Philosophy 2120L:
 Speech and Pornography
  

Mitchell Green, "Speech Acts", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, §§1-3 (SEP Online)

Optional: Wayne Davis, "Implicature", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, §§1-3 (§§4-5 are recommended) (SEP Online).

Rae Langton, "Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts", Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (1993), pp. 293-330 (PhilPapers, JSTOR, DjVu); reprinted in her Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), Ch. 1

Optional: Catherine MacKinnon, Only Words (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), Ch. 1, "Defamation and Discrimination" (DjVu, Féministes radicales)

Celia Kitzinger and Hannah Frith, "Just Say No? The Use of Conversation Analysis in Developing a Feminist Perspective on Sexual Refusal", Discourse & Society 10 (1999), pp. 293-316 (DjVu, JSTOR, Sage Journals)

Optional: Rachel O'Byrne, Mark Rapley, and Susan Hansen, "'You Couldn't Say "No", Could You?': Young Men's Understandings of Sexual Refusal", Feminism & Psychology 16 (2006), pp. 133-54 (Sage Publications)

Melanie A. Beres, Charlene Y. Senn, and Jodee McCaw, "Navigating Ambivalence: How Heterosexual Young Adults Make Sense of Desire Differences", Journal of Sex Research 51 (2014), pp. 765-76 (PDF, Taylor & Francis Online)

Optional: Jodee M. McCaw and Charlene Y. Senn, "Perception of Cues in Conflictual Dating Situations: A Test of the Miscommunication Hypothesis", Violence Against Women 609 (1998), pp. 609-24 (Sage Pubications); Cindy Struckman-Johnson, David Struckman-Johnson, and Peter B. Anderson, "Tactics of Sexual Coercion: When Men and Women Won't Take No For an Answer", Journal of Sex Research 40 (2003), pp. 76-86 (JSTOR, ResearchGate, DjVu); Melanie A. Beres, "Sexual Miscommunication? Untangling Assumptions About Sexual Communication Between Casual Sex Partners", Culture, Health, & Sexuality 12 (2010), pp. 1-14 (PDF, Taylor & Francis Online)

Marleen J. E. Klaassen and Jochen Peter, "Gender (In)equality in Internet Pornography: A Content Analysis of Popular Pornographic Internet Videos", Journal of Sex Research 52 (2015), pp. 721-35 (PDF, Taylor and Francis)

Daniel Jacobson, "Freedom of Speech Acts? A Response to Langton", Philosophy and Public Affairs 24 (1995), pp. 64-78 (PhilPapers, DjVu)

Jennifer Hornsby and Rae Langton, "Free Speech and Illocution", Legal Theory 4 (1998), pp. 21-37 (PhilPapers, DjVu); a shortened version appears as "Freedom of Illocution? A Response to Daniel Jacobson", in Sexual Solipsism, Ch. 3

Gayle Rubin, "Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality", in C. Vance, ed., Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), pp. 267-319, sections II and VI, on pp. 275-84 and 300-9 (DjVu)

Optional: Gayle Rubin, "Misguided, Dangerous, and Wrong: An Analysis of Anti-Pornography Politics", in A. Assiter and A. Carol, eds., Bad Girls and Dirty Pictures: The Challenge to Reclaim Feminism (London: Pluto Press, 1993). pp. 18-40 (DjVu); for contrast, see Gloria Steinem, "Erotica vs Pornography", in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (New York: Holt, 1983), pp. 219-30 (DjVu)

Richard Dyer, "Male Gay Porn: Coming To Terms", Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media 30 (1985) (PDF, (HTML)

Optional: Linda Williams, "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess", Film Quarterly 44 (1991), pp. 2-13 (JSTOR)

No Class: Presidents' Day Holiday

We will not have class this week, but you should use the time to start reading Linda Williams's book Hard Core. You have until after spring break to finish the book—that's when we'll discuss it—but it will help you get into the spirit of reading pornography critically to start reading the book now.

Optional: Feona Attwood, "Reading Porn: The Paradigm Shift in Pornography Research", Sexualities 5 (2002), pp. 91-105 (PDF, (Sage Publications)

Visit from Louise Antony

Leslie Green, "Pornographizing, Subordinating, Silencing", in Censorship and Silencing: Practices of Cultural Regulation (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 1998), pp. 285-311 (Academia.edu, DjVu)

Rae Langton, "Pornography's Authority? Response to Leslie Green", in Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 89-102 (DjVu).

