Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights [Paperback]

Nadine Strossen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1996

"A vital contribution, a lucid and timely polemic in the great American debate over sexual expression." --Philadelphia Inquirer

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

University of Michigan law professor and anti-pornography crusader Catharine MacKinnon has avoided debating Strossen, a New York University law professor who heads the American Civil Liberties Union. As this book shows, Strossen has a broad arsenal of vital arguments. Free speech has long been a strong weapon to fight misogyny, she notes, and she catalogues the fuzzy legal theories behind censorship. She ascribes feminist panic over sexual expression to a surge in "cultural feminism," which was a response to 1970s setbacks to more tangible feminist projects like the ERA. The "MacDworkin" (MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin) proposed law to fight "subordinating" porn, Strossen argues, misreads evidence of its effects on men and ignores more influential media images like advertising as well as the complexity of female sexuality. In practice, as recent Canadian cases show ominously, such censorship laws have been used to seize lesbian, gay and feminist material. Strossen writes in professorial prose, with numerous quotes from better writers, and eschews the opportunity to explore murkier issues like the sexism inherent in much pornography. But she forcefully makes her point that scapegoating porn diverts activists from more important fights for women's rights. Author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this antithesis to law professor Catherine MacKinnon's Only Words (LJ 9/15/93), Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, attempts a public debate with MacKinnon, who has refused arranged debates with feminists in the anticensorship/pro-pornography camp. Mac-Kinnon's view is that pornography, in the guise of free speech, rails against women's equality guarantee. Strossen sees censoring pornography as effectively rendering the right wing's agenda to control the media and an attack on the First Amendment. Tackling the toughest question, she traces the recent history of censorship in relation to sexual speech. Although Strossen complains that MacKinnon's name-calling tactics is divisive, she herself chomps greedily at her free-speech bit and does the same. Strongly recommended as an important work for academic and large public libraries.
-?Paula N. Arnold, Vermont Coll. Lib., Norwich Univ., Montpelier
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books ed edition (January 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 038548173X
• ISBN-13: 978-0385481731
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,321,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book, but remember, it's written by a lawyer, December 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights (Paperback)

Nadine Strossen's text is useful reading for anyone distressed by the tone of the most prominent anti-censorship activists - she points out the willingness of MacKinnon and Dworkin to ignore civil rights in favour of passing the laws they want, shows how anti-censorship laws, when in place, are not used to target heterosexual porn but gay and lesbian literature, and generally deplores the image of women in the MacDworkin canon as helpless children who need protecting by the benevolent laws of a (hang on, patriarchal and sexist) government. As an ACLU lawyer, she's been attacked for defending pornographers, but she points out that the ACLU has also defended the rights of anti-porn feminists to display inflammatory material. (A comical image: the ACLU defending people's right to say that the ACLU are scum!) She has a perhaps misty-eyed view of conditions in the porn industry, but her argument that the consequences of censoring porn vastly outweigh the value of doing so is, I think, unarguable. (For example, if porn were to be banned, it wouldn't stop being made; but working conditions would be a hell of a lot worse, and the women who work in it would lose all legal protection they have.) A refreshing moment of sanity in a debate that has mostly been characterised by insanity and terror tactics on one side and incoherence on the other. You still have a right to free speech in the USA. Don't waste your time trying to censor porn when there are far more widespread and less glamorous problems that women have to deal with every day.

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for debaters, December 14, 2000

By 

jobu_pks (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights (Paperback)

Despite the acrimony of some (obviously biased) reviewers, this is an outstanding book. Strossen has become a regular source for high school and collegiate debaters for precisely the type of solid analysis you'll find here. The legal argumentation is great and its nice to hear from an actual lawyer, not merely a social scientist who thinks s/he understands the field.

The rest of the book is also well-written, good structure and organization, decent index, entertaining style, excellent logic. It is obviously, designed to argue in favor of free speech, but her critics' responses that she ignores data do not impede the force of her argument. In fact, a lot of the data they rely on is less than ideally gathered, as Strossen points out. If it wasn't a powerful attack, Strossen's opponents wouldn't be as viciously opposed to this book as they are.

If, like me, you need evidence for debate rounds or are preparing a thesis on free speech, this book is essential, if only because it has generated so much debate. Don't be mislead by the mediocre rating or the views of an unsuccessful porn star, this book is a "must read".

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An important defense of the First Amendment, June 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women's Rights (Paperback)

I liked the carefully reasoned defense of pornography in this book. By the end of this book you will be able to stand up to the mcDworkinites and their ilk. You will also be just a bit tired of hearing the same argument repeated from every possible angle. The author points out that victim's like Linda Lovelace are rare and snuff films are mythology. However, you will have to go elsewhere to find a solid analysis of what pornography does to its practitioners