Pornography as Representation: Aesthetic Considerations
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
“…no representation, either literary or visual, is straightforwardly ‘lifelike’. Failure to acknowledge that interpretation hinges on the training and prejudices of the interpreter leads to genuine difficulties….. The attempt to define pornography in terms of specific represented content therefore carries with it various difficulties which are inherent in the nature of representation.” --cited in Marina Wallace, "The Fluidity of Acceptability: Seduced by Art and Pornography and the Kinsey Institute Collection" |
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"Pornography as Representation: Aesthetic Considerations" (The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter, 1987), pp. 103-121) is a paper by Theodore Gracyk. It argues that not all pornography manifests the 'pornographic attitude' (degrading, harmful to women).
Abstract
- "Recent arguments against pornography are being translated into action, with several American cities adopting or considering ordinances aimed at removing pornography from society. Many of the supporting arguments try to establish a causal link between pornography and direct harm to women. One objection is that the attitude taken toward women in pornography is inculcated in its audience, at least some of whom then translate this attitude into actions that directly harm women. Because the existence of such a causal chain has been questioned, some attacks on pornography simply hold that pornography systematically degrades women, that to degrade persons on the basis of contingent class membership is to strip them of their rightful human dignity, and so pornography should be censored because it is defamatory and libelous. But both the casual chain and defamation arguments hold that pornography is a certain sort of objectionable content and that that content can and should be censored.
- I wish to challenge the viability of these arguments and ordinances against pornography by taking an aesthetic standpoint and questioning their understanding of pornography as a certain represented content. Ethical objections to such ordinances often begin with their conflicts with the First Amendment or by questioning whether they will significantly reduce violence against women. I will consider neither of these matters, but restrict my discussion to the question of whether those who are attempting to combat pornography with a civil rights approach have adequately identified what makes representations pornographic. While I accept that much pornography is morally objectionable because it defames or degrades women, I submit that proponents of this view generally provide misleading and unacceptable criteria for pornography. I suggest that they should focus less on the proper definition of pornography and should concentrate more on finding criteria for what I call the pornographic attitude. The pornographic attitude is the real locus of the defamation argument against pornography. I do not assume that all material that is commonly classified as pornographic manifests the pornographic attitude."