MIM Notes 36                   March 3 1989

Pornography Injures Women -- Contradictions in Prison

In Anamosa Iowa, a federal judge ruled that prisoners must be 
allowed access to pornography and to comply with the order the 
Iowa Men's Reformatory set up a "porno reading room" (NYT 
2/6/89, p.6)

While Liberals hailed the choice, many decried the bogus 
danger of giving pornography to prisoners.  In Feminism 
Unmodified, Catherine MacKinnon demonstrates that men serving 
sentences for sex crimes or rape are in as exceptions only to 
the extent that they were caught and convicted, not in their 
behavior toward women or pornography.

Warden John Thalacker made the standard claim: "In most areas, 
criminals are just like us.  They go to work.  They go to 
church.  They engage in social organizations.  But when it 
comes to sex, that's where the problems become obvious." 
(Ibid.)

These comments on people's character rather than their social 
and economic conditions were contradicted in the same article.  
"Most inmates don't like pornography, said Thalacker.  "They 
think its junk, just like the rest of us."  As can be seen 
below, it is likely that the reason pornography is termed junk 
may not be that it injures women and turns degraded women into 
a profitable commodity.

Assessing the view put forth in the article "In Prision, 
Pornography Becomes a Rights Issue" requires backing up 
several steps.  First, as will be demonstrated, pornography 
constitutes a violation of women (most women in pornography 
are forced, see Andrea Dworkin, Pornography: Men Possessing 
Women).  This does not mean that Pornography in prison is the 
problem or that prisoners are somehow deviant.  They are 
exceptional only it that they are in prison.  The majority of 
prisoners know that pornography is crap and are not interested 
in misogynist literature.  People who have this understanding 
are against the violation of women and pornography.  The 
supporters of the right of pornography are the advocates of 
the right to degrade women and sell them as such.  In other 
words, pornography has no value if it shows women doing 
empowering, important, and meaningful things.  It value is 
tied to portraying a bitch ready to be raped.  MCø suggests 
that those who uphold this "right" are the same people that 
argue prison is human and rehabilitation works.

Second, to access the fault on the deviant prisoners as the 
article implies, misses the point.  The problem is not that 
these men are different or deviant.  The problem is that they 
are in prison and unable to realize any part, let alone their 
full, human potential.  MacKinnon points out that men in 
prison are one of two groups of men who come close to 
temporarily occupying the social position of woman: prisoners 
and sexually abused boys.  Prisoners are demeaned as women; 
they are weakened; they are vulnerable; they have no power.  
This is not difference between them and other men, it is 
dominance.

One woman is raped every three minutes; one wife is battered 
every eighteen seconds. Obviously, all the men who rape and 
assault these women are not in jail. Prisons are overcrowded, 
but not that overcrowded.