The purpose of this paper is to engage in a critical analysis of the possibilities for sexual agency for North American “women” given the current patriarchal and heterosexist social landscape that is inundated with mainstream pornographic material and where very specific socially constructed female sexual performances are promoted. This paper evaluates the benefits of an experiential essentialist theoretical paradigm in exploring the possibilities for agency for “women” in their sexual lives. The paper draws on various images of female bodies and sexual performances that are presented and, in turn, promoted in mainstream pornography and examines their effects on “women” in order to show that even though various aspects of postmodernism and phenomenology regarding “women's” experiences should be applauded and embraced, they cannot be separated from experiential essentialist arguments that deal with “social truths”. Questions that are addressed are whether “women” can renegotiate the terms upon which mainstream pornography has functioned, whether “women” can use any type of pornography to explore independent sexual subjectivity and whether “women's” current sexual experiences reflect personal choice and autonomy.
Aristotle, 1934. The Nichomachean Ethics. Trans. H. Rackman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
2.
Assiter, Alison and Carol Avedan.1993. Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures: The Challenge to Reclaim Feminism. London: Pluto Press.
3.
Bartky, Sandra Lee.1997. “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power.” Pp.129—154 in Writing on the body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory, edited by Katie Conboy , Nadia Medina and Sarah Stanbury.New York: Columbia University Press.
4.
Baudrillard, Jean.1993. The Transparency of Evil. Trans. James Benedict. Paris: Verso.
5.
Bensinger, Terrallee.1992. “Lesbian Pornography: The Re/Making of (a) Community .” Discourse15: 69—93.
6.
Butler, Judith.1997. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Pp. 401—417 in Writing on the body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory, edited by Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina and Sarah Stanbury.New York: Columbia University Press.
7.
Calhoun, Chesire.1997. “Separating Lesbian Theory from Feminist Theory .” Pp. 200—218 in Feminist Social Thought: A Reader, edited by Diana Tietjens.New York: Routledge.
8.
Cornell, Drucilla.2000. “Pornography's Temptation.” Pp. 551—568 in Feminism and Pornography, edited by Drucilla Cornell.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9.
Corsianos, Marilyn.2003. “`Women' Detectives and Perceptions of `Oppressive' Experiences: Exploring Experiential Essentialism and Phenomenology.” Critical Criminology12: 67—85.
10.
De Beauvoir, Simone.1974. The Second Sex. Trans. H. M. Parshley. New York: Vintage.
11.
Duggan, Lisa, Nam D. Hunter and Carol S. Vance .1986. “False Promises: Feminist Antipornography Legislation.” Pp. 72—88 in Caught Looking: Feminism, Pornography, and Censorship, edited by Kate Ellis.New York: Caught Looking Inc.
12.
Dworkin, Andrea.1981. Pornography: Men Possessing Women. London: The Women's Press.
13.
———. 1987. Intercourse. London: Secker and Warburg.
14.
———. 2000. “Against the Male Flood: Censorship, Pornography, and Equality.” Pp. 19—38 in Feminism and Pornography, edited by Drucilla Cornell.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
15.
Forbes, Joan S.1996. “Disciplining Women in Contemporary Discourses of Sexuality.” Journal of Gender Studies5 (2): 177—190.
16.
Gramsci, Antonio.1957. The Modern Prince and Other Writings. New York: International Publishers.
17.
Hoagland, Sarah Lucia.1990. Lesbian Ethics: Toward New Value. Palo Alto.: Institute of Lesbian Studies.
18.
Husserl, Edmund.1960. Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology . Trans. Dorion Cairns. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
19.
Irigaray, Luce.1997. “This Sex Which Is Not One.” Pp. 248—256 in Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory, edited by Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina and Sarah Stanbury.New York: Columbia University Press.
20.
Itzin, C.1993. Pornography — Women, Violence and Civil Liberties . Oxford: Oxford University Press .
21.
Jackson, Stevi.1999. “Gender and Heterosexuality: A Materialist Feminist Analysis.” Pp. 123—34 in Heterosexuality in Question, edited by Stevi Jackson.London : Sage.
22.
