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Conference: Globalization, Media Adult / Sexual Content: challenges to media

regulation and research, Athens 29-30 Sept. 2008

dr. Renata Šribar

Feminist Epistemology and Its Impact on the Regulation of


Pornography: Slovenian Case Study

I am going to discuss two perspectives on porn and the proliferated forms of porn: i.e.
feminist epistemological and the regulatory one, which in our case is connected with the
feminist activism.

BACKGROUND

At the beginning of my presentation I have to pinpoint the fact that I am coming from a
former-socialist and former – so called transitional country; as regards the subject of my study
– that is pornography and its gender and regulatory relations – we have specific history: first,
pornography was forbidden by law but appeared in the symbolic ghetto of few yellow print
weeklies, few cinemas, and smuggled porno magazines. At the beginning of the 1990s the
news media suddenly introduced porno-chic through the ads for hot lines. Gradually, the
media became flooded with the proliferation of porn; in the last few years ICT services and
products, and the related advertising have had the greatest impact on cultural environment.
Also the so called soft porn was easy to be seen without technical devices or special payment
on TV - it was provided by cable operators and commercial TV broadcasters. The
constructions of women’s bodies and their status in the media and public discourse abruptly
changed in comparison to the positioning and portraying of women as working and social
force, instance of modest eroticism, and agent of human reproduction and homeliness, i.e. the
constructions of women typical for former-Yugoslavian and Slovenian socialism.

KICK OFF THE FEMINIST CAMPAIGN FOR PORNOGRAPHY REGULATION

Analysing the phenomenon of pornography with the feminist epistemological tools and
concepts it was stated that the social and cultural conditions of intrusive power of
pornography were closely connected to capital and homo-sociality. As the socio cultural
norms of construing women as a social entity were changing rapidly the lack of regulatory
mechanisms was perceived and reflected upon. Consequently, pornography was constituted
as an expert subject and the territory for feminist activism in pro-regulatory part of the
Slovenian feminist scene. With the financial support of the British and Dutch embassies and
by means of the campaign for the regulation of pornography we succeeded to become part of
regulatory processes in Slovenia. We created the unique feminist expert platform which still
has no rival in the state.

THE CONFRONTATION WITH THE DOMINANT LIBERAL IDEOLOGY SUPPORTING


PORN

In the argumentation for the effective regulation of porn it was necessary to confront the
prevailing, mainstream neo-liberal think-tank. We came across the dominant dichotomies,
which were exposed in the previous media debates on porn and the so called erotica: public /
private, free-speech / censure, porn & “erotica” as sexually liberating / porn & “erotica” as
gender discriminatory practice; these dichotomies were mostly interpreted in the capitalist
liberal way of thinking and arguing. Besides confronting these capitalist liberal views with
introducing new perspectives and arguments, we strategically confronted some other topoi of
domineering public opinion. For example, we opposed the idea of porn being indefinable -
and opposed the implicit thesis of public debate that porn liberates women’s sexuality and
homosexuality.

The feminist pro-regulative argumentations consisted of a few basic theses, supported by the
reflections on pornography of different feminist thinkers, social psychologists - researchers
and social & cultural theorists (C. MacKinnon, A. Dworkin, S. Easton, D. E. H. Russell, C.
Itzin, B. Brown, D. Zillman, J. VP. Check, J. Baudrillard, F. Jameson). Besides, the legislative
and other normative systems were studied, especially Canadian and EU TWF directive.

The main theses were as follows:

• pornography is defined by its genre characteristics, which also include the way of
production, dissemination and consumption;

• porn conceptualized as genre cannot be equated with other sexually explicit cultural
forms of human expression;
• “erotica” has many differentiated meanings. When the notion is used in the context of
pornographic relations it usually blurs the picture; the proliferations of pornography
are much better addressed if conceptualized as porno-chic;1

• porn constructs women through multiplied discriminatory discourses and is considered


a socially harmful performative speech; its voluntary or non-voluntary consumption
cannot be regarded as exchange of phantasms as it is sexual practice. It is gender
discriminatory, because it is ideologically based on the traditional gender roles – and
they themselves are rooted in unequal power relations between men and women.
Pornography is often connected to criminal acts in production, dissemination and
consumption and in such cases it most brutally recycles the dominant power and
capital relations. The violence of pornographic & gender power relations is reflected
also in porno-chic;

