Pornography: Men Possessing Women is the third nonfiction book by American radical feminist writer and activist Andrea Dworkin. It was published in 1981 by Putnam. An anti-pornography feminist, Dworkin argued that pornography dehumanizes women and that the pornography industry is implicated in violence against women.
Summary Dworkin analyzes (and extensively cites examples drawn from) contemporary and historical pornography as an industry that hates and dehumanizes women. Dworkin argues that the industry is implicated in violence against women, both in its production (through the abuse of the women that are used to star in it) and in the social consequences of its consumption by encouraging men to eroticize the domination, humiliation, and abuse of women.
Dworkin draws on testimonies of women, who have suffered as a consequence of sexual abuse and exploitation, and compares it to exploitation under slavery, using the example of Frederick Douglass. She explains how several attempts were made to draft laws defining pornography as a violation of women's rights, but none were successful. "Women continue speaking out in public forums, even though we are formally and purposefully silenced in actual courts of law", she writes. She questions why women's subjugation and abuse is seen as something they enjoy, contrary to other forms of violence, such as antisemitism in Nazi Germany.
The book is about whether pornography, defined as "the graphic depiction of whores", allows women to exercise the rights protected by the First Amendment. Dworkin makes the distinction between obscenity, which requires moral judgment; erotics, which are supposedly based on mutuality and reciprocity; and pornography. But she argues that erotics are "high-class pornography" in a male-dominated system.
Chapter 1: Power She outlines the power of men as: 1) a metaphysical assertion of self; 2) physical strength; 3) the capacity to terrorize; 4) the power of naming; 5) the power of owning; 6) the power of money; and 7) the power of sex.
The "metaphysical assertion of self" is described as a subject position. The male self is defined by this continuum of wanting and taking. "I want and I am entitled to have, therefore I am", she writes of the male self. Dworkin suggests that men occupy a powerful subject position that is protected by laws and customs, art and literature, documented in history, and upheld in the distribution of wealth. Men have this self (an "unselfconscious parasitism"), and women must, by definition, lack it. The first sign of his parasitism is in his relationship to his mother. He then transfers this to other women in his life and uses women to enlarge himself. Men also have the power of physical strength, which is based on legends and myths as much as reality. This is not the same as being muscular or strong, but it is the right to physical strength. "Its [physical strength] absolute value is mythologized and mystified so that women are cowed by its legend as well as its reality". She explains how physical weakness in women is wanted by men and how they raise and choose weak women, tying weakness to feminine beauty. Making it a symbol of wealth for men and a necessity for better economic aspirations for women. The capacity to terrorize is the metaphysical assertion of self plus strength, which creates fear in a whole class of people (men over women). This happens through rape, battery, sexual abuse, and the use of prostitutes. This behavior is idolized in movies about heroism, war, and glory. In TV, literature, books, drama, this story plays out. Men's acts are huge and awesome even when villainous, and women become the prize. Dworkin outlines how male supremacist biology, Social Darwinism, and religion all contribute to sacralizing male violence and encouraging it. Men's dangerous nature is generated through culture and promotion of violent acts, as well as "its enduring reputation", whether for good or not. The power of naming means that men have the ability to define experiences, and this is upheld by force and then used to justify force. As an example, men name women as "weak" and then further weaken them with preferences and standards of beauty that leave women mutilated and stunted. "If she wants him sexually he names her slut; if she does not want him he rapes her and says she does; if she would rather study or paint he names her repressed and brags he can cure her pathological interests with the apocryphal 'good fuck, Dworkin writes. Anything that contradicts this power is destroyed, thus, "the power of naming itself, in the male system, is a form of force". The power of owning refers to husbands' ownership of wives and fathers' ownership of daughters. This ownership is natural, as he is the "one who takes". Once he has had, it is his. It is not defined merely by its real manifestation. Dworkin argues that the institution of marriage was derived from rape as a practice. "Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but lifelong possession of, or ownership", she says. Men also have the power of money. In the hands of women, money buys things; it stays literal. Money in the hands of a woman is sometimes evidence of something foul: unwomanly ambition and greed. For men, money buys women, sex, status, dignity, esteem, loyalty, and all manner of possibility; it brings qualities, achievements, and respect. Money in the hands of a man signifies worth and accomplishment. Women, when poor, use money for survival, and if they're rich, they use it to attract men. Whereas, men use money for pleasure, and rich men also use it for investment. Discrimination and oppression also "keep women as a class poor, away from money as such, unable to earn adequate amounts of money or to accumulate it". Dworkin draws a link between sex and money, showing how many industries rely on eroticizing products to sell more and how men are encouraged to hoard and invest both money and sperm. "A boy spends; a man produces. Spending indicates an immature valuing of immediate gratification. Producing signifies an enduring commitment to self-control and to the control of others, both crucial in the perpetuation of male supremacy". Poor men also turn to other forms of power to compensate when money is lacking. Lastly, Dworkin suggests that men have the power of sex although they assert the opposite. The carnality of women is said to be the defining characteristic of women. Women have sexual power because the erection is involuntary and a woman is always the presumed cause; therefore, the man is helpless and the woman powerful. The male reacts to a stimulus for which he is not responsible. Whatever he does, he does out of a provocation from a female—she is the temptress. This makes men not responsible for their actions and justifies assault and abuse. Sex is also defined by men's actions, their virility, making it "an act of possession" that happens to women. Dworkin argues that fucking enlarges men by diminishing women. Its representation in culture and its use to justify domination ("she provoked me") are still present.
