Why are democracies unresponsive to well-documented injuries in the production and by the consumption of pornography? Legal challenges to pornography in Canada and the United States in which sexual subordination, not moral notions of “obscenity,” were the driving rationale, show democracies inadequately recognizing gender-specific harms. Changes in Canadian obscenity doctrines to account for harm and inequality, in contrast with the U.S. reign of “free speech,” did not deliver a corresponding change on the ground. Developments in democratic theory, international law, and the particular U.S.—Canadian legal trajectory, and consideration of the void of institutions articulating the interests of those victimized in and by pornography, suggest the need to adopt empowering civil remedies.
Allen, Mike, Tara Emmers, Lisa Gebhardt, and Mary Giery.1995. Exposure to pornography and acceptance of rape myths. Journal of Communication45 (1): 5-26.
2.
Allen, Mike, Keri Brezgel, and Dave D’Alessio .1995. A meta- analysis summarizing the effects of pornography II: Aggression after exposure. Human Communication Research22 (2): 258-83.
3.
American Psychological Association.2007. Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Washington, DC: American Psychological Associationhttp://apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualizationrep.pdf .
4.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography.1986. Final report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. http://communitydefense.org/lawlibrary/agreport.html .
5.
Barron, Jerome A., and C. Thomas Dienes .2000. First Amendment in a nutshell . 2d ed. St. Paul, MN: West Group.
6.
Bjørnebekk, Ragnhild T. , and Tor A. Evjen.2000. Violent pornography on the Internet: A study of accessibility and prevalence. In Children in the new media landscape: Games, pornography, perceptions, eds. Cecilia von Feilitzen and Ulla Carlsson, 185-206. Gothenburg, Sweden: Nordicom.
7.
Brest, Paul, and Ann Vandenberg .1987. Politics, feminism, and the constitution: The anti-pornography movement in Minneapolis. Stanford Law Review39:610.
8.
Brownmiller, Susan.1999. In our time. New York: Random House.
9.
Carter, Vednita, and Evelina Giobbe.1999. Duet: Prostitution, racism and feminist discourse. Hastings Women’s Law Journal10:37-58.
10.
Check, James V. P.1985. The effects of violent and non-violent pornography. Ottawa: Department of Justice for Canada. Cole, Susan G.1989. Pornography and the sex crisis. Toronto , Canada: Amanita Enterprises.
11.
Dahl, Robert A.1956. A preface to democratic theory. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
12.
Downs, Donald A.1989. The new politics of pornography. Chicago : University of Chicago Press.
13.
Dworkin, Andrea.1981. Pornography: Men possessing women. London: Women’s Press.
14.
Dworkin, Andrea.1997. Beaver talks. In Life and death, ed. Andrea Dworkin, 77-104. New York: Free Press.
15.
Dworkin, Andrea, and Catharine A. MacKinnon .1988. Pornography and civil rights: A new day for women’s equality. Minneapolis: Organizing Against Pornography. http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/other/ordinance/newday/TOC.htm.
16.
Dworkin, Andrea, and Catharine A. MacKinnon, eds. 1997. In harm’s way: The pornography civil rights hearings. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
17.
Dworkin, Ronald.1993. Women and pornography. In Prostitution and pornography: Philosophical debate about the sex industry, ed. Jessica Spector, 296-309. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
18.
Egan, Timothy.2000. Erotica Inc.-A special report: Technology sent Wall Street into market for pornography. The New York Times, Oct. 23, A1.
19.
Elman, Amy R.2007. Sexual equality in an integrated Europe: Virtual equality . New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
20.
Farley, Melissa, 2006. Prostitution, trafficking, and cultural amnesia: What we must not know in order to keep the business of sexual exploitation running smoothly. Yale Journal of Law & Feminism18:109-44.
21.
Farley, Melissa, Ann Cotton, Jacqueline Lynne, Sybille Zumbeck, Frida Spiwak, Maria E. Reyes, Dinorah Alvarez, and Ufuk Sezgin.2003. Prostitution and trafficking in nine countries. In Prostitution, trafficking, and traumatic stress , ed. Melissa Farley, 33-74. New York: Haworth. http://prostitutionresearch.com/pdf/Prostitutionin9Countries.pdf.
22.
Farley, Melissa, Jacqueline Lynne, and Ann J. Cotton .2005. Prostitution in Vancouver: Violence and the colonization of First Nations women. Transcultural Psychiatry42:242-71.
23.
Feinberg, Joel.1979. Pornography and the criminal law. University of Pittsburgh Law Review40:567-604.
24.
Hartsock, Nancy C. M.1983. The feminist standpoint. In Feminism & methodology, ed. Sandra Harding, 157-80. Blooming-ton : Indiana University Press.
25.
Held, David.2006. Models of democracy. 3d ed. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press .
26.
Himmelfarb, Gertrude, ed. 1986. Introduction. In On liberty, by John Stuart Mill. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
27.
Hill Collins, Patricia.1997. Comment on Hekman’s "Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited": Where’s the power?Signs22 (Winter): 375-81.
28.
