From: dan@cubmol.bio.columbia.edu (Daniel Zabetakis)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Effects of Porn at MIT (Re: Someone Convince Me)
Date: 13 Jan 1993 00:25:55 GMT
Organization: Columbia University, Dept. of Biological Sciences.
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <1iv5r8$a44@agate.berkeley.edu> kowan@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Rich Cowan) writes:
>
>[The following article is reprinted from the September 1992 issue of 
>the War Research Info Service, a quarterly newsletter for campus 
>peace activists (Copyright 1992, University Conversion Project).  The 

   Well, it certainly is up to the standards of campus publications
dealing with pornography. Perhaps the fact that it is a campus pub should
keep me from filleting it, but I haven't had a good pornography argument
in about 5 months. :-)
>
>
>The Challenge to Pornography at MIT
>By Rich Cowan
>
>	For about 10 years from the mid 1970s to the early 1980s, the 
>student movie committee at the Massachusetts Institute of 
>Technology had a tradition of showing a hard core pornographic 
>movie every semester at registration day.  The "Registration Day 
>Movie" always attracted over 2000 people -- half the student body 
>and two to three times the regular movie attendance.  Like most 
>other people on my undergraduate dorm floor, I paid a dollar to 
>attend these films.
>	As MIT's female population rose above the 20% figure and 
>women became more organized and vocal, this tradition came under 
>attack.  In a polarized campus debate, feminists who linked 
>pornography with rape and male violence squared off with men 
>defending their "First Amendment" freedom to show and view X-
>rated films.
>
>A Scientific Debate?
>	As this was MIT, the two sides invoked science to legitimate 
>their arguments.  Many men argued that there was no quantitative 
>evidence supporting a link between pornography and violence 
>against women, citing studies which linked lower rates of rape in 
>countries such as Denmark to more permissive attitudes toward 
>pornography. 

    Actually, the study in question (I assume you are reffering to 
Kutchinsky's work in the early 70's) showed a decrease in sex crimes
in Denmark following the legalization of pornography. It is more specific
and less nebulous than "permissive attitudes". The effect observed was
quite strong.

> Women quoted other studies, pointing out that much 
>of the research supporting "adult" films is  either funded by the 
>pornography industry or focuses on a narrow issue while ignoring 
>the larger problem.

    How is this invoking science? Attacking the funding agency rather than
the work is specifically wrong in an academic debate. I don't believe it
anyway. Do you have a reference for this? Is there anyone who claims that
the work of Kutchincky or others was funded by the porn industry?

>	Women also rasied important qualitative arguments against 
>pornography.  First, the depiction of sex in pornographic films is 
>hardly neutral:  most films are designed for heterosexual male 
>viewers who like watching women serve men.

    Where do you come up with this????  I wouldn't have any problem with
the statment that most porn is aimed at a male audience. That is almost too
obvious to mention. Where do you get "like watching women server men"? I
haven't seen any study that uses such a term.

>  Men in the films have 
>lifelike characters,

    This is laughable. Porn films are famous for haveing _no_ plot and
_no_ characterization. If you've come to this conclusion after actually
watching porn movies, I can only conclude that you saw what you wanted
to see.

> while women are shown as dependent and 
>compliant, often learning to "enjoy" abuse.  In the worst of these 
>films, the abuse takes the form of violence that serves as 
>"entertainment" for men. 

    It is a funny thing, but this type of article can often be identified
by the use of quotes around words like "entertainment". As if the author
didn't want to dirty the word by actually using it in an article about
pornography.
   As far as violence goes, R-rated films are known to contain more and
more severe depictions than porn movies. Try Psychological Reports, August
1991, V69 n1 p239-40. (That might not be the right reference, e-mail if it
isn't and you care).

> Given the level of violence against women 
>in our society, the violent films may actually be quite realistic.  
>Violence is a common tool used by rapists, batterers, and adult 
>filmmakers to enforce women's compliance.

