Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography

by Diana E.H. Russell (Editor), Andrea Dworkin (Contributor), Susan Wilhem (Contributor)

"Making Violence Sexy" chronicles women's resistance to pornography over the last twenty years. It does this in a collection of feminist articles, including testimonies by victims/survivors of pornography that together make a convincing case for the view that pornography (as distinct from erotica) causes harm to women, including acts of violence. The volume is organized into four parts, the first of which provides vivid and moving personal accounts of how women's lives have been damaged by pornography. Part two gives an overview of the present status of pornography in our society, as well as the raging debate over pornography and censorship. Part three details several interesting and significant studies on the effects of pornography, as well as critiques of some of the most influential non-feminist researchers. The concluding part then describes actions, both humorous and grave, that feminists have employed in their fight against pornography. Some of the contributors are: Andrea Dworkin, Patricia Hill Collins, Catharine MacKinnon, Gloria Steinem and John Stoltenberg. "Making Violence Sexy: Feminist Views on Pornography" will appeal to students and lecturers of women's studies and sociology, political activists, public officials, social scientists, legal and medical professionals - those who consider pornography free speech, and those who of it as obscene, and those who consider it a form of discrimination against women. Women's studies teachers should find it a welcome addition to their required reading lists, and those working against sexual violence may appreciate it as a primary, up-to-date, and comprehensive source and inspiration.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Feminist Theory, Sexuality, Womens, Sociology, Politics

302 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1993

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

This collection of studies and essays by Diana E. H. Russell is polemical and extremely didactic, but worth reading, especially if you want to know why radical feminists oppose pornography. My main problem with the book is that too much of the material is by Russell herself, even though she is probably the least interesting writer featured in it. Her chapters on causation, which form the centerpiece of the collection, are based on surveys she performed of studies that attempted to link pornography to rape. These sections are presented as incontrovertible evidence that the consumption of pornography is a major contributing factor to rape, but they rely too heavily on cherry-picked data and anecdotal evidence. Maybe it's just because I distrust sociology and find most of its applications to real-world problems misguided and utopian, but I find Andrea Dworkin's polemics much more compelling and convincing than Russell's soft pseudoscience, even though Dworkin relies on no "data" but her own fiery opinions.

Proof of causation and media's relationship to violence and sexual assault is always going to be a contentious and sticky subject, so I can understand why Russell devoted so much space to attempting to prove her points. I still think, however, that she wasted an opportunity to include more writers in the collection. Some of the more interesting essays, like one about the depiction of black women's bodies in pornography by Patricia Hill Collins, are only a few pages long, and could have been greatly expanded.

One thing I think this volume does very well, however, is poke holes in the theory that pornography is merely "cathartic." There's little question in my mind after reading this book that violent and misogynistic pornography degrades both the people involved in it and those who view it. The notion that it is a "harmless outlet for male aggression" is ludicrous. After all, does the idea of men watching videos of women being abused instead of doing it in real life really seem like the best possible solution to the problem of sexual violence?

On the other hand, I found many of the conclusions drawn in the book depressingly literal. Two chapters by two different authors are devoted to Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, which both writers regard as misogynistic snuff pornography. While this may, on some level, be true, it never seems to occur to either of them that the novel may also be a critique and satire of materialism and male privilege.

What I was ultimately reminded of while reading this book was the Women's Christian Temperance Union's opposition to alcohol, both in terms of its vehemence and its quixotic doggedness.

[Isaac]

Russell and contributors do a fantastic job of seizing and depicting a specific era of pornography, its myths and narratives, and the ways it took root in (damaged) American society. It contains valuable qualitative data, and I admired its work platforming testimonies and activists considered distasteful by both "right" and "left." This collection is quite relevant still--which can only be a bad thing, that we are still relying on a few texts from loadbearing 80s-90s authors to underpin conversations. It worries me, as the way porn manifested then to now is unrecognizable; it would be an impossible task to try and apply a 90s understanding of pornography to the modern machine it is now. The Vietnam War is relevant to the discussion presented, as are physical pornography stores and paper-magazine publishing politics. Lines such as: "Videos were never mentioned as the survey was undertaken before they were generally available for private viewing" are scattered around and jolt you. It is a terrible thing, that Russell would now have to be spearheading studies on the effects of "pornhub reels" for current data. This collection felt like a valuable archival work and mournful "I told you so."

What this collection largely discusses demands nuance and care, and I don't personally believe Goodreads reviews are the venue for that, so here is only a smattering of unnuanced, stupid thoughts I had:

1) Even with generous concessions given for the time, this book was surprisingly unequipped to discuss transgender populations, which felt out of place for the intersectional conversations it was trying to have.

2) In a chapter titled "Explanations for Copping Out," Russell goes on a page-long crusade against psychologists, taking on the mantle of noble sociologist for little reason. Not only was this page hardly justified and never made relevant again, it was strikingly inaccurate to how and why psychology research is conducted. "The difference in our academic disciplines may be one reason. The fact that I am a sociologist and they are psychologists is significant because psychologists tend to focus on the individual while sociologists more often focus on groups or larger units of analysis...But I do not believe the differences in our disciplines fully accounts for our different conclusions...what might explain their turnabout?"

