Pornography: Women, Violence, and Civil Liberties

This study is not written as a diatribe against eroticism or a moral crusade to stamp out sex. It is intended as an attack, rather, on a multi-billion pound international industry that, it argues, systematically abuses and degrades women, an industry whose product is at the root of cases of routine discrimination and horrific violence. Many writers, both women and men, have contributed to this collection. Each has their own view, but they all hold two beliefs in common: opposition to censorship and the conviction that until pornography is eradicated, women's status in society can never be equal to men's. They argue that the regulation of pornography under the Obscene Publications Act is intentionally ineffective, permitting the mass-marketing of women's genitals and anuses, and the sale of rape and sexual assault as "entertainment" for men, but censoring art, literature and homosexuality. Many of the contributors argue instead for sex discrimination legislation to enable civil actions against the pornography industry where pornography could be proved to have caused harm, or for legislation like the Race Relations Act where pornography could be shown to have incited sexual hatred an

A solid new attack on pornography, which makes a convincing case for a causal link between hard-core pornography and violence to women., Reading Pornography: Women, Violence, and Civil Liberties is an unsettling experience for a libertarian ... The evidence that pornography can produce harm is pretty compelling here., The most sophisticated anti-porn arguments can be found in Pornography: Women, Violence, and Civil Liberties a vast and impressive volume edited by Catherine Itzin ... it is a comprehensive survey of all the old arguments and an invaluable introduction to new feminist thinking.

Catherine Itzin is a member of the Executive Committee of the National Council for Civil Liberties and co-ordinator of the Campaign Against Pornography and Censorship.