It is hearing from women who now have, for the first time, words to express and validate how they have been feeling. It is a young woman writing that she is taking a break from sex while she works out what she wants sexually, without pornography’s influence. It is reading a young man’s blog who is now pushing pornography back from his life and making personal changes. It is men opening up about their experiences with porn and struggling to counterbalance its messages on their kids’ understanding of sex and relationships. It is hearing from a father of teenage girls now challenging his friends’ acceptance and sharing of ‘hot schoolgirl sluts’ porn. It is hearing about women discussing pornography in new ways with their friends. When others are showing enough commitment to question, discuss and take action – then the balance can be redressed. Imagine the potential for change if more people spoke up. Then imagine if you did something.
You have to make it personal – take a stance and make decisions. With growing economic hardship, women are facing even more reduced opportunities while the sex industry is ever more acceptable, accessible and affordable. There are fewer resources to fund support services and run campaigns so we need a groundswell of activism. This is crucial if we really want to change assumptions, confront the apologists, and challenge the demand.
My work across Scotland would not be possible without the foundations laid down by women in the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the field of violence against women. Activism worked to allow victims and survivors of rape and sexual assault to be the ones who defined what was violent. A growing number of women with experience in domestic abuse and sexual assault work moved into positions of influence in party politics and community development. This forged the links between the real lived experiences of women and policy-making (Macleod et al., 1994). Much effort and energy went into furthering understanding of the dynamics and realities of domestic abuse and sexual violence, against the backdrop of deeply rooted male attitudes about entitlement and power. Thirty years later, it is sobering to see the same discussions and processes repeated with commercial sexual exploitation, which is now specifically identified in the national approach to violence against women, Safer Lives, Changed Lives (2009).
The birth of my daughter also prompted me to take fresh stock of our culture. Did I want her coming of age in a world where coming on her face would be the marker of manhood for her male peers (Clark-Flory, 2009). Did I want her value to be judged against how ‘porn-ready’ she is (Sawyer, 2010)? Did I want her sexuality to be directed and dictated by certain industry moguls? Most of all, did I want my daughter to ask why I hadn’t done anything?
People can remain in denial that sexual exploitation doesn’t affect them, but through anti-porn work you are really asking them to consider where they are positioned with the industry. Do they collude with the exploitation of women’s social and economic status? Do they consume sexualised inequality and sustain the market? Do they turn a blind eye to the consequences of what they and their partners and friends are demanding? Or do they become informed and honestly appraise how it all relates to them? Do they then take action?
The global growth of the sex trade, pornography included, counters so much of what I believe in. But I believe that if we are given factual information, are supported when we process this information, and understand what it really means personally and for others around us, we can make informed decisions. We need skills to weigh the consequences of our decisions and follow them through with a sense of respect. With the growth of the sex trade and its seepage into everyday life, the notion of ‘informed choice’ has changed. Sexual health promotion is almost rendered valueless given the affordability, accessibility and anonymity of the pornography industry (in Cooper, 2000). When high numbers of young people identify porn as their main sex education, we have allowed the pornography industry to write the script (Flood, 2009).
If I don’t challenge this, I am helping open the floodgates to allow this take over of our public spaces, our online world, our media and our entertainment as well as the co-opting of our personal lives. As Alasdair Robertson, a Scottish activist against violence against women said, “If you think that it doesn’t affect you – you must be living on another planet.”[208]
Bibliography
Cooper, Al (Ed) (2000) ‘Cybersex: The Dark Side of the Force’ Special Issue Journal of Sexual Addiction and Compulsion. Brunner-Routledge, Philadelphia, PA and Hove, Sussex.
Clark-Flory, Tracy (18 August, 2009) ‘Generation XXX: Having sex like porn stars. How is smut changing teen sexuality? One word: Facials’, www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2009/08/18/gen_porn/index.html (accessed 18 August, 2009).
Flood, Michael (2009) ‘Boys, Sex, and Porn: New technologies and old dangers’, http://www.xyonline.net/sites/default/files/Flood,%20Boys,%20sex%20and%20porn%2007.pdf.
Macleod Jan, Patricia Bell and Janette Foreman (1994) ‘Bridging the gap: feminist development work in Glasgow’ in Miranda Davis (Ed) Women and Violence. Zed Books, London.
Safer Lives Changed Lives (2009) Section 4.1, http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/06/02153519/0.
Sawyer, Miranda (2010) ‘Shag bands, porn on mobile phones… kids need more help to understand sex’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/03/sex-education-porn-twitter.
Stop Porn Culture! http://stoppornculture.org/slide-show-home/.
ZOO Today! http://www.zootoday.com/.
My name is Anna van Heeswijk. I’m 29 and the Campaigns Manager for OBJECT – the award winning pressure group set up in 2003 to challenge the sexual objectification of women and the mainstreaming of the multi-billion pound sex industries. OBJECT has no office and little money, yet with the help and support of trade and student unions, survivors of the sex industry, feminist policy makers, sister organisations, and committed activists across the country, in 5 years we have changed 2 laws and helped revitalise grassroots anti-pornography feminism in the UK.
In partnership with the Fawcett Society,[210] a leading campaigning group for equality between women and men, OBJECT stemmed the proliferation of lap dancing clubs and stripped the illusion that lap dancing is a harmless part of the leisure industry. We have exposed the exploitative industry of lap dancing for what it is and lobbied successfully for a change in the law to allow for better regulation and for limits to be placed on the number of clubs in any vicinity – which can now be set at zero by local councils. We have provided a feminist analysis to underpin our campaign and put the issue of sexism and sexual objectification at the heart of the licensing debate.
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5 See http://www.womenssupportproject.co.uk/content/challengingdemand/180/ for copies of the Money and Power resource packs and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCYIJCGO2Gw for a short film clip developed to raise awareness of commercial sexual exploitation in Scotland which quotes Robertson.
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1 This is an excerpt from a longer article; for the full version contact the author at anna@object.org.uk Do not quote from this article without permission from the author.