This is a serious and competent attempt to draw together the varied strands of thinking in the anti-pornography and censorship debate. It is a big book. Over six hundred pages, covering the Industry, Power, Evidence of Harm, the Law, Censorship and Civil Liberties, in 26 articles.
The debate centres on the actual physical and emotional harm done to the victims - for that is what they are - of the pornography industry and the role of its purveyors.
There is no attempt to pretend that the users/abusers, mostly men, get an equal share of pain, rather the nature of pornographic usage is placed in it's socio-economic context, both historically and politically, giving me a sense of the vastness of the problem and the difficulties involved in changing this without legislation to back it up.
There are a number of notable contributors, Stolltenberg, Dworkin, Morecock, and a host of less well known but equally competent writers, amongst them Michelle Elliot, Peter Baker and five chapters by Itzin herself.
The subject matter is at times deeply unpleasant. In the very first article Itzin describes just 'what it is' we're concerned about here. The book is accessible, its theoretical position is clear, there are interviews and the whole tome is embedded in extensive empirical research. Tim Tates' article on Child Pornography is one example, which, even if you are well versed in the subject should not be read during supper. Whether this book means to shock, I doubt. But it does.
We are moved toward a new legal framework in which victims of the industry can respond in a meaningful way, legally, actually changing the situation. The individual psychology of the user is not the central issue here. Pornography is not free speech. It is harmful. In the same way as rape is harmful and illegal, why not porn? Difficult and complex issues really well debated.
This kicks off with Elizabeth Wilson's attack on 'secular fundamentalism' - or the alignment of anti-porn feminists with the religious right. It winds it's way through a collection rightly concerned with the foreclosing of legitimate expressions of sexuality and eroticism on moral grounds. There are four sections, Censorship, Dilemmas of Desire, Problems with anti Pornography Feminism and Differing Pornographies.
The anti-porn fundamentalists are accused of reducing feminism to the pornography debate, at the expense of change more generally. There is rather more to it, Segal suggests. Pornography can, and Loretta Loach in 'Bad Girls - Women Who use Pornography', argues it does offer a legitimate outlet for women's sexuality.
This may be true, but we then get into the conundrum as follows: is it better to sort out pornography now without censorship, based on the premise that we all have the right to exist without discrimination as Itzin suggests or to prevaricate on the issue of whether there is more to it? Which of course there is. Is it to do with 'harm'? Can we separate genuine expressions of erotic imaginative fantasy from the more De Sadian exploits of multiple child rapists making home movies for their 'dry periods'. I would hope so. Of course there is the issue of soft porn, or Gay porn, is this so clear?
Should I be able to look at a naked man's willie or not? Of course, it depends what he is doing with it.
Itzen's book is I believe a step forward. Segal is fighting a rearguard action. No-one is suggesting that we do away with all images of sexuality. Yes there is a danger of discrimination. But we have that already. There are potential answers in Itzin. And real questions for men.
Reviews by Nigel Larcombe
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