BY ALISON DELLIT
The debate between Joyce Wu (GLW #457: "Labor left in bed with the sex industry") and Lev Lafayette and Anthony Leong (GLW #458: "The sex industry: Socialism or censorship?") has raised an important question: is the sex industry sexist?
The debate began over Wu's criticism of the Victorian Labor left's decision to invite two members of the Eros Foundation to speak on the topic of civil liberties and freedom at a July 1 conference in Melbourne. No representative of any feminist organisation was invited to speak.
The Eros Foundation was formed in 1992 by Fiona Patten. A left-wing sex-worker activist, Patten was involved in Workers in Sex Employment. WISE campaigned for safe working conditions for sex workers, including actively promoting non-violent, "woman-friendly" pornography. An openly feminist organisation, WISE was involved in supporting International Women's Day activities in Canberra.
At the time of its founding, the Eros Foundation sought to represent the "woman-friendly" elements of the sex industry. Clearly, some of those still involved in the foundation (Patten is not) still believe in transforming the sex industry into a feminist industry. However, the membership, web site and activity of the foundation indicate a very different perspective.
According to its web site, the Eros Foundation is "Australia's adult goods and services industry association". It represents "nearly 70 per cent of the legal adult industry in Australia". It aims to "seek rational law reform of the sex industry". Clicking on the link to the first member site takes you straight into the revolting world of internet pornography.
The porn business is one of the highest-grossing industries in the world. The images of women that it promotes replay all the worst sexist stereotypes.
Starting from the Eros web site, a 20-minute browse through the "adult" sites on the net reveals literally thousands of pictures of women. The vast majority of these women appear, in the words of anti-censorship writer Colleen Devlin, "with their feet raised improbably over their heads, and facial expressions suggesting they've either been jabbed with a cattle prod or slapped up the side of the head".
The words "bitch", "slut" and "tramp" occur continuously. Outside of "speciality" sites, the women have impossibly large breasts for their tiny waists.
The constant use of denigrating terms and imagery condemn women because they are sexual. Worse, it often implies that it is okay to coerce women into sex — pornography abounds with stories of women being coerced into sex only then to "get off" on it.
These women are portrayed as helpless, available and primarily interested in men's pleasure. Full male bodies are rare, but penises abound. The penis is always the object, the women the subject, of the picture. She gives pleasure to it.
Of course, "woman-friendly" erotica is available (and mostly free). It exists in a separate universe to the "we-can-make-you-cum-in-five-minutes" world. But it is a teardrop in an ocean of sexist crap.
The transformation of the Eros Foundation into a lobbying body for one of the most sexist industries around is not surprising, because — as the recent demise of Australia's main soft-porn magazine for women, Australian Women's Forum, indicates — the money is in selling sexism to men, not in arousing women.
This is why Lafayette's and Leong's obtusely worded and theoretically impoverished excuse for "class analysis" in GLW #458 is fundamentally flawed.
In justifying the decision to ask representatives of the sex industry to speak, Lafayette and Leong attempt to present an argument that pornography has nothing to do with sexism. (They do not explain why, if the only oppression involved is class oppression, they did not approach a representative of a sex worker organisation to speak, rather than an industry body.)
This rather stupendous feat of reasoning is achieved by arguing that while capitalism creates sex workers, it does not create the demand for them.
So, Lafayette and Leong say "capitalism can lead to a situation where women and men, due to — and only due to — their proletarian status (i.e., they own nothing but their own labour) are forced as a matter of sheer survival to sell their own bodies in sexual servitude in whatever legal or illegal markets exist" (emphasis added - AD).
Admitting that there are "gross structural distortions of female representation" — i.e., more women than men are depicted in porn and work as prostitutes — in the original, unabridged version of the article (available at <http://www.angelfire.com/zine/laborleft/response.html>), Leong and Lafayette go on to say this is due to "an imbalance in proprietorship, workers' rights and a lack of economic democracy, not to any innate characteristic of erotica itself".
The analysis that women workers predominate in porn because they have less economic power to avoid unpleasant work is one of the silliest things I have ever read. It completely denies the existence of sexist ideas and the gender-based oppression of women.
The portrayal of women in mainstream pornography — existing to serve male pleasure and being "bad", "nasty" or "naughty" — are not separate to general sexist stereotypes of women. These stereotypes exist because they support, and are supported by, the economic oppression that women as a sex experience under capitalism.
Capitalist society is structured into family units. Within the vast majority of these, women take responsibility for the care of children, men and the elderly. They cook, clean and nurture for no pay.
This situation is justified by bucket loads of sexist propaganda, which argues that women naturally like pleasing others (particularly men) and that they are weak and unhappy without intimate relationships with men.
Sexist propaganda also divides women into two groups — "good" women who carry out their assigned function within the family unit (and who certainly don't endanger the family by extra-marital sexual activity) and "bad" women who are available for sexual recreation when the "good" women are unwilling, or not desirable.
Expressions of female sexuality which challenge the ideological justifications for the family unit — lesbianism or extra-marital sex, for example — automatically qualify the women who engage in them as "bad".
This propaganda distorts the way women are viewed. It is reflected in Hollywood films, in advertising, in historical documentaries and most especially in the sex industry.
But the sex industry does differ from other industries which use sexist imagery, because it is based upon capitalism's commodification of women's sexuality.
The sex industry provides sexual pleasure for men in a way that does not disrupt the stability of the family unit. Paid-for sexual gratification does not produce children that have a claim upon the father, it does not involve emotional or social ties that might disrupt domestic harmony and it does not involve a long-term commitment.
That is the reason why the vast majority of sex workers are women, and the vast majority of "consumers" are men.
The industry built upon men paying for sexual gratification does not just reflect sexist ideas — it is sexist to its core. It is based upon women giving pleasure to men in order to earn the right to eat, look after their children, or simply pay the mortgage. This is why the vast majority of the world's sex workers have been forced into this work — economically or physically.
This is why "woman-friendly" commercialised sexually explicit material does not make much money — because the social basis for commercialised sexual services for women does not exist. Women are not taught to view sexuality as separate from intimate relationships.
Contrary to Lafayette's and Leong's assertion, a feminist analysis of pornography does not inevitably lead to support for "total censorship of actual or implied social expression".
In fact, nothing could be more useless. The sexism of pornography and the sex industry is based in the institutionalised inequality between men and women — an inequality which is maintained by capitalist governments. To ask such governments to ban sexually explicit material is like asking the wolf to guard the sheep from each other — a mistake radical feminists like Catherine MacKinnon have made only to see sexually explicit feminist material banned before sexist pornography.
An objection to commercialised sexual relations is also not the same as an objection to sexual imagery or to freedom of sexual expression — a distinction which is often blurred by the sex industry in order to win civil liberties allies.
Nor should feminists support attempts to ban prostitution. Understanding that sex work is not a feminist activity is not the same as regarding sex workers as too helpless to help themselves. Feminists should support attempts by sex workers to exert control over their work environment and remove laws forcing them into illegality.
While Lafayette's and Leong's assertion that the sex industry will whither away as all division of labour disappears is reassuring, it does nothing to promote non-sexist sexual expression.
The full liberation of human sexuality must include the liberation of women's sexuality. This can only be achieved with the defeat of all aspects of sexism and the economic, political and social restrictions that are placed upon women.
This will not come from the sex industry, anymore than it will come from the Christian pro-censorship right. It will come through struggle and organisation led by those oppressed by sexism, and the mobilisation of all those who support their struggle.
This movement for liberation will result in many and varied forms of human sexual expression — but I bet it won't include emails from "Cindy" offering to show me her humongous tits.