Hunter, Nan D., and Sylvia A. Law .1987. Brief amici curiae of Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce et al., in the case of American Booksellers Association v. Hudnut. Introduction by Nan D. Hunter and Sylvia A. Law. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform21 (1&2): 69-136.
29.
Hunter, Susan Kay.1993. Prostitution is cruelty and abuse to women and children . Michigan Journal of Gender & Law1:93-94.
30.
Johnson, Kirsten.1995. Undressing the Canadian state: The politics of pornography from Hicklin to Butler. Halifax, Canada: Fernwood.
31.
Kendall, Christopher.2004. Gay male pornography: An issue of sex discrimination. Vancouver, Canada: University of British Columbia Press .
32.
Krause, Jason.2008. The end of the net porn. ABA Journal February:52-56.
33.
Kuschel, Diane.1995. A tale of two cities: Civil rights antipornography legislation in Minneapolis and Indianapolis. Master’s thesis, University of Missouri-Columbia.
34.
Lacombe, Dany.1994. Blue politics: Pornography and the law in the age of feminism . Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
35.
LaSelva, Samuel V.2004. "I know it when I see it:" Pornography and constitutional vision in Canada and the United States. In Constitutional politics in Canada and the United States, ed. Steven L. Newman, 133-51. Albany: State University of New York Press.
36.
Lawrence, Kelli-an, and Edward S. Herold .1988. Women’s attitudes toward and experience with sexually explicit materials. Journal of Sex Research24:161-69.
37.
Lederer, Laura, ed. 1980. Take back the night: Women on pornography. Toronto: Bantam.
38.
Leidholdt, Dorchen.1993. Prostitution: A violation of women’s human rights . Cardozo Women’s Law Journal1:133-48.
39.
Lindgren, James.1993. Defining pornography. University of Pennsylvania Law Review141 (4): 1153-1276.
40.
Linz, Daniel G., Steven Penrod, and Edward Donnerstein .1988. Effects of long-term exposure to violent and sexually degrading depictions of women. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology55 (5): 758-68.
41.
Lochner, Todd.2007. Karma police: Strategic behavior in obscenity prosecutions . Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Western Political Science Association, Las Vegas, NV.
42.
Lovelace, Linda, with Mike McGrady.1980. An autobiography. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel.
43.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1983. Feminism, Marxism, method and the state: Towards feminist jurisprudence. Signs8 (11): 635-58.
44.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1985. Pornography, civil rights, and speech. Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review20:1-70.
45.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1987a. Francis Biddle’s sister. In Feminism unmodified: Discourses on life and law, ed. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 163-97. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
46.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1987b. Not a moral issue. In Feminism unmodified: Discourses on life and law, ed. Catharine A. MacKinnon, 146-62. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
47.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1989. Toward a feminist theory of the state. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
48.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1993a. Only words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
49.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1993b. On torture. In Human rights in the twenty-first century: A global challenge, eds. Kathleen E. Mahoney and Paul Mahoney, 21-31. Dordrecht , the Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff.
50.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1993c. Turning rape into pornography. Ms. 24 (July/August).
51.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1994. Rape, genocide, and women’s human rights. Harvard Women’s Law Journal17:5-16.
52.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.1997. The roar on the other side of silence. In In harm’s way, eds. Andrea Dworkin and Catharine A. MacKinnon, 3-24. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
53.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.2000. Points against postmodernism. Chicago-Kent Law Review75:687-712.
54.
MacKinnon, Catharine A.2007. Sex equality. 2d ed. New York: Foundation.
55.
Magnusson, Denis N., and Daniel A. Soberman, eds. 1997. Canadian constitutional dilemmas revisited. Ottawa, Canada: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations.
56.
Mahoney, Kathleen E.1985. Obscenity, morals and the law: A feminist critique. Ottawa Law Review17:33-71.
57.
Mahoney, Kathleen E.1988. Defining pornography: An analysis of Bill C-54. McGill Law Journal33:575-99.
58.
Mahoney, Kathleen E.1993. Destruction of women’s rights through mass media: Proliferation of pornography. In Human rights in the twenty-first century: A global challenge, eds. Kathleen E. Mahoney and Paul Mahoney, 757-76. Dordrecht , the Netherlands Martinus Nijhoff.
59.
Mahoney, Kathleen E.1997. Freedom of expression: Hate propaganda, pornography and section 1 of the charter. In Canadian constitutional dilemmas revisited, eds. Denis N. Magnusson and Daniel A. Soberman, 81-100. Ottawa, Canada: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations.
60.
Malamuth, Neil M., Tamara Addison, and Mary Koss.2000. Pornography and sexual aggression: Are there reliable effects and can we understand them?Annual Review of Sex Research11:26-91.
61.
Malamuth, Neil M., and Edward I. Donnerstein, eds. 1984. Pornography and sexual aggression. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
62.
Malamuth, Neil M., and Vanessa Vega.2007. Predicting sexual aggression: The role of pornography in the context of general and specific risk factors. Aggressive Behavior33:104-17.
63.
McCormack, Thelma.1993. Censorship in Canada. New York Law School Law Review38:165-82.
