account detailing how she was coerced , abused , raped , and degraded while making pornographic films . Whilst this book was intended by Lovelace to be an act of protest against the porn industry , because she was known within the context of pornography already , her descriptions of violence and subordination actually became sexualised and itself sold as pornography ( Langton , 1993 ). This means the illocutionary act of protest was not achieved for Lovelace . This example shows the futility of combatting free-speech with freespeech . Women can speak out about how they have suffered at the hands of pornography as much as they like , but if they do not hold any authority in this area ( which , as objects of pornography , they do not ) their message will not be received . This lends support to the censorship of pornography because as long as women are subordinated by pornography , they will not have the illocutionary ability to speak out against this very subordination .
However , perhaps women could reclaim authority within the arena of sex by offering femalecentred alternatives to degrading pornography . Certainly , the danger for women lies in the convergence of the language game of pornography and the language game of sex . When these two things are viewed as one in the same ( which they may well be for those who are introduced to sex via porn ) not only is degradation , violence , subordination sexualised , but women ’ s sexuality , which places them as subjects rather than objects , is desexualised . If the rules of sex are set by pornography , then female-centred sex cannot be seen to actually exist . This quite profound notion exemplifies how deeply entrenched the limits to women ’ s free speech are . If a woman cannot express a desire for sex wherein , she is the subject of the act ( where the satisfaction of her feelings and wants are the chief aim of the act ), then she also cannot express a desire to not want to have sex . This is probably the most compelling argument in favour of censorship of pornography over simply increasing the free speech of women . To put it bluntly , those who have come to understand what is sexually permissible and desired through pornography are unlikely to view erotic material which does not conform to the rules of pornography as it does provide them with what they are looking for , this means the audience which probably most needs to see alternative forms of sexual content simply will not be reached .
Langton ’ s argument hinges on pornography being an authority within sex . So far , this essay has assumed this notion to be true but , as an empirical claim , the authority of pornography needs to be critically examined if a theoretical argument is to be translated to a legal argument in favour of censorship . Statistics show that most young people have been exposed to pornography by the age of 13 ( BBFC , 2020 ) and that 1 in 4 18 – 24-year-olds cited pornography as their most helpful resource for sexual education ( Rothman et al , 2021 ). This shows how pornography has become an authority within sex and provides an explanation for sexual violence statistics . However , global sexual violence statistics do not paint such a clear picture , as sexual violence figures are still notably high in countries where pornography is censored . In fact , sexual violence in China and North Korea has shown the largest increase out of all countries globally ( average rate of 196.68 per 100,000 persons ) ( Borumandnia et al , 2020 pp . 4 ), despite the fact that pornography is subject to censorship in both countries ( Bischoff , 2022 ). This undermines the proposition that access to pornography and rates of sexual violence are causally related to one another . Focusing solely on pornography may overlook other possible authorities within sex , such as culture , gender stereotypes or power imbalances between men
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