During the launch tour of the compelling new book Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global pornography industry, edited by Melinda Tankard Reist and Abigail Bray, I met with Melinda to discuss the book and the background to its publication.
In Big Porn Inc. Melinda Tankard Reist is described as a “writer, speaker, blogger, media commentator and activist” and her voice and presence have become widely recognised in the media. Perhaps her most innovative recent role has been as co-founder and vanguard leader of the growing and highly effective anti-objectification/anti-sexploitation movement: Collective Shout.
Collective Shout was formed as a protest movement in 2009 under the banner “for a world free of sexploitation” and has rapidly gained momentum via its penetrating and cyber-smart use of social media including Facebook, blogs and Twitter.
I asked Melinda how the latest book took shape. “The book idea evolved from a conversation with Dr Renate Klein of Spinifex Press about 1 ½ years ago. We felt a new compilation and analysis of pornography was needed to confront the massive developments in online porn. We wanted to expose the true nature of pornography as not just about ‘naughty pictures’ but increasingly about violence, degradation, torture and suffering. We wanted to make known the commercialised, industrialised nature of modern porn and how it is colonising the world and shaping the sexuality of young people.”
It was noted that far from being passively depressed about the new technology, Collective Shout and some of the other activist groups mentioned in Big Porn Inc., harness for anti-porn activism the very technologies which make hyper-pornification of culture possible.
“Collective Shout has been able to respond to the mainstreaming of violent and sexually exploitative advertising, products and images within a matter of minutes thanks to new forms of social media. The website and Facebook contacts also act as virtual meeting points and enable instant brainstorming for action. Major corporations and organisations such as Bonds, Harvey Norman, and others have been pressured to remove offending products or services because of Collective Shout led protests.”
Collective Shout has also formed alliances in global anti-sexploitation campaigns, such as that worldwide protest, initiated by CS and Adios Barbie to MTV against the American rap-musician’s Kanye West’s “Monster” music clip which simulates the lynching and decapitation of women
“In Big Porn Inc, Susan Hawthorne calls this a dangerous morphing of the music industry’s imagery into sexualised torture and violence. She and others argue that video productions like this are not merely abstract or simulated art forms (or animations) but catalysts for the escalation of the desire to hurt real women.”
The new book brings together a diverse anti-porn critique with some notable national and international contributors. The different chapters in the book are ordered into five different sections—one analysing the process of pornification of cultures, the second offering critiques of pornography as an industry fuelled by marketing paradigms, the third links the harm of pornography to the abuse of children, papers in the fourth identify the failures of state in relation to porn-ploitation and last introduces the reader to successful strategies against pornography.
The book includes sociological, political and legal analysis along with moving narratives from women hurt by the porn industry. I asked Melinda how difficult it was to achieve the editorial harmony demonstrated in the book. Melinda says “that was the easy part of compiling this book. The contributors are all experts and all replied to the project so willingly. Their work brings so much richness and credibility to the table – it made it all come together quite smoothly.”
“The premise of this project flowed logically from the research in Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls.”
While there are many who support the book, others accuse Melinda and her colleagues of rousing up a “moral panic” in the community. Melinda laughs dryly:
“Oh yes, we get accused of creating ‘moral panics’ all the time. This is a tactic of those who prefer not to address the arguments – often those with vested interests in the industry. It’s a diversion, a distraction, an attempt to try to paint us as moralising wowsers and prudes, hung up about sex, who want to put all women in chadors).”
The really disturbing thing though is how they gloss over the reality of the industry. The fact that child porn is now a $23 billion a year industry. The rape sites, torture pages, sites celebrating the degradation and humiliation of women. There are websites inciting crimes of violence against women and girls. I think what we are seeing is more a moral picnic than a moral panic”
However there has also been very constructive discussion and commentary to the collaboration. “I think many people who might disagree on other things, are responding very positively to Big Porn Inc. They recognise the need to destroy the dominant idea that porn is a private and victimless hobby; to expose the reality of porn as a public health hazard affecting everyone in some way. They are united by the shared desire to see women and children treated with greater dignity and respect.”
“Pornography draws every one into its extremely callous and hate-filled version of masculinity; it damages women and girls with its hyper-plasticized, pain-filled and vapid images of female sexuality; it colonizes and destroys: real intimacy and human connection.”
Big Porn Inc. provides its readers with valuable (though disturbing) data, some original but insightful political analyses and a vocabulary with which to join the resistance to globalised porn. It identifies, often with shattering evidence, the trail of damage and harm from prostitution to stripping to sexualised images of the girl-child. As one of the book’s activists, Anna van Heeswijk expresses it: “…sexual objectification exists on a continuum, with images and messages stemming from pornography increasingly seeping into all aspects of popular culture.” There is growing evidence that children are being groomed at an early age to approach their own sexuality with the attitudes and behaviour of porn.
Melinda illustrated this further: “A study of Canadian boys with an average age of 14 found a correlation between their frequent consumption of porn and their agreement with the idea that it is acceptable to hold a girl down and force her to have sex. Another study of Italian adolescents 14-19 found an association between porn use and sexually harassing a peer and forcing someone into sex. 33 studies show increased aggression connected to viewing porn.”
Although all the contributors write with remarkable restraint and the reader is spared the images of degradation and violence that are increasingly common in contemporary pornography, it is clear that the contributors have been exposed to some appalling instances of systematic misogyny and abuse. I asked Melinda how she coped with the traumatising aspects of research of this kind and the awareness that so many “average” people are habituated to such images: “Not always well. Some days I had to drag myself to the computer… someone called it “a terrible knowledge” – and there is so much that I wish I didn’t have to know.”
“However the soul-destroying stories and data are countered by the courage and insight and even the humour that sustained the making of this book. One of its goals is to invite everyone to be part of the resistance emerging around the world, to join the growing networks of people who are effectively imagining and working against what Robert Jensen calls in the book “the eroticising of oppression” so that real justice for women, children and men is possible.”
(Big Porn Inc. is published by Spinifex Press, Melbourne and is available through Spinifex Press, Melinda’s website: www.melindatankardreist.com and from other retailers.)
This blog first appeared as an article in The Record, WA.
