My collected writings on feminist critiques of contemporary mainstream pornography, and its connections to propaganda, epistemic injustice, and objectification, as well as what we should do in response if my preferred version of this kind of critique is broadly right. I've included blog posts as well as journal articles and papers, and I've arranged them loosely by topic rather than by chronological order of publication.
1. Pornography as Propaganda
'Pornography as Propaganda', The Forum blog.
'Propaganda and the Authority of Pornography' (2016), Theoria 31: 329-43. (Open access)
Abstract: Jason Stanley's How Propaganda Works characterises and explores one democratically problematic kind of propaganda, 'undermining propaganda', which involves '[a] contribution to public discourse that is presented as an embodiment of certain ideals, yet is of a kind that tends to erode those very ideals'. Stanley's model for how undermining propaganda functions is Rae Langton and Caroline West's treatment of moves in pornographic language games. However, Stanley doesn't consider whether his theory of propaganda might in turn illuminate the harmful nature of pornography, in light of the familiar contention that some pornography acts as a kind of misogynistic propaganda. Drawing on Catharine MacKinnon's writings on pornography, this paper will explore one way of developing the claim that pornography sometimes functions as undermining propaganda, in something close to Stanley's sense. Moreover, I will suggest that the discussion points to a new response to the so-called authority problem for Rae Langton's silencing argument against the protected status of pornography.
2. Pornography, Silencing, and Testimonial Injustice
'Testimonial Injustice, Pornography, and Silencing' (2019), Analytic Philosophy 60: 405-17. (Paywalled)
Abstract: In this paper, I develop two criticisms of Miranda Fricker’s attempt to offer an interpretation of MacKinnon’s claim that pornography silences women that conceives of the silencing in question as an extreme form of testimonial injustice. The intended contrast is with the speech act theoretical model of silencing familiar from Rae Langton and Jennifer Hornsby, who appeal to MacKinnon’s claim to argue against the standard liberal line on pornography, which takes a permissive stance to be demanded by a right to freedom of speech. Fricker’s alternative suggestion is that women are the victims of ‘an especially acute form of testimonial injustice’, due to the kind of dehumanizing bad sexual ideology peddled in much pornography. Fricker suggests that both notions of silencing are coherent possibilities, but that ‘the epistemic model describes the more empirically likely possibility, simply because it requires less erosion of women’s human status before the silencing effect kicks in’. I question the truth of this advertised advantage of Fricker’s epistemic account of silencing, but also its relevance to philosophical debates about pornography and silencing. Second, I raise a concern about theorizing about sexual refusal as a kind of testimony, as Fricker does.
3. Pornography and Objectification
'Objectification, Knowledge, and Pornography', Changing Attitudes in Public Discourse blog.
'Pornography and the Contrast Between Sexism and Misogyny', genderED blog.
'Epistemic Objectification in Pornography' (forthcoming), The Philosophical Quarterly. (Open access)
Abstract: This paper offers a new interpretation and defence of a familiar feminist criticism of pornography, namely that some pornography objectifies not just the women who feature in it, but women more generally. I give this claim a distinctive twist, arguing that pornography epistemically objectifies women. Drawing parallels to work on testimonial injustice by Miranda Fricker and others, I argue that women are often objectified in pornography by being represented as epistemically fungible: as interchangeable with others belonging to the same group when it comes to what one can learn from them on some topic. Focusing on pornographic films, my proposal is that some films depict the women seen performing in them as fungible with a much wider group in respect of what one can learn about their sexual preferences; this wider group of women is thereby falsely represented as relatively homogenous, rather than as individuals.
4. Philosophy as Fiction
'Blurred Lines: How Fictional is Pornography?' (2021), Philosophy Compass 16 (4): 1-13. (Pay-walled)
Abstract: Many pornographic works seem to count as works of fiction. This apparent fact has been thought to have important implications for ongoing controversies about whether some pornography carries problematic messages and so influences the attitudes (and perhaps even the behaviour) of its audience. In this study, I explore the claim that pornographic works are fictional and the significance that this claim has for these issues, with a particular focus on pornographic films. Two related morals will emerge. First, we need to pay attention not merely to whether entire pornographic works should be classified as fictional, but to the way that pornographic fictions (like fictional works more generally) have both fictional and non-fictional elements. Second, we have to understand the ways that pornographic works can blur the lines between fiction and non-fiction, misleading their audiences into taking their fictional elements to be revealing truths about non-fictional reality. In the case of pornographic films, we will examine how a pornographic fiction can be portrayed by people having sex on camera, and the ways in which this portrayal can mislead viewers about sex in the non-fictional world.
5. Addressing Pornography's Influence
'Feminist Pornography As Feminist Propaganda, and Ideological Catch-22s' (2021), in Jennifer Lackey (ed), Applied Epistemology, Oxford University Press: 283-301. (Paywalled)
Abstract: Philosophical discussions of pornography are often located within the philosophy of language, due to Rae Langton and Jennifer Hornsby’s pioneering speech-act theoretic treatments, offered with an eye towards issues concerning freedom of speech. An alternative (though not inconsistent) approach sees pornography as a topic for epistemologists; in particular, a number of philosophers have recently suggested a crucial part of what makes pornography troubling is that it acts as a kind of propaganda. However, while mainstream pornography tends to peddle a harmful, sexism sexual ideology, some feminists, including some feminist philosophers, have expressed the hope that feminist pornography could harness pornography’s persuasive force—its propagandic power to shape the attitudes, and perhaps the behaviour, of its consumers—but change the message. In this chapter, I critically examine this proposal and draw the disappointing conclusion that it is likely to fail, given the way that propaganda works.
'What Can Philosophy Contribute to 'Education to Address Pornography's Influence'?' (2022), Journal of Philosophy of Education 56 (5): 774-86. (Open access)
Abstract: Responses to the pernicious influences of mainstream pornography on its viewers fall into two main sorts: regulation and education. Pornography has long been a core topic in analytic feminist philosophy, but it has largely focused on issues around regulation, in particular with trying to undermine arguments against regulation on the grounds that pornography should count as protected speech. Here I instead look at some ways that philosophy can contribute to an education-based approach, in particular to what has been called an ‘education to address pornography's influence’. I first argue that philosophical considerations can help to motivate this kind of overall approach to countering pornography's influence, but the main contribution of the paper is to contend that such considerations can also contribute to shaping the kind of content and messaging that such an education should have. I discuss two related issues, focusing on pornographic films. The first concerns the status of pornographic films as fiction; it is misleading and unhelpful to tell teenagers and young adults that pornography is ‘just fiction’, as is sometimes proposed, but it is not clear what more effective and accurate message might be offered instead. The second concerns the ways that pornographic films often present the people (and in particular the women) who perform in them as ideals or archetypes when it comes to what kinds of sexual acts people typically choose and enjoy, which I argue is a neglected form of objectification. I briefly evaluate some suggestive examples of proposed messaging, targeted at teens and young adults.