Inegalitarian Pornography: Revisiting harm-based arguments
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Abstract
Pornography is a space of contention within the feminist circles. This article focuses on one of the arguments of the anti-pornography movement within feminism regarding the direct and indirect harms that pornography allegedly causes. Direct harm involves those who participate in the production of pornography; while indirect harm includes violence against women; gender inequality, and silencing. The article has an ethical-normative approach as it explains whether the anti-pornography argument is sound enough as well as its capacity to raise counter-objections. The analysis is based on two epistemological principles: firstly, that the gender cultural order is the social sphere where expressions of subordination are reproduced to the detriment of women; and, secondly, that inegalitarian pornography contributes to gender inequality by eroticising relations of violence and subordination, in contrast to other forms of gender representation in which inequality is not depicted in a sexualised way.
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