The Journal of Speculative Philosophy

The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 15.2 (2001) 122-136

Pornography Contextualized:
A Test Case for a Feminist-Pragmatist Ethics

Heather E. Keith
Lyndon State College

Last summer in the United States, a father allegedly molested and stabbed his son after downloading more than a hundred pornographic pictures from the Internet (Gibb 2000). In the same year in Indonesia, a defendant implied to a reporter a connection between a group viewing of violent pornography and the group rape and murder of a young woman (Jakarta Post 2000). Meanwhile, in England, police investigated a "snuff" film allegedly depicting the actual torture and murder of a young boy trapped in a pornography and pedophilia ring (Davies 2000). Feminists in this country have long debated the acceptability of mixing sex and violence in the hardcore pornography industry, discussing issues of harm and freedom of speech. Increasing sexual violence keeps this issue at the forefront of public concern. Perhaps it is time for a new tradition of discourse to emerge from the discussion of feminist social issues like pornography--one that has at its foundations the interconnection of theory and practice, making it well suited for addressing serious social issues that are embedded in human experience. This paper will apply feminist-pragmatist ethics to the issue of violent pornography, attempting to both describe this emerging moral tradition in American philosophy and put it to use.

In Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric, Charlene Haddock Seigfried suggests that pragmatism should be "particularly attractive to feminist reconstruction" (1996, 31). With its philosophy of human nature focusing on the development of individuals and groups within larger social relationships, pragmatism also lends itself well to feminist social issues. What would this mean more specifically for [End Page 122] moral theory and practice? What would a feminist-pragmatist ethics look like? Or, more important to both feminism and pragmatism, what would a feminist-pragmatist ethics do? As both feminist and pragmatist theory, it must be given the substance of experience in order to become useful. It must be put to the test.

Feminist theory has a history of discussion, often controversial and occasionally heated, about the morality of the pornography industry. From this, it is clear that the pornography question is not only interesting (often making strange bedfellows out of feminists and conservative religionists), but also important to women. The easy access to often-violent pornography on the Internet makes our ethical consideration even more pressing. Further, given the fact that there is little agreement among feminists about the rightness and wrongness of pornography and if, as many antipornography feminists contend, the possible consequences of pornography include violent harm to others, this issue offers a serious test for moral theory.

Why Pornography?
Media and Violence as a Feminist Issue

In a world where the growing problem of rape and abuse of women has culminated into a confusing web of violence and power, it may be impossible to uncover the entire continuum of sources of violent behavior. In response to the ever-growing suspicion of a connection between pornography and violence against women, many feminist activists are seeking, and finding, evidence to support the claim that violent imagery not only depicts, but also promotes the rape and abuse of women. In her Letters from a War Zone, Andrea Dworkin refers to a 1976 New York showing of a "snuff" film that purported to be footage of the actual murder of a prostitute. The film, simply called Snuff, was advertised with posters depicting a woman's body that had been cut in half. According to Dworkin, several such actual crimes took place during this film's run (1988).

Dworkin and others have been trying to prove that pornography is not merely a matter of an individual's choice to consume erotic materials, affecting only his or her sexual circumstances. Nor is pornography merely a matter of the degradation of the individual's spiritual character, as claimed by the Religious Right. Rather, for the feminist antipornography movement, pornography is seen as a potential catalyst of violence against...