POSA™ Blog

BY GAIL DINES AND ROBERT JENSENAnti-pornography feminists get used to insults from the left. Over and over we are told that we're anti-sex, prudish, simplistic, politically naïve, diversionary, and narrow-minded. The cruder critics do not hesitate to suggest that the cure for these ailments lies in, how shall we say, a robust sexual experience.

In addition to the slurs, we constantly face a question: Why do we "waste" our time on the pornography issue? Since we are anti-capitalist and anti-empire leftists as well as feminists, shouldn't we focus on the many political, economic, and ecological crises (war, poverty, global warming, etc.)? Why would we spend part of our intellectual and organizing energies over the past two decades pursuing the feminist critique of pornography and the sexual exploitation industry?

The answer is simple: We are anti-pornography precisely because we are leftists as well as feminists.

If you follow world news, you'll already know that Iceland's Prime Minister, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, is calling for a ban on Internet pornography and if the law gets passed, Iceland will be the first Western democracy to block internet porn. Print pornography and pornographic videos are already illegal there, as are strip clubs and allowing employers to profit from employees' nudity. These laws recognize women as equal citizens rather than commodities for sale. Imagine that!

Fears about the damaging effects on children have led the Icelandic government to work on legal measures to try and stop the flood of graphic sexual material infesting their country.

Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson has set up working parties to find the best ways to stem the tide of online images and videos being accessed by young people through computers, games consoles and smartphones.