64.
Mill, John Stuart. [ 1859] 1986. On liberty. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
65.
Newman, Steven L., ed. 2004. Constitutional politics in Canada and the United States. Albany: State University of New York Press.
66.
New tack sought in porn fight.1984. Indianapolis Star, March 27, p. 6.
67.
Nowlin, Christopher.2003. Judging obscenity: A critical history of expert evidence . Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
68.
Oddone-Paolucci, Elisabeth, Mark Genius, and Claudio Violato .2000. A meta-analysis of the published research on the effects of pornography. In The changing family and child development, eds. Mark Genius, Elisabeth Oddone-Paolucci, and Claudio Violato, 48-59. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate .
69.
Organizing Against Pornography.1984. Organizational records. City hall pornography dump, 1984 (box 2). Minnesota Historical Society. http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00183.xml.
70.
Palczewski, Catherine Helen.1994. The feminist anti-pornography movement and the rhetorical construction of social knowledge. Doctoral dissertation, Northwestern University.
71.
Rimm, Marty.1995. Marketing pornography on the information superhighway . Georgetown Law Review83:1849-1934.
Russell, Diana E. H.1984. Sexual exploitation: Rape, child sexual abuse, and workplace harassment. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
74.
Sallot, Jeff.1992. Legal victory bittersweet good; bad news: The Supreme Court’s pornography ruling is hailed as a stunning advance. But a program that helped make it possible has been cut. Globe and Mail (Canada), Feb. 29.
75.
Schauer, Frederick F.1976. The law of obscenity. Washington, DC : Bureau of National Affairs.
76.
Schauer, Frederick F.1985. Slippery slopes. Harvard Law Review99:361-83.
77.
Shapiro, Ian.2003. The state of democratic theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
78.
Silbert, Mimi H., and Ayala M. Pines .1981a. Occupation hazards of street prostitutes. Criminal Justice Behavior8:397.
79.
Silbert, Mimi H., and Ayala M. Pines .1981b. Sexual child abuse as an antecedent to prostitution. Child Abuse & Neglect5:407-11.
80.
Silbert, Mimi H., and Ayala M. Pines .1984. Pornography and sexual abuse of women. Sex Roles10 (11/12): 857-68.
81.
Smith, Dorothy E.1974. Women’s perspective as a radical critique of sociology . Sociological Inquiry44:7-13.
82.
Smith, Dorothy E.1997. Comment on Hekman’s "Truth and method: Feminist standpoint theory revisited." Signs22 (Winter): 392-98.
83.
Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution in Canada.1985. Pornography and prostitution in Canada. Report of the Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution in Canada, vols. 1 and 2. Ottawa, Canada: Supply & Services.
84.
Sullivan, Kathleen M., and Gerald Gunther.2007. First Amendment law. 3d ed. New York: Foundation.
85.
Svedin, Carl-Göran, and Ingrid Åkerman .2006. Ungdom och pornografi [Youth and pornography] In Medierådet: Koll på porr, ed. Ann Katrin Agebäck, 89-92. Stockholm: Swedish Government Council: Medierådet. http://www.medieradet.se/upload/kall_pa_porr.pdf.
86.
Taylor, Joan Kennedy.1994. Does sexual speech harm women? The split within feminism . Stanford Law & Policy Review5 (Spring): 49-61.
87.
Vipond, Robert.2004. The civil rights movement comes to Winnipeg: American influence on "rights talk" in Canada, 1968-71. In Constitutional politics in Canada and the United States, ed. Steven L. Newman, 89-107. Albany: State University of New York Press.
88.
Waltman, Max.2009. The civil rights and equality deficit: Legal challenges to pornography and sex inequality in Canada, Sweden, and the U.S. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association, Ottawa, and the Law and Society Association, Denver, CO . http://convention3.allacademic.com/one/lsa/lsa09/ .
89.
Weldon, Laurel S.2002. Protest, policy and the problem of violence against women: A cross-national comparison. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
90.
Willis, Ellen.1983. Feminism, moralism and pornography. In Powers of desire: The politics of sexuality, eds. A. Snitow, C. Stansell, and S. Thompson, 460-67. New York: Monthly Review Press.
91.
Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund.1996. Equality and the charter: Ten years of feminist advocacy before the Supreme Court of Canada. Montgomery, Canada: Emond Montgomery.
92.
Young, Iris Marion.1990. Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
93.
Young, Iris Marion.2000. Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
94.
Young, Iris Marion.2001. Activist challenges to deliberative democracy. Political Theory29 (5): 670-90.
95.
Zillman, Dolf.1989. Effects of prolonged consumption of pornography. In Pornography: Research advances and policy considerations, eds. Dolf Zillman and Jennings Bryant, 127-57. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
96.
Zillman, Dolf, and Jennings Bryant .1984. Effects of massive exposure to pornography. In Pornography and sexual aggression, eds. Neil M. Malamuth and Edward Donnerstein, 115-141. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
97.
Zillman, Dolf, and Jennings Bryant .1988. Effects of prolonged consumption of pornography on family values. Journal of Family Issues9 (4): 518-44.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
