Screw the feminists who are trying to ban porn!

by Cathy Reisenwitz

UK feminist groups Feminista and Object have begun a campaign to force retailers to stop selling magazines with images of naked and semi-naked women, using the Equality Act of 2010. This is bad news for sex-positive, individualist feminists for two reasons. First, it’s extremely off-putting from an outreach perspective. Second, it actually endangers individual liberty.

Look, porn is a mixed blessing. Where porn is prevalent, rates of violence against women fall. It may reinforce objectification of women. And its proliferation has wilted many an erection for real-life, unairbrushed and un-extreme partners.

There is a strong anti-porn movement in the United States as well. Catherine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin have led the charge against porn since the 1980s, and their supporters are still holding strong. But the thing about the First Amendment is that it’s not really supposed to be subject to our own personal, mercurial feels about things like porn.

Now, the UK doesn’t have the same kind of speech protection we enjoy in the United States. We have spent many-a-long year attempting to decide what counts as “obscenity”—which is the kind of speech governments can regulate—and what just counts as pornography—which they can’t. After a long time fighting about it, the Supreme Court came up with the following guidelines for what counts as obscene:

Cathy Reisenwitz is a D.C.-based writer and political commentator. She runs Sex and the State and writes regularly for Doublethink magazine as well as Thoughts on Liberty. When not fighting the state, she reads girl blogs, tech blogs, politics blogs and career blogs. She loves non-fiction books (currently on a positive psychology kick). And she spends a good chunk of time at Gold’s Gym.