reissued with a new foreword and epilogue by the author “A passionately argued, cogently written, lively discourse on the increasingly peculiar politics of sex.”
–New York Times Book Review “Defending Pornography is valuable precisely because of its lucid, broad exploration of the long debate over pornography.”
–The Washington Post Book World “A triumphant (and sensual) view of women that stands in stark contrast to the bleak vision of powerl… More >>
Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights
Ms Strossen’s book makes for boring reading. Her sole argument, as one might expect, is this: individual freedom at all cost no matter how much it might hurt a given community or someone’s dignity. Now, I cannot see how this has any meaning to real life.
Rating: 1 / 5
If I could give it zero stars, I would.
This is the book equivalent of the poor, panicky, slippery slope argument that says, “first they ban the advertising of cigarettes to minors, what’s next? the banning of the right to BREATHE???” I.e. the argument that takes too little data and extrapolates too far with it to come up with implausable, panicked, pseudo-data. It’s a book based on fear (and playing upon the irrational fears of others), rather than on reality or truth. It ignores factual data and instead runs with fear and panicked opinion.
This fear-based book also ignores the fact that since porn is a billion dollar business, based on a percentage of repeat customers (rather than on the entirety of the U.S. population, which is what they would have you believe, rather than prove it with rental/purchase data), and because it revolves around business and money, these frightened slaves of porn will have nothing to worry about (in the way of “losing” access to it), because as long as porn turns a dime (turns a dime for the producers, not the stars, in this completely unregulated industry without ethical economic practices), it will be here, just like gas powered cars and automatic weapons.
It’s funny how the side that supports so called freedom of speech likes to remove the freedom of speech to hate porn, protest it, and educate others about it’s harms. It’s just like the book, “Animal Farm,” where there are two sets of laws, one for those who fall in line with this pro-porn standing, and a different, restricted law for those who disagree and exercise their right to do something about it.
They should just be honest and say, “freedom of speech for US, not YOU.”
Rating: 1 / 5
This book would have been more appropriate as an opinion column, so utterly baseless is it. Strossen does exactly what one should expect from an ACLU lawyer–rely on half-truths and fear-mongering (”Your freedoms are dying! your freedoms are dying!”) to make the most outlandish claims. She ignores the mountains of evidence demonstrating pornography’s devastating harms, essentially pushing a “blame the victim” mentality–if a woman is hurt by pornography, it must be because *she* has a problem. Strossen quotes a few women who believe pornography has been helpful to them, and ignores the millions of women everywhere who have an innate discomfort with it because they *know* it is an objectification of all women–again typical of the ACLU, the willingness to elevate “self” above all else. Although there are certainly some “anti-pornography” individuals who have problems (and the question of *why* they have these problems–could they *possibly* have been damaged by pornography?–is conveniently ignored), there are millions of women who understand this basic truth: It is pornography that is maintains inequality between women and men, because women are yet again “serving” men. It is pornography that is anti-woman, anti-man, and anti-sex. And it is pornography that reduces something beautiful into something that is completely without value and meaning. Strossen is no feminist, she is a dogmatic lawyer discussing a sociological issue of which she has no real understanding.
Rating: 1 / 5
Strossen’s book is self-serving in that it panders to the libertarian viewpoint. Of course Strossen wants people to believe that pornography doesn’t harm people or society; she runs the ACLU, an organization notorious for defending pornographers. This book is almost shocking in the blatant way it attempts to lump all anti-pornography activists together as anti-sex, pro-censorship prudes. In reality, many women and men who fight against pornography are very feminist, pro-sex, anti-censorship people who want to educate the public to choose not to use pornography. Strossen never acknowledges this group of activist-educators and therefore presents herself as coming from an extremely biased viewpoint. Strossen looks even more biased and self-serving when you consider the fact that many studies done on pornography’s harm to women (it causes men to aggress against women, to look at women as sexual objects, to remember less about a woman’s words and more about her looks in a workplace environment) are either not reviewed or reviewed in a slanted manner. Similarly, men who claim to have been hurt by pornography (they were less satisfied by their partners’ appearance and sexuality, had trouble dealing with intimacy after prolonged viewing) are conveniently ignored. Overall, the book is simply a stale summarization of the usual libertarian ravings against anti-pornography feminists. There is nothing surprising about either her stance on pornography or her willful misunderstanding of feminist activism.
Rating: 1 / 5
As a survivor of the pornography industry I can state clearly that this book does not give an accurate representation of pornography or of it’s effects on the people who are victimized by it. Strossen tries to cleverly rephrase porn into a context where it is presented as liberation as freedom and as a symbol of women’s rights. But porn is none of those. Porn is violence against women and children.
My feeling is that this book reads like a court room drama hearing from only one attorney, one viewpoint and eliminating all of the victims.
Andrea Dworkin has several titles which accurately represent the reality of porn. A reality that I knew first hand. A reality that has left me scarred for life. All of the gloss on Ms. Strossen’s arguments about pornography being liberating and pro women will do nothing toward healing my scars or those of other victims of porn.
Rating: 1 / 5