Juffer, Jane.1998. At Home with Pornography: Women, Sex and Everyday Life . New York: New York University Press.
23.
Kipnis, Laura.1999. Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America. Durham: Duke University Press.
24.
Lewallen, Avis.1992. “Lace: Pornography for Women?”. Pp. 250—7 in Imagining Women: Cultural Representations and Gender, edited by F. Bonner et al. Cambridge: Open University/ Polity Press.
25.
Lyotard, J-F.1984. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. G. Bennington and B. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
26.
Mackinnon, Catharine A.1987. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
27.
———. 1989. “Rape: On Coercion and Consent.” Pp. 171—83 in Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, edited by C. Mackinnon.Cambridge: Harvard .
28.
———. 1994. Only Words. London: Harper Collins.
29.
———. 2000. “The Roar on the Other Side of Silence.” Pp. 130—153 in Feminism and Pornography, edited by Drucilla Cornell.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
30.
McNair, Brian.1996. Mediated Sex: Pornography and Postmodern Culture. London: Arnold.
31.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice.1962. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Smith. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
32.
Mohanty, jitendranath.1997. Phenomenology: Between Essentialism and Transcendental Philosophy. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
33.
Penelope, Julia.1992. “Heteropatriarchal Semantics and Lesbian Identity: The Ways a Lesbian Can Be.” Pp. 78—97 in Call Me Lesbian: Lesbian Lives, Lesbian Theory, edited by Julia Penelope.Freedom: Crossing Press.
34.
Raymond, Janice G.1989. “Putting the Politics back into Lesbianism.” Women's Studies International Forum12: 149—156.
35.
Riley, Denise.1988. “Am I That Name?” Feminism and the Category of `Women in History. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.
36.
Rodgerson, G. and Wilson E.1991. Pornography and Feminism: The Case Against Censorship by Feminists against Censorship. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
37.
Royalle, Candida.2000. “Porn in the USA.” Pp. 540—550 in Feminism and Pornography, edited by Drucilla Cornell.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
38.
Rubin, Gayle.1984. “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality.” Pp. 267—319 in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, edited by Carole S. Vance.New York: Routledge.
39.
Salaman, N.1993. “Women's Art Practice/Man's Sex . . . and Now For Something Completely Different.” Pp. 160—171 in Pleasure Principles — Politics, Sexuality and Ethic, edited by V. Harwood et al. London: Lawrence and Wishart.
40.
Segal, Lynn and Mary McIntosh.1990. Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate. London: Virago Press.
41.
Sharp, Kerri.1999a. The Best of Black Lace. London: Black Lace.
42.
———. 1999b. The Black Lace Book of Women's Sexual Fantasies. London: Black Lace.
43.
Snitow, Ann, Christine Stansell , and Sharon Thompson, eds. 1976. The Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality. New York: Monthly Review Press.
44.
Sonnet, Esther.1999. “Erotic Fiction by Women for Women: The Pleasures of Post-Feminist Heterosexuality.” Sexualities2(2): 167—187.
45.
Sprinkle, Annie.1991. Annie Sprinkle: Post Porn Modernist. Amsterdam: Torch Books.
46.
Valverde, Marianne and Lorna Weir.1985. “Thrills, Chills, and the `Lesbian Threat' or, the Media, the State and Women's Sexuality.” Pp. 99—106 in Women Against Censorship, edited by V. Burstyn.Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre .
47.
Vance, Carole, 1992a. “More Danger, More Pleasure: A Decade after the Barnard Sexuality Conference.” Pp. xvi-xxxviii in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, edited by Carol Vance.London: Pandora Press.
48.
———. 1992b. “Negotiating Sex and Gender in the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography.” Pp. 29—49 in Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate, edited by Lynne Segal and Mary McIntosh.London: Virago.
49.
Williams, Linda.1997. “A Provoking Agent: the Pornography and Performance of Annie Sprinkle.” Pp. 360—379 in Writing on the body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory, edited by Katie Conboy , Nadia Medina and Sarah Stanbury.New York: Columbia University Press.
50.
———. 1990. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the `Frenzy of the Visible' . London: Pandora.
