Academic

Is this blogger clueless about pornography? Or a lying PR flack for the porn industry?

By Ann Bartow

Here is an excerpt from this post at Jezebel:

Say what you will about pornography, objectification and exploitation, the growing legitimization of the pornography industry ? which led to much more government- and self-regulation ? also led to a significant decrease in the kind of exploitation described by those performers as well as increased opportunities for women to participate in the higher-earning aspects of the production.

Where to even start. Self regulation? Government regulation? Who? What? Where? How? Why? She offers not a shred of evidence and, assuming the problem is cluelessness, she clearly needs to read this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And this. And she should watch this, and the podcasts linked here.

A DECREASE in the exploitation of performers? Is she kidding? Notice how she doesn’t support any of these egregiously incorrect assertions with any actual links? It’s because she can’t. With the exception of efforts aimed at preventing child pornography, porn production may be the least regulated industry in the nation. See e.g. this. And she needs to read the first chapter of the late David Foster Wallace?s book, Consider the Lobster, which is about the adult film industry circa 1997. Within it Wallace observes:

The thing to recognize is that the adult industry?s new respectability creates a paradox. The more acceptable in modern culture it becomes, the farther porn will have to go in order to preserve the sense of unacceptability that?s so essential to its appeal?. Whether or not it ever actually gets there, it?s clear that the real horizon late-90?s porn is heading towards is the Snuff Film. It?s also clear, with all moral and cultural issues totally aside, that this is an extremely dangerous direction for the adult-film industry to have to keep moving in.

–Ann Bartow

Full post as published by Feminist Law Professors on September 17, 2008 (boomark / email).