It served only to add more fuel to the flames of antipathy between two fields that are (whether it is to be admitted or not) working within footsies distance of one another; this provocation was clearly felt by another reviewer, Adam, who made time to throw the stone back: "Maybe it's just because I distrust sociology and find most of its applications to real-world problems misguided and utopian, but..."

3) "Only in a misogynist intercourse-obsessed society could this type of material be seen as nonpornographic." This was one of my favorite quotes in the collection. One of my all-timer movies, "Re-animator" is, primarily, funny. But every time I put it on for Halloween, I let whoever's on the couch know there is a five-minute rape scene played for laughs around the end and if no one objects I'm skipping it. Recently, I looked up if other people also loathed this scene, and the discussions I found were miserable--quotes sourced from reddit: "throughout the movie there are many elements of black comedy. You can feel uncomfortable, but I think the rape scene and the outlandish way it was filmed fits the rest of the movie aesthetically and in tone" and "I agree. This scene is a total slap in the face to anyone who’s actually been sexually assaulted by a reanimated severed head." It is disheartening how brazenly calloused the general audience is to women's suffering, that they can watch a rape scene played straight by the actress, and still laugh.

In that same vein, I disagree with the author'/s understanding of both Silence of the Lambs and American Psycho, seemingly viewing them as unpoliticized, plainly sexist pulp thrillers (peers of Reanimator); and I naturally agree with Russell here: "...I think a distinction should be made between media that portray hate crimes to entertain and sexually arouse viewers, and media that portray hate crimes for other purposes (e.g. news, education) and that do not endorse or recommend the hate crimes"

4) The general use of data was lax. I personally believe it is a harmful and stupid thing (primarily seen among academics) to police how people who have to speak, speak about issues that matter. We aren't all able to feign dispassion about matters that affect ourselves and others, and oftentimes polite speak won't get you anywhere, anyway. Even so, if you choose to create and present your work as academic research (as sections of this collection take the tone and authority of) the dignity of those you recruited becomes priority. The perspective they offer you through interviews, questionnaires, scales, needs to be discussed with care. The researcher must let the populations and statistics speak for themselves; that is activism. I found that the wording was not always careful, unique presuppositions were taken for granted, and theories were frequently presented with such confidence as if they were known facts. One example:

"The New Bedford rape victim is believed to have subsequently committed suicide (Cookie Tier, personal communication, January 12, 1991)."

The victim died of injuries sustained in a car crash, driving home with her two children. It is generally not believed to be a suicide. I could not find out who Cookie Tier was, or what authority she had to be suggesting this.

Overall, this is a worthwhile read. Though, at times, I found the tone to be a little infantilizing to women (e.g. "Although Angel said she was a star, she reminded me of a wounded child grieving for the loss of her innocence. The more I listened to her, The more I wondered if becoming a porn star is what happened to her after something in her life had gone wrong.") While this is undeniably distasteful writing, I can't help but wonder how much of my aversion is a modern perspective warping the past, as we are now in an age of increasing visibility for the social media entrepreneur sex worker, and the same lack of visibility for the forced we have always maintained.

[Sunniva · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this when I was 17 and have been trying to remember the title FOR YEARS!! Finally found it again!!

[ada]

"Women and children will continue to be abused, pressured into unwanted sex acts, beaten, raped, tortured, and killed in the making of pornography, and as a consequence of men viewing it. Pornography will continue to fuel hate crimes against women until men are willing to face the consequences of their desire for this vicious hate propaganda, and voluntarily forgo it."

[Umi]

Great book

[emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

Need everyone to read immediately, the studies and stats in this shocked me so bad even after i have read multiple books on porn and its consequences. The last section on women getting revenge on the men behind pornographers/consumers was just beautiful i think those women are amazing. This addressed basically every consequence of pornography, prostitution and the commodification of the female body within society and i think more people should be speaking about it. Death to the porn industry and the selling of women amen!

“You can't have authentic sexual freedom without sexual justice. It is only freedom for those in power; the powerless cannot be free. Their experience of sexual freedom becomes but a delusion borne of complying with the demands of the powerful. Increased sexual freedom under male supremacy has had to mean an increased tolerance for sexual practices that are predicated on eroticized injustice between men and women: treating women's bodies or body parts as merely sexual objects or things; treating women as utterly submissive masochists who enjoy pain and humiliation and who, if they are raped, enjoy it; treating women's bodies to sexualized beating, mutilation, bondage, dismemberment. Once you have sex-ualized inequality, once it is a learned and internalized prerequisite for sexual arousal and sexual gratification, then anything goes. And thats what sexual freedom means on this side of sexual justice.”

[no elle]

the nikki craft stuff is a lot of fun, i love a gal with a flair for the DRAMATIC !!

[Rosie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I give this 3 stars not because I disagreed with the politics, but because at times I was bored, and the quality of writing differed.

[Ale Canales · Rating 5 out of 5]

De los mejores libros que he leído en el año. Es una compilación de los males que causa la pornografía