The debate by Anna Cooban and Jennifer Brown in Cherwell on whether colleges should ban internet porn from their networks was badly argued, written and informed. Both pieces rested on dubious assumptions and a naïve approach to pornography: Brown’s article misused statistics astoundingly, while Cooban’s ignored some of the most important arguments in opposition to colleges banning porn.
Firstly, Brown showed a complete failure to differentiate ethically between consensual and non-consensual scenarios. For instance, the line “I am sure few will argue that porn which depicts women being raped, put into cages or performing oral sex on a dog, is really ‘suitable’ late night viewing” did not distinguish between the two acts which are both non-consensual and illegal (rape and bestiality) which are therefore already not permitted and require no further regulation, and an act which may well be fully consensual and part of a BDSM scenario (being put into a cage). Similarly, she states that it is not right for a woman to submit to her male partner during sex, which again erases the experiences of women who enjoy consensual BDSM activities (and assuming, as is often the way, that all BDSM involves female submission and male dominance).
Secondly, I want to touch briefly on Brown’s failure to demonstrate a causal link between the viewing of porn and cosmetic surgery: the argument essentially ran: “Porn! 9843 ‘boob jobs’ in the UK this year! Therefore porn bad!” One data point is not enough even for me to warn against assuming that correlation is causation; Brown did not even demonstrate correlation, or look at all at the break-down of that statistic.
Thirdly, Cooban’s argument against banning porn brings up, rightly, the way in which it is not just porn which affects self-image, behaviour, etc. However, she ignores two significant arguments against the banning of porn by college networks. The first is the way in which it affects students who may also choose to be sex workers, cutting off valuable sources of income. I quote from an email sent to me by a sex worker and Oxford alumna, Violet Rose: “Student sex workers might face loss of earnings if fewer people could view their sites and … purposely causing loss of earnings for other students seems like a wilful lack of worker solidarity between students, which may not have been apparent to more privileged (non-working) students”. (As requested, a link to her website. Largely safe for work.)
The second is just as significant: porn filters frequently block not just pornography and erotica, but also sexual health resources, particularly those for LGBTQ people: I would suggest that it would be negligent and harmful for colleges to put porn filters in place with this in mind. LGBTQ young people who require sexual information or even just wish to explore their sexuality using porn or erotica may be negatively affected.
Finally, I need to address the assumptions made by Cooban and Brown about porn. Porn is very much a feminist issue, but I take issue with the pessimism Cooban and Brown display. Much of the porn industry is misogynistic and aimed at men. But there is a burgeoning effort by many to produce ethical porn, porn which treats women as sexual agents and is female focused, queer porn (which treats transgender people with the respect often denied them by the mainstream porn industry) and feminist porn. There is erotica, for instance, like the Hysterical Literature video series (to be found on Youtube) which focus on women’s pleasure for its own sake, as opposed to more overtly performative displays of the female orgasm. For a college to institute porn filters banning ethically produced, non misogynistically presented and overtly consensual porn means that the filters boil down to preventing – or trying to prevent – adults making an informed decision to watch other adults engage in sexual acts, which is frankly bizarre. Porn is not inherently misogynistic and dangerous.
