Anti-porn campaigns
A striking feature of this flourishing activism is the centrality of pornography and the sex industry as mobilising issues. Whilst the re-emergent movement is far from homogenous, anti-porn feminism is nonetheless a significant and high-profile element within the new activism. In particular, the mainstreaming of pornography and the sex industry has galvanised many new activists to engage in various forms of resistance, including: Web-based discussions, petitioning and blogging; challenging sexist attitudes expressed by friends, family and colleagues; requesting local newsagents to not stock ‘lads’ mags’, or to place them on the top shelf; writing to Members of Parliament or complaining to the Advertising Standards Association; stickering lads’ mags or sexist posters and advertisements, or disrupting displays of lads’ mags in shops.
Some activism has developed into more formal campaigns. Such campaigns have targeted high street stores, encouraging them not to stock Playboy-branded goods or lads’ mags (or at least not to display such publications at eye-level); in at least 2 cities, Sheffield and Bristol, campaigns have been run against the opening of branches of the American ‘Hooters’ franchise.[200] Most activism to date has concentrated on pornification and sex object culture rather than campaigning around hardcore and Internet pornography, although some groups have used the anti-porn slideshows developed in the US by ‘Stop Porn Culture’[201] as part of training and in awareness-raising exercises.
Three of the most successful and high-profile UK campaigns are Bin the Bunny, Stripping the Illusion, and Feminist Fridays. Bin the Bunny (see Fig.1) was a campaign organised by Anti-Porn London, a group emerging out of the London Feminist Network, which took the form of a series of protests outside the newly-opened Playboy concept store in London’s Oxford Street. The campaign focused on raising awareness about the nature and business of the Playboy corporation, through producing a DVD, giving out leaflets, talking to passers-by and wearing campaign t-shirts and badges.
Stripping the Illusion and Feminist Fridays (see Fig. 2) are campaigns run by OBJECT,[202] an organisation which campaigns against ‘sex-object culture’. The former is a highly strategic campaign which challenged the proliferation of lap dancing clubs through successfully lobbying for changes in licensing arrangements. The latter involves direct action protests calling for lads’ mags to be recognised as part of the porn industry, and, if sold, to be covered up, placed on the top shelf and age-restricted. Feminist Fridays, held monthly on Friday evenings, take the form of direct intervention in public space, transforming displays of lads’ mags through placing the publications into brown paper bags upon which feminist slogans have been written, sometimes followed by exuberant chanting, singing and dancing.[203] The format of these protests is therefore highly effective at bringing a feminist message into the public realm, and providing an alternative message to that intended by the publishers.
Activist motivation and involvement
Activists I spoke to were highly motivated to challenge porn culture, seeing pornography as part of the backlash against gains made by feminism, and a means by which women are objectified and dehumanised, and violence against women is normalised. Activists spoke of emotions such as anger and distress as a motivation for getting involved in activism. The distress experienced came about for a number of reasons, including male partners’ use of porn, workplace sexual harassment relating to porn, and the undermining effects of the presence of porn within mainstream culture:
I was surrounded by a lot of misogynist men, and other people in my life had similar attitudes, and… I just felt so unhappy and I felt, I can’t handle [porn] being everywhere, I don’t want to be in a world that’s like this (Sheryl, 30).
Prior to getting involved with activism, women often felt isolated and alone in their objections to pornography. They found friends, colleagues and acquaintances hostile or unsympathetic to anti-porn sentiments, and spoke of their opinions being consistently trivialised or ridiculed. Such hostile responses tended to have a powerful silencing effect, and the need to break this silence and isolation was a strong motivating factor:
I remember the first time I clicked on the link for the OBJECT website and I was just so pleased that there were like-minded people out there! (Nadia, 32).
Once involved, the activism was overwhelmingly experienced as affirming and empowering, and the sense of participating in struggle and making a difference was a key factor in maintaining activist involvement:
[t]he protest outside the lap dancing club was fantastic… Cos for me, before I found OBJECT I just felt really, um, impotent… So it just feels really good to feel you’ve done something… I do get a lot out of it (Nadia, 32).
However, taking a public stand against porn is far from easy, and challenges inevitably arise. Anti-porn work carries a number of specific stress factors and emotional challenges, including the stress of taking an oppositional stance in the context of a ‘pornified’ society; dealing with pornographic material; public perceptions and negative stereotypes of anti-porn feminists, and the reactions of friends, families and partners. The activists I interviewed were involved in a variety of anti-porn activities ranging from campaigns, petitioning, lobbying, protests and actions to delivering workshops and training, and working within professional settings. Sometimes the work was carried out in the context of paid employment; more often it was undertaken on a purely voluntary basis. The different contexts and kinds of work tended to have different implications in terms of the nature of the stress involved and kinds of support needed, though some challenges were common to all forms of activism. In the final section, I will set out some of the challenges that can arise and outline strategies that activists have developed in order to deal with these.
Protective measures and support strategies
[T]he support! I tell you what… the support of feminists, the feminist friends that I’ve made, I feel so much more supported by them mentally and when we’re out in a group doing an action, I know they’ve all got my back (Rita, 53).
The importance of support structures was evident in how groups dealt with the challenges of doing anti-porn work. This support took different forms depending on the nature of the activism, as outlined below.
Group co-ordinators and members developed a range of practical strategies to ensure that activists felt supported and able to cope with the challenges of a public demonstration. These included:
• Ensuring thorough planning and preparation prior to the action
• Meeting up beforehand to make sure new people were welcomed
• Using resources such as ‘comeback sheets’ to build confidence in dealing with members of the public
• Building group spirit through chant practice, banner-making sessions and sharing practical tasks
• Working as a team and ‘looking out’ for each other
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2 ‘Hooters’ is an international restaurant franchise that originated in Atlanta, USA. The company states that “the element of sex appeal is prevalent in the restaurants” and that “Hooters hires women who best fit the image of a Hooters girl to work in this capacity”, http://www.hooters.com/About.aspx (accessed 25 April, 2010).
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3 ‘Stop Porn Culture’ produces a wealth of resources for feminist anti-porn activists. See www.stoppornculture.org.
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5 For a flavour of the assertive and extrovert style of