The two papers above are more for background. Our discussion, I would expect, will focus more on the two papers by Antony.

Louise Antony, "Against Langton's Illocutionary Treatment of Pornography", Jurisprudence 2 (2011), pp. 387-401 (PDF, Taylor & Francis Online).
This is from a symposium that also includes several other commentaries which are well worth reading, and also replies by Langton.

Louise Antony, "Be What I Say: Authority Versus Power in Pornography", in Beyond Speech, pp. 59-87 (DjVu)

Optional: Rae Langton, "Is Pornography Like the Law?" in M. Mikkola, ed., Beyond Speech: Pornography and Analytic Feminist Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 23-38 (DjVu). You should read §2.5, which is on authority.
Also optional: Rebecca Hanrahan and Louise Antony, "Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of Authority", Hypatia 20 (2005), pp. 59-79 (DjVu, JSTOR); Ian Hacking, "The Looping Effects of Human Kinds", in D. Sperber, D. Premack, and A.J. Premack, eds., Causal Cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 351-83 (DjVu)

Presenter: Matthew

Nellie Wieland, "Linguistic Authority and Convention in a Speech Act Analysis of Pornography", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 85 (2007), pp. 435-56 (PhilPapers, Taylor and Francis Online, PDF)

Optional: David Lewis, "Languages and Language", Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7 (1975), pp. 3-35 (reprinted in Lewis's Philosophical Papers, vol.1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 163-88) (PhilPapers, DjVu). For our purposes, pp. 3-12 are the important bit.

Ishani Maitra and Mary Kate McGowan, "On Silencing, Rape, and Responsibility", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (2010), pp. 167-72 (PhilPapers, Taylor and Francis Online, PDF)

Nicola Gavey, "Technologies and Effects of Heterosexual Coercion", Feminism & Psychology 2 (1992), pp. 325-51 (DjVu)
Unfortunately, Brown does not get this journal back that far.

Optional: Charlene L. Muehlenhard and Zoëe D. Peterson, "Wanting and Not Wanting Sex: The Missing Discourse of Ambivalence", Feminism & Psychology 15 (2005), pp. 15-20 (Sage Publications); Zoë D. Peterson and Charlene L. Muehlenhard, "Conceptualizing the 'Wantedness' of Women's Consensual and Nonconsensual Sexual Experiences: Implications for How Women Label Their Experiences With Rape", Journal of Sex Research 44 (2007), pp. 72-88 (Taylor & Francis); Emily J Thomas, Mika Stelzl, and Michelle N. Lafrance, "Faking to Finish: Women's Accounts of Feigning Sexual Pleasure to End Unwanted Sex", Sexualities 20 (2017), pp. 281-301 (Sage Publications); see also this issue of Sexualities for several commentaries on that paper.

Ann J. Cahill, "Recognition, Desire, and Unjust Sex", Hypatia 29 (2014), pp. 303-19 (PhilPapers, Wiley Online, PDF)

Optional: Ann J. Cahill, "Unjust Sex Vs. Rape", Hypatia 31 (2016), pp. 747-61 (Wiley Online)

Kristen Roupenian, "Cat Person", The New Yorker, 11 December 2017 (Online)

Presenters: Adrianna and Sam

Jennifer Saul, "Pornography, Speech Acts, and Context", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 106 (2006), pp. 227-46 (PhilPapers, JSTOR, PDF)

Optional: Cynthia A. Stark, "Is Pornography an Action? The Causal vs. the Conceptual View of Pornography's Harm", Social Theory and Practice 23 (1997), pp. 277-306 (JSTOR)

Claudia Bianchi, "Indexicals, Speech Acts and Pornography", Analysis 68 (2008), pp. 310-316 (PhilPapers, JSTOR, PDF)

Mari Mikkola, "Contexts and Pornography", Analysis 68 (2008), pp. 316-320 (PhilPapers, JSTOR, PDF)

Cindy Patton, "Hegemony and Orgasm—Or the Instability of Heterosexual Pornography", Screen 30 (1989), pp. 100-13; please read the section titled "Orgasm and Cinematic Orgasm", on pp. 104-8 (Oxford Journals, DjVu)

Emily E. Crutcher, "'She's Totally Faking It!': The Politics of Authentic Female Pleasure in Pornography", in L. Comella and S. Tarrant, eds., New Views on Pornography: Sexuality, Politics, and the Law (Santa Barbara CA: Praeger, 2015, pp. 319-34 (PDF)

