Pornography and violence, from today to tomorrow

The debate around pornography and its legality is old within feminisms.

The

refer to the confrontation that took place in the eighties of the last century within the feminist movement around the sexuality of women and their representation, mainly in the United States.

This dispute produced a gap that has now become a split, also in Spain.

Following Robin Morgan's slogan, "pornography is the theory, rape is the practice," abolitionist feminists understand pornography to be propaganda for misogyny and sexual violence against "all" women, as well as a commodification of sexuality. rape.

On the contrary, the members of

in Camile Paglia terminology, understand porn as a useful tool to dismantle the repressive patriarchal mandates of women's sexuality.

American abolitionist feminism, represented by authors such as Andrea Dworkin or Catharine MacKinnon, defended the thesis that pornography is not representation, but a sexual reality in itself, since it not only symbolizes women as an object of male sexual use, but also it makes such an object of it.

Consequently, the damage that pornography produces is not limited to actresses, but is a group damage to all women, whom it disempowers and dehumanizes, defining them as subjects to be dominated.

For all these reasons, it must be legally prohibited.

In Spain, similar theses are defended today by classic feminists such as Amelia Valcárcel, Rosa Cobo or Ana de Miguel, as well as a large number of academics from more than 25 universities grouped in the Academic Network of Studies on Prostitution and Pornography.

They argue that pornography is hate speech against women, that there is a link between pornography and violence against women, and demand its abolition for building hegemonic male sexual desire and thus encouraging sexual violence.

porn

offers a narrative model that places women in a place of degradation and mere submission to male pleasure.

Digital pornography is radically different, even from the pornographic films of the Golden Age of Porn, such as

or

, many of which had a strong countercultural character.

PornHub materials perpetuate gender inequality.

However, they forget something important: porn, no matter how violent and degrading it may be for the woman, is freedom of expression for those who create it, and it is the right to sexual self-determination of the adult consumer.

Fundamental rights, both, that cannot be restricted in a rule of law except when there is a clear, real and imminent risk of damage to other constitutionally protected rights and/or assets.

In favor of the abolitionist theses, there are some studies that defend that the consumption of certain types of pornography, mainly

, affects the attitude and disposition of certain men in ways that could harm women.

But the majority of studies defend that pornography is integrated into more general sexist processes existing in society, so that the culture of violence would not radiate from it, but rather it would be its reflection;

and that the alleged causal link does not exist.

In addition, the weak point that makes the abolitionist theses of the causal link vulnerable lies in the fact that they ignore the ability of adults to distinguish between reality and fiction.

Well, to assume that the consumption of violent pornography by men leads to an increase in sexual violence against women, is as much as to affirm that the viewing of

films implies a real risk of an increase in murders.

I also understand that these theses are based on a dangerous and stigmatizing presumption: that of the potentially violent nature of men and the victimizing role of women.

And it is precisely the maturity presumably inherent to the age of majority that prevents establishing a causal link between the consumption of pornography and violence against women when we talk about adults, and makes it possible to do so, emphatically, when it comes to people whose volitional development , psychological and cognitive is in process.

Therein lies the real challenge facing the public authorities: access control and affective-sexual education of adolescents whose sexual imaginary is being built through digital-porn.

Let's not divert the focus.

Ana Valero Heredia

is a professor of Constitutional Law at UCLM and author of the book

, (Athenaica) and principal investigator of the Project

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