   Hey, that's very good. You got "rapists" and "adult filmakers" in the
same sentance. 100 points. Any proof that force is commonly used in the
making of porn movies? At the risk of starting the "can sex workers consent"
thread, I will point out that a good porn actress can make about $3500 per
day.

>  According to Alan 
>Rosenbaum, a psychologist who counsels batterers at UMass Medical 
>Center, "violence is a way of saying, 'You're going to be who I want 
>you to be or I'm going to kill you.'"1  Pornography is one way that 
>society conditions men to want women to be something they are not.

    Porngraphy shows women and men having sex. People _do_ have sex. I
don't see where "something they are not" come into it. If you suggesting
that porn in general shows a perverted view of sexuality, then that is
a theme that needs more development.

>	Men often responded, "I watch pornography and I'm not a 
>rapist."  But existence as proof is bad science.  Studies that measure 
>tiny effects on individual male consumers of pornography may be 
>blind to the net impact on each female victim. 

   Does this mean anything?
    I'm pretty sure that existence as proof is very very good science.
If you line up porn viewers in two group, rapists and non-rapists, you
would have a very very large group of non-rapists. To maintain that claim
that porn causes sex crimes will no require so fancy footwork.

>	It may well be true that individual male MIT students were 
>only 2-4% more likely to commit date-rape after seeing several 
>pornographic films, an increase that is "scientifically insignificant."  

   Someone else already caught this. If you repeat the experiment, you
are likely to find that the sample is 2-4% less likely to commit rape.
Would you then advocate forced viewing of porn movies?
    BTW, are you citing a real study at MIT?

[rest deleted]

>
>Documenting the Effects
>	MIT's mass screenings of pornography produced plenty of 
>home grown data on its effects on women.  After each registration 
>day movie let out, women were accosted by bands of leering men.  
>Female victims of child sexual abuse had flashbacks.  Widely 
>acknowledged forms of sexism at MIT, in which male professors, 
>students and research colleagues tend to ignore women, stare at 
>them, or fail to treat them as serious scientists, seemed to worsen 
>after the showings.

>	Feminists documented these incidents, lobbied the ad-
>ministration, and considered taking legal action against MIT.  The 
>controversy peaked in 1983 when the student movie committee 
>planned to show Deep Throat.  The MIT administration, facing legal 
>threats on both sides, cancelled the showing and attempted a 
>compromise, establishing a screening committee and pornography 
>policy which prohibited the showing of the most sexist and 
>unrealistic films. 

    Let me get this right. MIT has a committee that rates porn movies
on thier sexism and realism? That's a lark.

>	For several semesters in 1983-4, the administration substi-
>tuted films such as "Rated X", on the negative impacts of 
>pornography, for the registration day movie.  Typically such a film 
>would attract 30 feminists; in this situation, it drew 400 mainstream 
>MIT students as well.

    So the effect was to loose 1600 attendees? Doesn't sound like a 
good policy from the point of view of campus traditions. Couldn't they
have showed both? BTW, what was wrong with Deep Throat?

>	These controversies changed the opinions of myself and many 
>others on pornography.  The student movie committee was 
>persuaded to eliminate the registration day tradition, and showings 
>of pornography using MIT public space such as dormitory lounges 
>were prohibited by the MIT administration.

    It seems that MIT has bought into the censors paradox in a major way.
I assume that MIT now takes responsibility for everything shown in public
spaces. And any group can have anything banned merely by claiming
offensivness. Not perhaps the best scheme.

>
>The Power to Decide
>	Activists at MIT did not lay all their hopes in the school's 
>prohibition.  Due to the widespread availability of hard-core videos 
>and the belief on campus and in the courts that pornography is 
>protected by the First Amendment, campus bans on public showing 
>of pornography are unlikely to be obeyed or enforced.  As attitudes 
>toward pornography are only beginning to change, continued 
>pressure is necessary.
>	In 1988, undergraduate Adam Dershowitz showed the movie 
>Deep Throat on campus to a group of about 50 students in a 
>dormitory lounge.  The MIT administration did not stop it, fearing 
>legal action by Harvard law professor and Penthouse columnist Alan 
>Dershowitz (Adam's uncle). 

