Soft Core: Moral Crusades Against Pornography in Britain and America (Sexual politics) [Paperback]

Bill Thompson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1994 | Series: Sexual politics

An increasing number of pressure groups are seeking to outlaw soft-core material by pointing to "new and conclusive" evidence of links between consumption and discrimination against women, sex crimes and the moral decay of society. Bill Thompson challenges these groups and their claims, suggesting that they mislead the public about research findings and that the anti-porn agenda extends far beyond outlawing sexual images to inhibiting women's sexual expression. This study raises awkward questions about sections of the women's movement, media coverage of the pornographic debate, and the major political parties' involvement in promoting further censorship of sexually-oriented material.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Thompson argues that there is nothing innate in pornography that encourages violence against women. By exposing "the bogus link between pornography and sex crimes," he hopes to turn public attention to the real causes of sex crimes. Thompson covers the history of censorship in Britain and some recent American juggernauts, such as the Meese Commission and the Dworkin-MacKinnon anti-porn ordinances (a telling bias of which is his definition of gay men as "substitute women"), though U.S. readers can fill in some missing historical context with works by Lynn Hunt and Robert Stoller, among others. Thompson's scrutiny of "pornography effects studies" uncovers some surprises: the manipulation of subjects and their attitudes that passes for scientific research, the assumption that women's reactions differ from men's, and the evidence that even highly explicit soft-core material fails to increase aggression and, more often, reduces it. A serious lapse-considering the timeliness of the censorship vs. free choice debate-is in the outdated bibliography and absence of footnotes.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Thompson advances many scathing arguments against the moral crusaders who find a causal link between pornography consumption and sexual violence. Although some readers may be turned off by his sarcastic tone, everything is clearly presented and backed with thorough understanding of the legal issues involved. Tracing the antipornography movements in England to a pre-Victorian attack on "vice," he shows how their expressed purpose of protecting women has often been a cover for a political--and religious--agenda to suppress them. In chapters focusing on the U.S., he pokes holes in both the right-wing Meese Commission Report on Pornography and Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon's neo-Marxist municipal ordinances aimed at what they consider to be "sexually explicit material." Thompson also provides support for organizations, such as Women Against Rape, that diligently work to fight sex crimes without wasting their energies on becoming censors, and he shows the similarities and differences between civil liberties cases in a country with a written constitution and cases from across the ocean. Aaron Cohen

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Cassell; First Thus edition (December 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 030432793X
• ISBN-13: 978-0304327935
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,725,046 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hard Core Truth About Soft Core, December 16, 1999

By 

Dr. Andrew Williams "AW37" (AW37) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Soft Core: Moral Crusades Against Pornography in Britain and America (Sexual politics) (Paperback)

You'd have to go a long way to find a better book on the battle over pornography in America and Britain. In an easy to read and witty style, Thompson shows how the current criticisms of pin-up magazines, have an extremely ancient history. Apart from demonstrating - with indisputable evidence - that the vast majority of pornography IS NOT violent, or degrading to women OR men, he gets behind the real complaints. It turns out that even most 'social scientific evidence' hides an ideological agenda: a crusade against sexual diversity. He clearly shows that far from trying to protect women from 'evil men', the moral crusades against pornography are really trying to tell women how to behave. This book is a must for anyone doing term papers on pornography.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Moralities from a Desert Prophet...., May 21, 2001

By 

Joyce (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soft Core: Moral Crusades Against Pornography in Britain and America (Sexual politics) (Paperback)

There seems to be a plethora of so-called sexual libertarians right now, writing coffee table books about the sexually empowering and liberating effects of pornography and prostitution. Bill Thompson's book is among the cartloads of this bandwagon, and like the rest of those kind, Thompson's book is a reductionistic, conflating, and naive approach to the complex and murky issue of pornography.

Basically, Thompson lists the argument on pornography into two categories: the pro-porns (depicted as transgressive, daring, and liberating) and the anti-porns (with the usual makeovers into religious fundamentalists and feminist zealots - sexually repressive, frigid, and downright puritan). No prize to whom Thompson awards the gold star to. It would've been justificatory if he'd critically engaged with the range of debates, and analyse them in a considerate, objective manner, but Thompson simply lacks the intellectual discipline to sit down and come up with a good argument.

In short, Thompson's book elides into another privileged, middle-classed, bourgeoise interpretation of pornography. And that is what it is with pro-porn movement: an idealised fiction in collaboration with the dominant consumer/commodity culture. And don't even think Thompson has no "moral" to preach in the book. He has one, and that is one of social irresponsibility masquerading as liberation. As if one hasn't saw that line in the sexual revolution movement.