By Bronwen Beechey
MELBOURNE — More than 200 people attended a July 21 forum entitled "Pornography and censorship — a feminist debate" sponsored by Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly.
Liz Conor from the Coalition Against Sexual Violence Propaganda told the forum that sexual violence operates within social structures "as a process of terrorising women and setting up dependencies on men within relationships, where women are even more vulnerable to violence and abuse".
Society also suppressed and distorted women's experience of sexual violence. "Our truth never appears in the courts, news, government reports, policy papers, and certainly not in the pages of publications like Truth, Picture, People, and Post", Conor said. In fact, these publications depict violence against women as provoked by "sexy, seductive young women who come on to men, and really mean yes when they scream no".
Conor described this process as "reality censorship" — a process by which the dominant group in society suppresses any alternative accounts to the "common sense assumptions about the inevitability of male, white, power; about the natural state of dominance; the delusion that all people have access to, and can make the same choices as, the dominant group — white, Anglo-Saxon, heterosexual, able-bodied men".
She contrasted this with the "bureaucratic censorship" carried out by bodies such as the Office of Film and Literature Classification and the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal, describing these bodies as "ineffectual" because they took no account of the feelings of anger and fear experienced by many women over publications such as American Psycho and films like Henry — portrait of a serial killer. CASVP is campaigning to have the Commonwealth Censor include "notions of women's status" in the guidelines.
Although pornography depicting violence against women plays an important role in maintaining women's subordinate status, it cannot account for all women's oppression, as is claimed by feminist writers Andrea Dworkin and Katherine McKinnon, Conor said. She also disagreed with their strategy of working with right-wing moralists to bring in laws limiting pornography.
"CASVP is not anti-porn", Conor stated. She said that an umbrella term such as "sexual violence propaganda" was needed because many of the representations of women common in pornography are now evident in genres as diverse as music videos, mainstream Hollywood movies, news tabloid shows such as Hard Copy and postcards. CASVP saw its role as opposing representations which "romanticise, voyeurise, glamourise, minimise and uphold prevalent myths around violence ren".
"I don't know to what extent feminists can ever agree about pornography", lesbian feminist Tracy Cooper told the meeting, "because of the simple fact that what turns me on may not turn you on, and what turns one woman on will make somebody else violently ill."
"Censorship is about power", Cooper stated. "One thing I've learnt from working as a journalist is that censorship is everywhere and can occur when you least expect it."
Many lesbians felt disempowered by gay and lesbian publications which, because they were dominated by men, either ignored lesbian issues or reflected a narrow range of images. Young lesbians in particular were being encouraged to fall behind the "boy clone" image. "I sometimes feel that I can't identify as a lesbian any more, because I don't have a blond flat-top or wear size 8 bike shorts", Cooper commented.
"One of the saddest things about the debate around s&m in the lesbian community has been the way lesbian feminists have censored themselves and each other", Cooper said. However, one of the important things coming out of the debate was a recognition by many on both sides of the need for an open discussion on sexuality.
"It's almost seen as received wisdom that if you're a feminist you support censorship", Democratic Socialist Party member Pip Hinman told the meeting. However, she said, there were growing numbers of feminists, such as the British group Feminists Against Censorship, expressing concern with the activities of anti-pornography activists.
"We believe that a more repressive sexual regime will further narrow women's real choices", Hinman said, adding that one effect of the focus on pornography had been to stifle the rich discussion on women's sexuality that had begun during the "second wave" of feminism.
Hinman acknowledged that many women are troubled by explicit sexual images. "Most of us have ambivalent feelings about sexual imagery ... We are also reacting against the flood of sexist imagery that confronts us everywhere, of which pornography is a part."
But even if it were true that most pornography promoted violence against women, it wouldn't follow that we should not be exposed to it. "Ignorance can never make us safer."
Hinman pointed out that anti-pornography campaigns initiated by feminists can assist powerful conservative forces. A recent example was the Ontario anti-obscenity law which resulted in the banning of a sexually explicit lesbian magazine.
The most effective way to counter sexist, racist and exploitative images, she said, was not to seek to ban them, but to conduct a wide-ranging debate about sex, calling for better ng a safe, legal environment for sex workers and supporting the creation of erotic material by and for women. "We need a feminism which is about choice, about taking control of our lives, including our sexual lives."
During the wide-ranging discussion that followed, the formation of a Feminists Against Censorship group was announced. It is intended to function as a media group, to follow the issue and ensure that anti-censorship feminists' views are heard.