• according to EU directive2 pornography is to be to regulated from the protection of


minors perspective. We stated that discourse of gender equality should be implied
in the protection of minors discourse, because democratic socialisation of minors
includes gender sensitive cultural norms;

• the interpretation of regulative mechanism as being constitutive of (repressive)


censorship is ideological as regulation governs only the dissemination and not the
production; it is the way to improve the unequal power relations in regard to access to
the public speech sphere;

• the regulation does not prevent pornophiles and others, when they want it, from
consumption - so individual rights to free expression, agency and sexual privacy are
not encroached as far as the rights of others to personal integrity and equality are
observed;3

• the conceptualization of pornography as sexually liberating is misleading as its


mainstream forms are based on repressive gender roles; the porn for women is
marginal and prevailingly based on essentialism; the percentage of non-typical,
1
The idea derived from two sources: the conceptualisation of »erotica« and “porn” in the
Canadian legislation (R. v. Wagner, 1985 & Butler v. Regina, 1992) and the re-naming of
“erotica” into porno-chic by the French porno starlet Ovidie, cf. Porno manifesto (2002).
2
Television Without Frontier directive was renamed in Audiovisual Media Services
directive in 2007.
3
The human rights approach and the related social and individual harm were reflected in
the context of classical liberal thought of J. S. Mill and his essay On liberty (1858).
marginal constructions of gender roles in porn and porno-chic is extremely low; also
gay porno-chick mostly implies traditional ”feminine” and “masculine” positions in
sexuality; the lesbian porn is constructed so that it serves men’s sexual phantasms;

• as regards ICT product and services and active role of women in creating porno-chic
– the power of providers’ invitations and thus active pornification of women and girls
cannot be neglected; besides, girls’ and young women’s social opportunities are often
reduced, and to invest their bodies and sexuality often appears to them as a way to
social achievement;

• as it was previously mentioned, the right to free speech should be considered in the
context of power relations: pornographic discourse confirms the right to free speech /
expression of those who already have the power to subject those who are marginalized
and do not have simple access to media and cultural productions.

UPGRADING THE FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY ON PORN

The knowledge, which was obtained to provide the arguments in the pro-regulation campaign
was upgraded at the academic level, by means of the monograph on porn and various
scientific and expert articles. Two important issues were addressed. First, the
conceptualization of feminist subjectivation through active citizenship in pro-regulative
feminist campaigning. The basic notion of pro-regulatory feminist subjectivation was derived
from F. Guattari and G. Deleuse and has already been used in the feminist theory by R.
Braidotti. “Becoming-women” is more a feeling and poetry than a theoretical concept – it is a
vehicle for transferring the well managed pathos of a socially engaged woman. Second, the
other issue which was studied is the problem of social / moral majority. On the basis of the
“majoritanism”, conceptualized by J. S. Mill, and his text On liberty, it was stated that in
contemporary porn relations the majority does not consist of the right-wing puritans but of
the new capitalist liberals, performing in the interest of capital. Further on, another topic has
been studied. It is connected to the ideology of free choice of the women and girls who take
part in the production of porn and porno-chick. The thesis of new liberal slavery of women
and children to capital in porn relations was elaborated. The illusion of free choice is
embedded in the neo-liberal ideology, which makes the individual responsible for his or her
life and destiny. This is the way to avoid problematising the social conditions of the
individual life course. To get aware of or study the latter is much more difficult and
demanding than to think of personal characteristics and behaviours as the cause of success,
failure and social status. This is true on both levels – individual and social. The mechanisms
of creating “personal causality” in the individual mind were analysed by the French researcher
Jean Léon Beauvois. Basically, he claims that epistemological processes in an individual and
society are dependent on the governance, and that the neo-liberal concept of “freedom” is just
another ideological construction. It is obvious that in the case of the pornographic relation
freedom of choice turns out to be very poor as one cannot avoid pornographisation, and the
easiest way for the girl or women to attract attention is to pornographize herself. It should be
stressed that pornographisation of individual sexuality occurs in the continuum of
pornographised selves. We all are engaged in it to different degree as porn creates dominant
norms of sexual imagination and behaviour.

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