THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511250181
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY LENORE HART
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
XXX
A Woman's Right to Pornography
WENDY McELROY
St. Martin's Press. 243 pp. $21.95.
Crossing Broadway in New York a few years back, I heard hoarse, unintelligible screaming, and saw a lone black-clad protester waving a placard - a grainy blowup photo of a woman, naked, bound, gagged - at traffic and passersby. I'd just encountered my first anti-pornography feminist.
The issue creates strange bedfellows in a world where right-wing conservatives and feminists team up to write Orwellian anti-porn ordinances. In the debate, pros and cons are oversimplified and rearranged; facts, history and statistics are ignored. What no one seems to have done is talk to people inside the industry.
So XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography is intriguing. Author Wendy McElroy, a Canadian and former president of Feminists for Free Expression, confesses her bias against pornography before writing this book. Knowing ``only theory'' about the business, however, she troubled to interview entrepreneurs and entertainers working in X-rated films and shows.
XXX reveals a subculture in which sex isn't just recreation or work but ``an attitude or lifestyle.'' The women take pride in professionalism, see themselves not as victims but unconventional artists, free thinkers, ``the sexual elite.''
So why would free-thinking women be held in contempt by feminists? McElroy concludes women feel threatened by female porn stars, and chalks it up to misinformation and envy. Face it, she says, these women are up there on film, looking better naked than most of us clothed, doing things we wouldn't admit to fantasizing about.
But surely they've been forced to perform such degrading acts? On the contrary, her subjects expressed astonishment at the notion that their performances might have been physically forced; none could recall an actual case of coercion.
McElroy's account is lively, intelligent and irreverent, though its organization is reminiscent of a high school textbook. She presents no findings as definitive. She draws parallels between the historic suppression of pornography and the suppression of women's rights, as when birth control was declared obscene so that practitioners and suppliers could be prosecuted under anti-obscenity laws, sometimes as late as the 1970s.
Rather than harmful to women, McElroy claims pornography is beneficial, providing a ``safe space'' for vicarious exploration without risking relationships, health or safety. There's evidence that rather than provoking violence, porn has a cathartic effect on men who feel violent urges toward women. McElroy classifies contemporary porn as simply ``the artistic depiction of men and/or women as sexual beings.'' Anti-porner Andrea Dworkin, however, labels it ``. . . the graphic depiction of vile whores or, in our own language, sluts . . . the lowest whores.'' As McElroy observes, this says more about Dworkin than about porn.
Perhaps it's just sour grapes from a faction that characterizes the concept of heterosexuality as institutionalized violence against women, period. But pornography has long generated a schism in the women's movement, one that's increased as the high expectations of the 1960s have fizzled.
McElroy's biggest gripe against anti-porn feminists? They push victim mentality. Theories, writings and legislation to ``protect'' wfrom pornography are a neo-Victorian movement to relabel women as childlike creatures in need of protection.
A chilling example was the proposed Minneapolis Antipornography Ordinance drafted by Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon: ``Under the ordinance, a woman who had posed for pornographic pictures could have subsequently sued magazine . . pictures, signed a contract and release, was under no threat, there were witnesses to her cooperation, she showed no resistance, and was fully paid.''
McElroy is persuasive, even though she sometimes commits gaffes, for example, implying ``radical'' is synonymous with ``anti-pornography.'' It was radical feminists who made the personal freedom McElroy's so fond of a political issue. And though the clear implication is that she's espousing only consensual adult activities, it probably would've been wise to say so more definitively. She also doesn't tackle the impact sex shows and porn film houses might have on a community.
XXX is most compelling when sex workers speak. They seem a practical, intelligent, humorous bunch, understandably wary of mainstream reactions and attitudes. But the most important issue here is not pornography per se, it's the question: Will a select few decide what's allowed? As McElroy says, ``Freedom means self-fulfillment. It also means putting up with other people's irritating pursuit of the same. It means being confronted by disturbing images and ideas.''omen MEMO: Lenore Hart, the author of ``Black River,'' lives on the Eastern Shore.
Her second novel is due out next year. by CNB