Anti-Obscenity: A Comparison of the Legal and the Feminist Perspectives
| Author | Sue Bessmer |
| Published date | 01 March 1981 |
| Date | 01 March 1981 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/106591298103400112 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
ANTI-OBSCENITY:
A
COMPARISON
OF
THE
LEGAL
AND
THE
FEMINIST
PERSPECTIVES
SUE
BESSMER
San
Francisco
State
University
NY
PUBLIC
discussion
of
the
desirability,
feasibility
or
legality
of
cen-
soring
obscene
or
pornographic
materials,
variously
defined,
is
-~.
guaranteed
to
generate
heated
debate.
Support
for
the
censor
has
long
been
regarded
as
the
province
of
the
politically
conservative,
the
strongly
religious,
and
those
persons
deeply
convinced
of
the
sanctity
of
the
family
and
the
need
to
preserve
conventional
moral
norms.
Political
liberals
or
progressives,
moral
relativists
and
individuals
who
either
seek
or
tolerate
challenges
to
conventional
standards
of
sociosexual
conduct
have
tradition-
ally
been
arrayed
against
censorship.
However,
this
easy,
if
simplistic,
taxonomy
of
the
dramatis
personae
in
the
obscenity
debate
has
been
overset
by
the
genesis
of
a
new
political
force.
This
political
force,
the
Women’s
Movement,
clearly
disavows
and
frequently
opposes
those
values
and
belief
systems
which
have,
historically,
underwritten
the
drive
to
suppress
pornog-
raphy.
Feminist
support
for
sexual
and
reproductive
freedom
of
choice,
for
experimentation
with
unconventional
forms
of
family organization,
and
for
gay
rights
exemplify,
though
they
do
not
exhaust,
the
areas
of
disagreement
between
the
Women’s
Movement
and
the
traditional
champions
of
censor-
ship.
Thus
no
comfortable
political
alliance
is
possible
between
them.
At
the
same
time,
however,
feminism,
as
a
political
philosophy
and
as
a
political
movement,
does
embody
substantial
opposition
to
the
&dquo;exploitation&dquo;
by
the
media
of
women’s
bodies
and
female
sexuality
as
well
as
marked
distaste
for
much
of
what
might
be
called,
in
common
parlance,
pornographic
presenta-
tion
of
human
sexual
relations.
This
fact,
in
turn,
strains
the
philosophical
and
political
bonds
between
feminists
and
the
liberal
or
progressive
oppo-
nents
of
censorship
who
are,
in
many
other
respects,
their
natural
allies.
These
statements
should
not
be
construed
to
imply
that
all
feminists
favor
censorship.
Indeed,
the
Women’s
Movement
is
deeply
conflicted
about
the
proper
response
to
various
examples
of
obscene
or
pornographic
mate-
rials.
Considerable
controversy
exists
about
what
defines,
either
semantically
or
in
terms
of
social
theory,
an
obnoxious
portrayal
of
human
sexuality
and/or
an
exploitative
representation
of
the
female
body.
Moreover,
no
single
theory
which
might
justify
some
form
of
censorship
commands
any-
thing
approaching
unanimous
assent,
except,
perhaps,
the
liberal
consensus
that
individuals
have
an
absolute
right
to
boycott
that
which
offends
them.
Yet
an
active,
if
sometimes
only
emotive,
opposition
to
something
which
might
be
called
obscenity
is
alive
and
thriving
in
the
Women’s
Movement.
This
essay deals
with
those
areas
of
controversy.
It
will
attempt
to
locate,
broadly
and
with
several
degrees
of
freedom,
what
is
obscene
or
pornog-
raphic’
(using
these
words
with
a
negative
connotation)
from
a
feminist
perspective.
It
will
also
consider
how
this
feminist
perspective
compares
with
some
other
formulations
of
the
concept
of
obscenity
employed
by
philosophers,
academicians
and/or
jurists.
Finally,
the
essay
will
examine
possible
theoretical
justifications
for
the
suppression,
by
some
means,
of
that
which
is
deemed
objectionable.
,
’The
terms
"obscenity"
and
"pornography"
will
be
used
here
interchangeably
unless
otherwise
specified.
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