradation of women." Does it matter, the interviewer wonders, that most porn performers "choose to do the job and get paid?" Chomsky offers this labored analogy in response: "The fact that women agreed to it and are paid is about as convincing as the fact that we should be in favor of sweatshops in China where woman are locked into the factory and work fifteen hours a day and then the factory burns down and they all die. They were paid and they consented, but it doesn't make me in favor of it." And for all of you porn consumers out there, Chomsky wants you to know that if you get "pleasure out of the humiliation of women [you] have a problem." So how do we improve the lot of porn performers? By banning "the degradation of woman" and "eliminating the conditions in which woman cannot get decent jobs; not permit abusive and destructive behavior."
For those of you who speak a Scandinavian language, you can find out just what Noam Chomsky thinks of me here, and just what I think of him here.
mariko | July 24, 2008, 7:37pm | #
I think everything he said is right on.
Anti-pornography and anti-sex and are NOT the same thing. So quit it with the lame accusations of prudery, or (and I can't believe this was even written by a commenter here) "pussy."
"Banning the degradation of women," indeed; will Sex in the City get the axe? I'd love to see him provide the details of how this will all be enforced and to what it will apply.
For starters? How about ending human trafficking, alleviating poverty (which always disproportionately hurts women), eliminating legislation that restricts women's reproductive freedom and endangers their reproductive health, the replacement of marriage with civil unions (in this country), or in some countries, eliminating
the conditions that render a wife essentially the property of her husband, and
actually enforcing rape laws? Oh, and
so much more.
Aside from these political changes, we can start personally by trying to change a culture that sees women as nothing more than objects to titillate men and/or embryo receptacles. We can start this (right now!) by ending our consumption of pornography, cosmetic plastic surgery, fashion, celebrity culture, pretty much anything on E! and Axe body spray.
Finally, and this has always been a peeve of mine with people who attack Chomsky, why can't someone who happens to do their professional work in linguistics (or any field) also write about politics, culture and other issues, provided the arguments are valid and well-supported? All you really need to do that is the ability to read, write, and think critically. So enough attacks on his purported lack of credentials to talk about anything other than universal grammar and A-movement. Actually address his arguments instead.
mariko | July 24, 2008, 8:59pm | #
You are confusing the arguments. It's not that people around here are (generally) all about the degradation of women. I think the point of disconnect is that nearly nobody here thinks that porn, ipso facto, is degradation.
I see what you're saying, but I'm not confusing the arguments. I was writing in response to how we'd go about ending degradation. This is a separate point from the one you raise, namely, if pornography is always degradation.
I don't think many of us can argue that the production side of porn, in the large number of cases, there is abuse and exploitation going on. Let's assume for the moment that everyone participating in porn was not physically coerced, well-paid, disease free, etc. Let's also set aside dealing with the whole question of what should and shouldn't be legal.
The fact remains that what's being sold in pornography is not sex, it's domination. It's dangerous because it conflates sex with at best humiliation and at worst, violence (ever heard of Max Hardcore?).
Here's an analogy: imagine if an industry existed that thrived off of the production and distribution of videos that depicted whites shouting racial epithets and generally humiliating non-whites. Even if everyone involved in the production of these videos was complicit, well-paid, and safe, would it still be acceptable? And should I be considered some crazy uptight bitch for not wanting to have anything to do with people who get off on watching that kind of thing?
There is a discussion to be had about whether, in some weird alternate universe where women and their desires are actually valued and respected, some version of erotica could exist. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world, and these discussions will remain hypothetical.
If my arguments are phrased too flimsily for you (they may well be, I'm just killing time while traffic clears out) I urge you to do a quick Google search for some peer-reviewed feminist philosophy. Perhaps Chomsky's colleague at the MIT Ling/Phil department, Judith Jarvis Thompson? Or hell, even Wikipedia.
a girl:
I used to feel the same way, until I realized it's not my job to fufill some porn addict's crazed vision of what sex should be and how women should act. I have better things to do! Like sloppily paraphrasing basic feminist philosophy on a libertarian blog!
Oh, Paul:
Where to begin. I can't really do anything other than laugh at your assertion that men face just as much pressure to look HAWT as women do, and that the penalties for non-compliance are just as steep.
BG:
Some people just like racist jokes. Why do others get so uptight about it?
Elemenope | July 24, 2008, 9:30pm | #
I see what you're saying, but I'm not confusing the arguments. I was writing in response to how we'd go about ending degradation. This is a separate point from the one you raise, namely, if pornography is always degradation.
Fair enough.
I don't think many of us can argue that the production side of porn, in the large number of cases, there is abuse and exploitation going on. Let's assume for the moment that everyone participating in porn was not physically coerced, well-paid, disease free, etc. Let's also set aside dealing with the whole question of what should and shouldn't be legal.
I'm fairly certain that on the supply side of the Fresh Produce, Automobile, Footware, and Narcotics industries, there is a great deal of abuse and exploitation going on. Violations of personal dignity and/or violence and implied violence are really rather industry agnostic. If the production is going on in a nasty place, there will be nasty conditions.
The fact remains that what's being sold in pornography is not sex, it's domination. It's dangerous because it conflates sex with at best humiliation and at worst, violence (ever heard of Max Hardcore?).
