Pornography Should Be Illegal

There, I said it. It's an unpopular position because there are some frightening free speech implications. For example, if pornography were illegal, would the world have such gems of art such as Last Tango in Paris? Okay, I personally wouldn't miss it if Last Tango in Paris were never made; but putting aside my personal preferences, even if Last Tango in Paris were the Citizen Kane of our time, in nudist form, I'm still not sure it wouldn't have been made if pornography were illegal.

You see, my position on art (and this goes for the free download debate in music as well) is that art cannot be suppressed. If the spirit moves the artist, she or he will find a way. Payment and fame and even publication are secondary concerns.

The problem with a lot of art is that these secondary concerns are treated as primary concerns. Most of the time it's harmless, and you just end up a lot of useless, forgettable movies like the Rob Schneider ouvre (for whatever reason). But in the case of sexual explicit "art" (using the word provisionally), it often leads to exploitation and real harm against women. Notwithstanding the occasional insistence by sex industry workers that the business is "empowering," the usual objections are pretty well known. Most of the women in the sex industry are recruited when they are very young; they come from socio-economic conditions where there are not a lot of options for success, or even survival; they are often physically coerced through violence, rape, and psychological manipulation into doing an abusive man's work. Etc. etc.

In fact, I never understand why all the arguments against prostitution are not deployed to argue against pornography. The harm to individuals and society is the same. It doesn't make any sense that it's illegal to pay someone to have sex with you, but it's perfectly legal to pay someone to have sex with someone else (or you) as long as you film it.

The harm to women generally, I think, is something that applies a fortiori to pornography than to prostitution. One of the arguments against prostitution is that it is harmful to third parties - ie women everywhere - to commodify something that is so personal to them. I would further object that it is harmful to women everywhere to commodify what is essentially womanhood: the vagina is one aspect (perhaps the most objective aspect) of femaleness, and to put it on the market degrades us all. That would be like putting one's race up for sale. The reason why it's objectionable for Madonna to buy an African baby for prestige - that's the same reason why it's objectionable for men to buy a vagina.

I say the harm is more serious from pornography than prostitution because pornography captures an expression of an attitude, beyond the isolated physical act. The more people believe that there is "a certain kind of slut" who can be reduced to sex, tits, ass, and pussy, the more unfair the burden lies on all of us to prove that we are the OTHER kind of woman. I'm not saying that prostitution doesn't disseminate the "certain kind of slut" myth; I'm just willing to give it a little benefit of the doubt that maybe some men view their prostitutes as real individuals and real people. Internalizing the practice as "my friend Sally will have sex for money" is different from "women who wear miniskirts will have sex for money." The second is obviously more harmful. And the very art-like nature of pornography makes the second inference easier. Art is about the general, not the specific (see Aristotle), the porn stars do not play themselves but certain character types - significantly, often everyday types like the "girl next door" - and people who watch porn are spared some of the more unpleasant realities of the sex industry, such as the pimp lurking in the next room with a lead pipe and the shared IV needles.

To be honest, pimp with the lead pipe is one of the most persistent and troubling aspects of the sex industry, and I'm not sure if I could devise of a world order without him. But for the purpose of this mind experiment, I want to pretend for a minute that people don't exploit each other and make them do things they don't want to do. In this regime, sexually explicit art could continue to thrive if

WE MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO PAY THE ACTORS FOR ANY SEX ACT.

Which is my way of saying let's make pornography illegal. I'm not saying we should censor the expression. I'm just saying we should prohibit the kind of underlying conduct that is indistinguishable from prostitution and that leads to exploiting vulnerable women. If women did not have the prospect of gain from this business, presumably they would not enter it despite their detriment (again, assuming that there are other laws to ensure that they are not forced into it by violence or duress), and there would be far fewer women entering it because of fraudulent representations. At the same time the (few, I'm sure) women who genuinely feel empowered by the expression will be able to make their art in the same way that all art is made - because of the passion, not the money. In short, I suppose I'm proposing that every porn star be the producer of their own works. The current system we have, where minions do all the heavy lifting without any option of creative input or control over their expression of their bodies, is simply unacceptable.