    They probably realized what thin legal ground they were treading
on.

> Activists responded by taking direct 
>action.  A dozen women and a few men leafletted the audience, and 
>then interrupted the movie, cutting the cord of the movie projector.   
>The action was successful in substituting a constructive discussion of 
>the severity of both actions for an endless debate on how (and 
>whether) the MIT administration should define pornography.

   I am shocked, shocked I say! that anyone could call interrupting 
an event and disableling equipment "constructive discussion".

>	With a Supreme Court influenced by the religious right, one 
>might think that bans on pornography would be welcomed by the 
>legal system.  The problem is that current law allows only certain 
>types of "community standards" to determine what is obscene.  
>According to MIT Women's Studies lecturer Ann Russo, MIT's policies 
>are more likely to be overturned because they "focus on 
>victimization of women."2  Standards which focused on the display of 
>genitals or homosexual acts would fare better in the courts.

   I think you need to review obscenity law a little more closely.

>	The net result is that pornography is shown less frequently, 
>but the MIT administration leaves it to the victims to object to public 
>screenings.

    Don't believe for a second that the events you have described have
had an influence on consumption of pornography. And you shouldn't use
the word "victim" to describe people who don't like porn. I doesn't help
your argument.

 > Says Russo, "people are afraid to bring it up because it 
>creates havoc in their lives."  MIT women who have criticized the 
>screening of pornography have been "silenced" by hostility, 
>intimidation, and harassment.  Some have had to move to other 
>dormitories or even transfer to another school.
>	Rather than advocate bans, many activists feel it is more 
>practical given the current climate to work on strengthening policies 
>on sexual harassment on campus.  If pornography is treated as 
>sexual harassment, suggests Russo, "someone who is harmed by the 
>showing of pornography and doesn't want it shown can have a 
>grievance."

   This is great. Now the mere existance of porn is harassment. Needs
much more development befoer I could even criticize it.

>	Even without mass screenings of X-rated films, magazines and 
>home videos have widespread campus distribution.  College 
>readership of Playboy magazine alone was 850,000 in the spring of 
>1992, according to Bill Paige, PR Manager for Playboy Enterprises.3  
>As long as sex education is restricted by right-wing fundamentalists, 
>student expectations for intimate relationships will continue to be 
>shaped by pornography.

    Since pornography shows sex, and I haven't seen any act in any
porn movie or magazine that people don't actually do in real life, 
wouldn't you expect porn to be a pretty good form of sex ed?

[...]
>
>o	Suggested Action:  Provoke a debate about pornography on 
>your campus to obtain quotes from defenders who trivialize concerns 
>about sexual harassment and rape.

    I'm always willing to have a go 'round about porn. Everyone is
invited to debate it with me, by e-mail or in soc.feminism (as long
as the moderators think it relevant), or talk.rape, or alt.politics.sex,
or even in alt.sex.movies. I even have been known to talk about it in
comp.admin.policy, and news.admin.policy.

>  Then blow up a few of these 
>quotes and juxtapose them on posters with statistics about the 
>incidence of date rape and harassment on campus and quotes from 
>men who have admitted that watching pornography affects their 
>behavior. 

    In other words, take a person's words and quote them out of context
to use them against them. Grow up.

> If you have trouble finding such quotes, you have 
>discovered part of the problem.  Two books that may help are 
>Pornography and Silence by Susan Griffin and Men and Intimacy (see 
>Masculinity, p. 13).
>
   Don't forget International Journal of Law and Psychiatry Vol 14 n1-2.
An entire issue on obscenity law. Yow.

DanZ

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