When I was in Women's Studies 135, I tore a feminist blog a new asshole in an assignment for making precisely this mistake. There are, quite literally, billions of porn productions in existence, and they range in quality and comportment very widely. Some are about domination ,some about beauty, some are even about art. Some are about pain, and some are about *feet*.
Some, *gasp* even have the women on top. ;)
They do all, however, involve regard of one or several acts of sexual intercourse. How that is not at least at the most literal level *about sex* is quite beyond me.
Here's an analogy: imagine if an industry existed that thrived off of the production and distribution of videos that depicted whites shouting racial epithets and generally humiliating non-whites. Even if everyone involved in the production of these videos was complicit, well-paid, and safe, would it still be acceptable? And should I be considered some crazy uptight bitch for not wanting to have anything to do with people who get off on watching that kind of thing?
There are all sorts of reasons, artistic and otherwise, how this might be acceptable as a product. People consume media for a variety of reasons, ranging from search for catharsis to titillation to entertainment, education, edification of curiosity, aesthetic pleasure, and background noise.
No, you are not a crazy bitch for wanting to choose with whom you want to associate. The jury would perpetually be out on "uptight", however.
There is a discussion to be had about whether, in some weird alternate universe where women and their desires are actually valued and respected, some version of erotica could exist. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world, and these discussions will remain hypothetical.
As I understand it, they have porn in Sweden and a majority-female legislature.
If my arguments are phrased too flimsily for you (they may well be, I'm just killing time while traffic clears out) I urge you to do a quick Google search for some peer-reviewed feminist philosophy. Perhaps Chomsky's colleague at the MIT Ling/Phil department, Judith Jarvis Thompson? Or hell, even Wikipedia.
I'm quite familiar with 1st and 2nd wave feminist criticism and philosophy. Occupational hazard. I think that taking gender into account when judging and constructing frames of reference has a great deal to speak for it, but it is as yet a young, incomplete method of analysis.
Elemenope | July 24, 2008, 11:06pm | #
And, of course, gay men are really outside of the bounds of the topic of feminism, so I guess they don't count.
Mediageek, not even *close* to correct. Gay men are very much in the bounds of the topic of feminist critique and philosophy; in my opinion (and actually many others), it suffers merely from a poor name. What we call "feminism" is really "gender studies" and has been that for close to a century.
This is why labor rights is also a feminist issue. Although I'd like to point out that in contrast to these examples, the abuse associated with the production of porn is often sexual in nature, making it a completely different beast. But I'm not going to get bent out of shape about that at the moment.
I have minor quibbles with defining sexual violence as different in *nature* from other types of non-consensual force. But none significant enough to provide some real oomph to my argument. Suffice it to say that getting beaten up by thugs every day is as degrading as being raped by said thugs. The same powerlessness and pain is present, as well as mockery and domination. The only thing that differs is physical penetration which has some psychosomatic factors peculiar to it, but no different in degree than the PTSD that develops in any comparable case.
Yet the majority of porn continues to be of the variety of Mr. Hardcore, Joe Francis and their ilk. In fact, this stuff is so pervasive, that I'd be willing to wager most people would not regard the things you describe as porn at all.
This would not surprise me at all, and does not really address the argument. In every media industry, Sturgeon's Law applies: 90% of everything is crap. This is true regardless of format, content, or genre. However, people generally seek to watch higher quality when available (excluding voyeuristic aesthetic and/or psycho-historical explorations, i.e. art-house films) to better inform whatever purpose they seek to fulfill. I would hazard to say that 10% of the films in any genre get 90% of the viewers in that genre. So, the mere production or presence of inartful crap does not by itself lead inexorably to the conclusion that inartful crap is what people are/want to watch(ing).
In other words, when you take away the degradation and humiliation, it's no longer porn. It becomes "art" or "erotica" or something else entirely.
This is the Potter Stewart standard for defining porn. It's not a good one. To define genre, one must look to patterns and similarities. "If it's good, it's not porn" is a fairly self-serving as well as circular definition.
Let's not pretend, though, that the number one reason for the existence of porn (and the reason it's a gazillion dollar industry and the reason it's 99.99999 percent of the freakin' Internet), yesterday, today, and forever, isn't to get guys off.
Of course. Thrash metal does not exist for the purpose of lullabies, and hip-hop is not the preferred medium for race relations. Mediums and genres are distinguishable precisely because they fulfill some need or desire apart from the others. Pornography, or if you like, "erotica" exists primarily to influence/stimulate/satisfy the sexual urges of its viewers. Because sex in the human animal is tightly bound up with issues of power and violence, it is no surprise that the genre serving that desire is as well.
What i have a problem with is deriving a normative principle from this observation, that because sex is complicated by power and violence, this somehow leads to visual exploration or aid of such is dangerous and/or dirty.
While this is awesome, having affluent women in positions of power in the developed world doesn't magically eradicate male privilege from the planet.
But it does indicate something about Sweden. Your original claim revolved around a speculation about the existence of and nature of pornography in a society that is not dominated by male power. Sweden comes close to being such a society. Hence, it is useful for exploring your hypothetical.
