Catharine MacKinnon and Carol Vance: A Showdown Between Pornography and "Pleasure?"

In women's studies classes, when students sit down to discuss the work of Catharine MacKinnon, chances are that a widely controversial feminist argument over pornography is at hand. As a feminist philosopher, lawyer, and professor, MacKinnon has written and worked exhaustively on pornography as a civil rights issue.

Carol Vance, in the introduction to her book Pleasure and Danger, argues that anti-pornography feminists, such as Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, essentialize women, limiting them to an idea of innate femininity and sexual purity. Vance's push to understand pornography in terms of pleasure not only discounts real danger that victims of pornography experience, but is furthermore based on unfounded accusations against MacKinnon's work. Vance's claims, when well researched, make me wonder whether she ever did any research of her own. Her accusations make me further wonder, if she ever read MacKinnon's work, whether she actually understood any of it.

In 1983, along with the late Andrea Dworkin, MacKinnon was hired to write a piece of legislation for the city of Minneapolis that would make pornography actionable if one could prove that a particular work of pornography had harmed them. Vance asserts that the ordinance called for and "permit[ted] the removal of books and images from public sale and view, if they fell within the definition of pornography provided" (xxv).[i] While the bill did define pornography in certain terms, it turns out that it did not call for the control or censorship of such material. Before one can go about demonizing MacKinnon and the 1983 Minneapolis ordinance, it is paramount to read the actual ordinance itself, as opposed to letting others define it for us. For those who are interested, the entire definition of "pornography" as stated in the 1983 Minneapolis ordinance can be found in pages 427-429 of the book, In Harm's Way, which is a collection of actual court transcripts.

The ordinance called for pornography to be added to Title VII, Chapter 139 of the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances relating to Civil Rights, making it part of sex discrimination. This, understanding that the ordinance is a civil rights ordinance and not a piece of legislation under criminal or "obscenity" law,[ii] gives victims, who can show under the aforementioned requirements that they have been harmed by pornography, the right to sue.

By "harm," MacKinnon is not referring to one who is morally offended by the material or one who considers the material to be "obscene." Rather, the Minneapolis hearings were filled with testimony after testimony of victims of pornography who could demonstrate how they had been physically, mentally, or socially harmed by pornography.

Vis-à-vis MacKinnon's renowned article, Sexuality, and Vance's introduction to her book, Pleasure and Danger, to pit these two articles against one another is to embark on an unfounded and unstructured debate. The first rule established in any argument is that the premise[s] must be agreed upon before an intelligent, organized, progressive debate can ensue. The premise of MacKinnon's article, Sexuality, is that sex-in the manner under which it is generally understood; defined by "the sexuality of dominance and submission" (159)-is constituent of women's oppression. Vance's premise is that women's sexuality should not be essentialized or censored.

While Vance may disagree with MacKinnon's theory of sexuality, MacKinnon would agree with the notion that women's sexuality should not be essentialized-that is, reduced to any singular/linear definition or interpretation; MacKinnon is neither an essentialist nor a biological determinist.[iii] She would merely argue that women's oppression, in a general sense, can be understood in the phenomenon of sex as it requires dominance and submission for its meaning. MacKinnon is not arguing that women cannot have sex outside of dominance/submission roles. In fact, she does not address this issue at all in her article. She is not prescribing; she is not challenging. MacKinnon's article, Sexuality, does not argue that within this oppression women cannot exercise some sort of agency. She is simply describing the situation at large, as it lies in current history.

Would women, given complete autonomy, agency, and choice, "be into" s/m or pornography? MacKinnon does not touch on this point. For, the world may never know. Frankly, I do not even think she cares. It is for those who have been literal victims of pornography and s/m that MacKinnon is concerned.

On the note of pleasure, simply because some women find porn or s/m pleasurable does not mean that other women cannot/have not experienced these same things as victims.[iv] Those women who have should also have the right to sue for damages. The difference between feminists who push for "freedom of speech" and feminists fighting for "freedom of victims" is that there is an inverse relationship here. While pornographers and there advocates retain "freedom of speech," victims of pornography are adversely affected, unable to sue their abusers. Conversely, freedom for victims to sue their perpetrators/pornographers/pimps has no adverse affect on those who might truly enjoy participation in porn and/or s/m. After all, if they "get off" or find their participation in porn or s/m to be pleasurable, they would have no desire to sue.

The problem with discussing "pleasure and danger" is that, first, this is a dichotomy. Vance feels she is giving women a nice, big umbrella under which they may share their experiences of sex, however diverse. Yet, in relation to porn, what happens when "danger" is sexualized? It is almost as if danger cannot be discussed as real danger. Threat, violence, rape-danger actualized-seems to take a back seat to danger as pleasure. The lines become blurred. To be anti-porn as anti-sexualized-violence-against-women is seen to take some form of prudish stance, to be sexually repressed, which is reminiscent of Freud. It is as if our "no" cannot and does not truly mean no... ever.

It would be dangerous to assume that all women, given truly free choice, would not take pleasure in porn or s/m. However, I do not think that this is MacKinnon's argument, especially since there is no way to test such an assertion. Nevertheless, it is more dangerous to disregard freedom of victims in the name of some warped version of freedom of speech. While women's rights to "speak" of their pleasure and "choice" in porn and s/m is being valued by feminists such as Vance, women's right to speak and sue for violation of their bodies is being simultaneously devalued, and moreover, denied. In rebuttal to Lisa Duggin's article, Censorship in the Name of Feminism, one must also acknowledge Victims' Silence in the Name of Feminism. If pleasure is happiness, then I would apply Simone de Beauvoir's assertion in The Second Sex that we ought not to fight for women's "happiness," which is not only highly subjective but perpetuates and relegates us to our immanence. Rather, we should be fighting for liberation. For, it is liberation that leads to transcendence.

[i] According to Dr. Lori Watson, a feminist philosopher specializing in pornography and MacKinnon's works, MacKinnon refers to this as "the Canada Lie." Soon after obscenity laws were passed in Canada (1985), books and materials that fell under the definition of "pornography" were removed... but not in the United States. Even so, MacKinnon did not advocate this move. Indeed, she had nothing to do with it. Canada actually removed some of Dworkin's books, as the language was considered "obscene." Later, though, her books were brought back into Canada's public sphere.

[ii] Such was the case in Canada, which was not created or supported by MacKinnon.

[iii] See page 169, Sexuality.

[iv] See In Harm's Way.

REFERENCES

de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Ed. H.M. Parshley. Vintage Books. New York, NY. 1989.

MacKinnon, Catherine A. In Harm's Way. Harvard University Press. Cambridge, MA. 1997.

MacKinnon, Catherine A. Sexuality. The Second Wave: A Reader in Feminist Theory. Ed. Linda Nicholson. Routledge. New York, NY. 1997.

Vance, Carol. More Pleasure, More Danger: A Decade after the Barnard Sexuality Conference. Pleasure and Danger: Towards a Politics of Sexuality.