In the maelstrom of anti-pornography hysteria, liberal feminism often provides the few voices of sanity heard above the storm. Liberal organizations like Feminists for Free Expression (FFE) have consistently and courageously stood up against measures like the Victims of Pornography Compensation Act, and for sexual expression. Some liberal feminists like Nadine Strossen have been staunch and tireless in their defense of freedom of speech. It is difficult to imagine better companions in the fight for sexual choice.

Other liberals seem to have forgotten their roots and are now willing to sacrifice free speech for the greater good of protecting women from pornography.

There is a growing schism within liberal feminism, which threatens to disrupt such key liberal organizations as the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

What are the arguments that are causing such turmoil in liberal ranks?

In general, liberal feminists offer three types of arguments against censoring pornography: Freedom of speech is a necessary condition for human freedom; the suppression of pornography will hurt women (in the several ways presented below); and, pornography offers certain benefits to women.

Let us examine the first two arguments. The third will be discussed in the following chapter.

Freedom of speech is a necessary condition for human freedom. This argument says little about women's relationship to pornography, except in the most general sense. Even feminists who believe porn degrades and humiliates women sometimes argue against censorship as the greater threat. These are the feminists who say: As a woman I am appalled by Playboy... but as a writer I understand the need for free speech.

Such feminists are not pro-pornography. They are anticensorship. They argue on several grounds: Great works of art and literature would be banned; the First Amendment would be breached; political expression would be suppressed; and a creative culture requires freedom of speech.

The suppression of pornography will hurt women. This argument specifically addresses the relationship of women to pornography. But, again, it is not so much a defense of pornography as it is an attack on censorship. Liberal feminists point to the real problems involved in implementing the antipornography program. Among the insightful questions they ask are:

Who Will Act as Censor?

"It is not clear whether Andrea Dworkin or Catharine MacKinnon would classify homoerotic photographs or films as 'pornography.' Although their model law defines `pornography' as the `sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words,' it expressly stipulates that even images of men could be interpreted as portraying the subordination of women." [1]

The state that banned Margaret Sanger because she used the words syphilis and gonorrhea is no different, in principle, than the one that interprets obscenity today.

There will be nothing-not even the paper shield of the First Amendment-to stand between the state and feminist literature. There will be no protection even for the feminist classics such as Our Bodies, Ourselves, which provided a generation of women with a explicit glimpse of their own sexuality.

Inevitably, censorship will be used against the least popular views, against the weakest members of society-including feminists and lesbians. When the Canadian Supreme Court decided (1992) to protect women by restricting the importation of pornography, one of the first targets was a lesbian/gay bookstore named Glad Day Bookstore, which had been on a police "hit list." Canadian officials also targeted university and radical bookstores. Among the books seized by Canadian customs were two books by Andrea Dworkin: Pornography: Men Possessing Women and Women Hating.

Even narrowing the definition of pornography to include only the depiction of explicit violence would not protect feminist works. It would not, for example, protect Susan Brownmiller's pivotal Against Our Will, which offers a "history" of rape, complete with graphic detail. Nor. would it exempt Kate Millett's The Basement, a novel-chronicle of sexual torture.

Doesn't the Anti-Pornography Crusade Perpetuate the Myth of Women as Victims?

Refusing to acknowledge the contracts of women in pornography places them in the same legal category as children or mental incompetents. In Indianapolis, the anti-pornography ordinance argued that women, like children, needed special protection under the law:

"Children are incapable of consenting to engage in pornographic conduct.... By the same token, the physical and psychological well-being of women ought to be afforded comparable protection, for the coercive environment ... vitiates any notion that they consent or `choose' to perform in pornography." [2]

This attitude of "I'm a helpless victim" could easily backfire on women who may be required to prove they are able to manage their own finances, or to handle custody of their own children. Moreover, the idea of men "emotionally or verbally coercing" women re-enforces the concept of men as intellectually and psychologically stronger than women. It is the old "Man of Steel/ Woman of Kleenex" myth.

Who Will Protect Women from the Anti-Feminist Conservatives, with Whom Radical Feminists Are Aligning?

This alliance may be a tragic mistake for women's rights. With tragic results. Feminists are lending credibility and power to organizations, which will turn on a dime against them.

Feminists used to address the complex network of cultural, political, and biological factors that contributed to the real issues confronting women. Now the beginning and ending of all discussion seems to be the specter of patriarchy-of white male culture in league with capitalism. Pornography is merely one aspect of this single-minded assault. Radical feminist analysis is imposed on all forms of women's sexuality, including childbirth.

Consider the furor that is brewing around the New Reproductive Technologies (NRTs), which have been called "the pornography of pregnancy." These technologies-which include in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, and embryo transfer are behind the recent news stories announcing that sixty-year old women are giving birth. Men have always been able to become parents at sixty; that door has just opened for women.

The NRTs raise many questions of medical and genetic ethics, including how to redefine the family, what of population control; and what of world hunger. For radical feminists, however, there is but one issue. Medical science and technology are the products of white male culture, which oppresses women; therefore, the NRTs are medicalized terror conducted against women.

(Interestingly enough, the women who clamor for such medical procedures are dismissed in the same manner as women in pornography: namely, they are said to be brainwashed and no longer capable of true consent.)

Patriarchy seems to be blamed for everything from sexual harassment to stretch marks. It is a common saying: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When your ideology sounds only one note, all songs are in the same key. Increasingly, violence against women seems to be linked almost attributed to one source: pornography. This is not an opening up of feminist theory and consciousness; it is a closing down.

Doesn't Blaming Pornography Exonerate Rapists?

To blame words or images for the actions of people is simplistic. It retards any real examination into what motivates violent crimes, such as rape. Radical feminists are handing a "pornography made me do it" excuse to rapists. Nothing should be allowed to mitigate the personal responsibility of every man who physically abuses a woman.

Radical feminists are allowing men to introduce "extenuating circumstances" into their defense. For example, in appealing Schiro v. Clark, [3] the defendant-a rapist-argued that in sentencing, the judge had failed to take into account his consumption of "rape" pornography. Fortunately, his argument fell deservedly flat.

Censorship removes the evidence of women's oppression and limits their ability to learn from it. For example, if it had been up to Comstock and his nineteenth-century censorship drive, no evidence of the fledgling birth control movement would have survived. The record of this struggle survives only because individuals preserved periodicals and pamphlets, which were archived decades later by universities and historical societies.

How much lesbian history will be available if censorship prevails?

Those liberals who defend pornography do not generally address the ideological underpinnings of the onslaught against it. They continue to view anti-porn feminists as fellow travelers, instead of seeing them as dangerous companions.

One reason for this is that liberal feminists share many of the ideological assumptions underlying the radical feminist attack. For example, both liberal and radical feminists condemn the free market for making a profit by using women as "body parts." Both believe that the commercialization of sex demeans women. In an essay meant to defend the rights of pornographers, Lisa Steel comments: "Sexist representation of women ... is all part of the same system that, in the service of profits, reduces society to `consumer groups.' And marketing is every bit as conservative as the military ... we pay dearly for the `rights' of a few to make profits from the rest Of us." [4]

Is this a defense or an attack?

By this definition, what isn't pornography? What can't be interpreted as an imbalance of power? Since almost every sexual presentation is capable of causing psychological harm to someone, almost every presentation can be considered pornographic. Pornography needs stauncher advocates. Fortunately, it has them.