Article: 5934 of soc.feminism From: kowan@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Rich Cowan) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Effects of Porn at MIT (Re: Someone Convince Me) Date: 12 Jan 1993 19:23:20 GMT Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab Lines: 182 Sender: muffy@mica.berkeley.edu (Muffy Barkocy) Approved: muffy@mica.berkeley.edu Message-ID: <1iv5r8$a44@agate.berkeley.edu> Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu Maybe this article may help. Keep in mind that I am talking about pornography in the form in which it now exists, in a society where men have more power than women. [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 theme of this special issue (Volume 2, #1) is Masculinity and War/ Feminism and Non-Violence. For a sample issue, please send $3 to University Conversion Project, Box 748, Cambridge, MA 02142. To subscribe, please send $25/yr. Or call (617) 354-9363 for more information.] 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. 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. 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. Men in the films have lifelike characters, 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. 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. 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. 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. 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." Multiply that small percentage by 2,000 viewers and you have an increase of 40-80 date-rapists, each likely to commit more than one rape while a student. Consider that the violence is likely to be focused on the women who best fit the physical ideals depicted in pornographic films. And finally, consider the implicit sanction of showing these movies as a kickoff ritual each semester, before incoming students attend their very first class. 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. 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. 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. 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). 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. 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. The net result is that pornography is shown less frequently, but the MIT administration leaves it to the victims to object to public screenings. 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." 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. Campus peace activists can help by educating ourselves about violence against women and its relationship to pornography. We can advocate stronger sexual harassment and pornography policies and help to enforce policies the school administration is unwilling to support. We can ask men and women who desire healthy relationships to consider pornography's role in cultivating inaccurate assumptions by men about what women want. We can encourage men to take responsibility for their violent behavior and encourage women to assert their right to not be harrassed or raped. With our help, this burden need not fall entirely on the shoulders of sexism's victims. <1> Knapp, Caroline, "Open Season on Women," Boston Phoenix, August 6, 1992. <2>Interview by the Author, July 1992. <3>Interview by the Author, August 17, 1992. o Suggested Action: Provoke a debate about pornography on your campus to obtain quotes from defenders who trivialize concerns about sexual harassment and rape. 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. 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). -- Post articles to soc.feminism, or send email to feminism@ncar.ucar.edu. Questions and comments should be sent to feminism-request@ncar.ucar.edu. 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