A strange thing that something so pandemic as sexuality has come to have its public face defined by a line, and a term, 'Pornography', that is so starkly obscure. The term in itself is one of those perpetually moving feasts, like the term 'Art' meaning whatever the speaker wants it to mean - In this respect the pornographic tells us more about the nature of the voice using it, than the stuff referred to.
In this respect it is interesting to note that prior to 1864 there was no such term as pornography in the English language. The term was found to be needed by the same society that was hastily covering the legs of its furniture 'for decency's sake' and renaming geographical locations that had been forever known by unambiguous Anglo Saxon words; such as the many rivers Piss,
Snottingham (home of Robin Hood),
Uckfeild and
Effingham (Canterbury & Kent were spared through accident of dialect and spelling that obscured their origin in the 4 letter C*** word).
When we seek the voice that first used the term in English we are confronted with an edifice of puritanism that was clearly struggling against the bawdy revelry of masses that were behaving in the sensual manner that it had done for time immemorial. This was not just a difference of opinion between the church and the secular, the pious Georgian person had no difficulty pissing into a pot at the dinner table, it was about something else, it was intended to impose a moral superiority.
As anyone who has seen the film 'the french lieutenants woman' will know, the numbers of women acting as prostitutes in London at the time almost outnumbered the potential male clientele; this was a condition of economic need on the part of the women involved, one symptom of a much larger issue, poverty.
Our word was born in an attempt to win the hearts and minds of those who were starving in the richest nation on earth, the same people who were becoming visibly interested in revolution. The Victorian solution to a desperate society that it could no longer transport to the colonies, was to clamp down on it, to clamp down physically with reformed poor laws and workhouses, and to clamp down morally with a righteous fundamentalist code. The deserving poor were invented, those who were previously pitied would from now on be vilified.
So what of the word: Porno
Graphy - from '
Porne' prostitute & Graph 'writing' it combines to mean writing of prostitution, 'the writing of harlots' - It is widely considered to include the writing of and upon harlotry, the output and the observation of harlots.
We must also bear in mind that the term, when it was adopted was resonant with the similar term
Pornocracy , ' the rule of licentious women', referring specifically to the government of Rome during the 1st half of the 10
th century, an insinuation that would not have been lost on those fearing loss of social order. It will come as no surprise that the woman Theodora who exerted influence over 10
th C Rome was not a harlot, nor licentious, she was the target of some later misogynist historian.
Surely it is important that writing upon and of harlotry exists. Even from the perspective of one opposed, it is important to know the devil. If so where do we draw the line?
Is a small note to self about an erotic thought, pornography any more than a government survey of the GDP of the sex industry?
We find ourselves in societies that mix messages, on one hand we are to be individual, fully socialised beings with an adult understanding of our own psychology, on the other we are to shun any real information that might give us insights into our relationship with the other sex, or our own. The very same fundamentalist code still operates, an anachronism of paternalistic control in an era of the self determined. To conform, you must be
sexualised enough to respond to titillating advertising but explore the bounds too deeply, even if just to comprehend, and you will be outcast.
We have confused pornography with obscenity and our twisted rationale will not allow us to distinguish between the two.
The industry that provides us with what is commonly understood to be pornography is evil.
Is it? Perhaps, probably and then again it cannot possibly be - as it is a term that moves like an amoeba to cover an ill defined subject.
There is no pornography industry, there are film makers, writers, and photographers, slave traders, abusers, exploiters and organised crime, There is a sex industry.
Most industries can also be said to engage these various services, especially when the gains are great and greed goes unchecked (read Upton Sinclair's 'The Jungle' for a parallel in the U.S. food industry).
The evils commonly associated with the sex industry are shameful to any civilised society, and they must be dealt with, but this can only happen when they are named as objectionable in themselves, not pushed into the murky ambiguous realms of 'pornography' that we have for so long used as a cloak of shame to stop 'respectable' people going there.
Human abuse, trafficking, the corruption of minors, economic disenfranchisement, can, and must be fought as issues in themselves, not as symptoms of our sexual guilt (which is partly formed by the same attitude that gave us the word).
Pornography could become a place where respectable people could seek expression and understanding of their own human sexuality, if that were to happen the prevalence of the distorted, repressed male fantasies would soon dwindle to the true proportion of the
un-representative minority that it is.
Apart from the obvious parallel that could be drawn between pornography and the American act of prohibition with regard to the criminality of the sex industry, there is a subtler dynamic that is worth considering. The criminal aspects of both activities are the proper concern of the law, but the societal aspects are policed by public attitudes towards them - and currently they are policed fairly unthinkingly.
- A permissive public that is willing to partake in the issues will be capable of producing fine wines, excellent champagne, ciders, beers and cocktails. children will grow up with an understanding of the delights and dangers, equipped to understand context.
- A prejudiced public will force those who need alcohol to furtively brew lethal concoctions in secrecy. children will be ignorant and unable to contextualise, those seeking rebellion will be drawn towards the thing 'so cool they banned it'.
The result of this second approach is that all right minded people will be obliged to condemn the practice as dangerous, without realising that they are victims themselves of the tyranny of exclusion or any understanding that a healthy society will find cultural wealth in the activity they oppose.