"Male power is the raison d'être of pornography; the degradation of the female is the means of achieving this power". Dworkin then uses examples of books and photographs to illustrate male power, even when these books are about "liberated" women, homosexual men or lesbians, showing how "the power of the male is affirmed as omnipresent and controlling even when the male himself is absent and invisible". "There is no privacy, no closed door, no self-determined meaning, for women with each other in the world of pornography".
Chapter 2: Men and Boys In this chapter Dworkin begins by wondering why "adult men are convinced and sincere in their perception of adult women in particular as objects". She argues that boys witnessing violence and powerlessness will choose "to emulate the father because it is safer to be like the father than like the mother". To build his masculinity and forget his infantile powerlessness, the boy distances himself from women. "The first rule of masculinity is that whatever he is, women are not".
She then argues that to become free, men master fear and violence, as it is the primary component of their male identity. In different forms and ways, men all practice violence; their commitment to it, instead of being victimized by it, is what differentiates them from women. They are also rewarded for it.
She argues that the penis represents male violence and that the vagina is seen by men as an empty space to be filled up by penetration or childbearing. Women's aversion to sex is then interpreted as their rebellion against male aggression.
She then says that the intense preservation of boys and men against male sexual violence shows that their lives are deemed worthy, contrary to a female life, which "warrants protection only when the female belongs to a male, as wife, daughter, mistress, whore". Sexual violence against girls and women is normalized and sanctioned to preserve men and boys. She continues to state that only when a woman is subsequently secured to a male via a relationship, marriage, or relation is she afforded the same protection as men. She also states that by society categorizing male sexual violence into heterosexual and homosexual, there are higher concentrated and punitive penalties for male-to-male sexual violence. Men who were victims of sexual abuse often cross the line to become perpetrators as adults, whereas women tend to turn to self-hatred and define sex as a forced interaction. Incest against boys is rare, as "one-to-one sexual combat between fathers and sons would rend the fabric of patriarchy". Race and money also affect the representation of sexual abuse, as prison rapes, mostly Black in the US, are also normalized. Even in ancient Greece, homosexual relations were built on the subjugation of devalued, younger men, as well as women and girls.
Lastly, she talks about the split between mind and body and the alienation and nihilism of the modern era: "For men, their right to control and abuse the bodies of women is the one comforting constant in a world rigged to blow up but they do not know when." She then states that commitment to masculinity is commitment to genocide and suicide, using historical examples of man-made atrocities and drawing parallels with pornography. "The private world of sexual dominance that men demand as their right and their freedom is the mirror image of the public world of sadism and atrocity that men consistently and self-righteously deplore. It is in the male experience of pleasure that one finds the meaning of male history."
Chapter 3: The Marquis de Sade (1740–1814) In this chapter, she explores how Sade was the first pornography writer and how his writing reveals the links between fucking and torturing and between sex and violence in pornography. Sade's writings were applauded by many thinkers and seen as the expression of absolute freedom and rebellion. "Sade's cultural influence on all levels is pervasive", she says, defining his ethics as "the right of men to rape and brutalize every 'object of desire' at will". She then narrates his life as a high-class nobleman in France, abusing and torturing mostly "whores and servants" in a context where lower classes are starving. Sade's torturing of prostitutes was so alarming that police warned matrons not to provide him with sex workers. He would beat, rape, sodomize, and poison his victims, as well as force them to renounce their religion. He was arrested several times and escaped. Sade's wife, Renée-Pélagie, was both a victim and a participant. Besides a single arrest related to politics, all of his arrests were linked to assaulting people and distributing pornographic material.