Vex Ashley, "Porn — Artifice — Performance — and the Problem of Authenticity", Porn Studies 3 (2016), pp. 187-90 (PDF, Taylor & Francis Online)

Optional: Tzachi Zamir, "Pornography and Acting", in Beyond Speech, pp. 75-99 (DjVu)

Léa J. Séguin, Carl Rodrigue, and Julie Lavigne, "Consuming Ecstasy: Representations of Male and Female Orgasm in Mainstream Pornography", Journal of Sex Research 55 (2018), pp. 348-56 (Taylor & Francis Online, PDF)

Optional: John Corbett and Terri Kapsalis, "Aural Sex: The Female Orgasm in Popular Sound", The Drama Review 40 (1996), pp. 102-11 (JSTOR, DjVu); Eithne Johnson, "Excess and Ecstasy: Constructing Female Pleasure in Porn Movies", Velvet Light Trap: A Critical Journal of Film & Television 32 (1993), pp. 30-49 (DjVu); Christine Cabrera and Amy Dana Mé́nard, "'She Exploded into a Million Pieces': A Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis of Orgasms in Contemporary Romance Novels", Sexuality & Culture 17 (2013), pp. 193-212 (Springer, PDF)

David Lewis, "Scorekeeping in a Language Game", Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1979), pp. 339-59 (PhilPapers, JSTOR, DjVu)
You need only read as far as p. 350 (i.e., up to Example 4).

Optional: Robert Stalnaker, "Common Ground", Linguistics and Philosophy 25 (2002), pp. 701–21 (PhilPapers, JSTOR)

Rae Langton and Caroline West, "Scorekeeping in a Pornographic Language Game", Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (1999), pp. 303-19 (PhilPapers, Taylor and Francis Online, DjVu); also reprinted in Langton, Sexual Solipsism, Ch. 8

A related analysis has been defended by Mary Kate McGowan in a series of papers beginning with "Conversational Exercitives and the Force of Pornography", Philosophy and Public Affairs 31 (2003), pp. 155-189 (PhilPapers, JSTOR)

Richard Kimberly Heck, "Does Pornography Presuppose Rape Myths?" (draft)

Nancy Friday, My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies (New York: Trident Press, 1973) Chapter 1 and Rooms 3 and 6 (DjVu)

No Class: Spring Break

Visit from Anne Eaton

Anne Eaton, "A Sensible Anti-Porn Feminism", Ethics 117 (2007), pp. 674-715 (JStor, PDF)

Optional: In 2008, there was a Symposium on Gender, Race, and Philosophy focused on "A Sensible Anti-Porn Feminism". It featured commentaries by Patrick D. Hopkins, Rae Langton, Ishani Maitra, and Laurie Shrage, and replies from Eaton.

Anne Eaton, "What's Wrong With the (Female) Nude?" A Feminist Perspective on Art and Pornography", in H. Maes and J. Levinson, eds., Art and Pornography: Philosophical Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 277-308 (PDF)
I encourage you to read this paper, but it could probably be considered optional.

Optional: Beth A. Eck, "Men Are Much Harder: Gendered Viewing of Nude Images", Gender & Society 17 (2003), pp. 691-710 (JSTOR). This is a fascinating study of how people react to and interpret nude images. It suggests, first of all, that men and women do so very differently, but also that the gender of the nude person affects how both men and women react to the image, though again in very different ways. In some ways, there is nothing terribly surprising here, but some of the discomfort men express at being confonted with the nude male body is striking (and certainly relevant to the peculiar absence of men from mainstream pornography, except as disembodied penises).
Note that there is an SEP article on objectification if you'd like an overview of that topic. It of course includes references to the classic papers on the topic, such as Martha Nussbaum's widely cited paper "Objectification", Philosophy & Public Affairs 24 (1995), pp. 249-91 (JSTOR).

Anne Eaton, "Taste in Bodies and Fat Oppression", in S. Irvin, ed. Body Aesthetics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 37-59 (PDF)

Anne Eaton, "Feminist Pornography", in Beyond Speech, pp. 243-57 (PDF)

Presenter: Johnny Robinson

Judith Butler, "The Force of Fantasy: Feminism, Mapplethorpe, and Discursive Excess", differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 2 (1990), pp. 105-25; reprinted in The Judith Butler Reader (Malden MA: Blackwell, 2004), pp. 183-203 (DjVu (original), DjVu (reprint))

If you're not familiar with the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe, or the controversy surrounding it, have a look at this page for examples of his work; at his Wikipedia page for some information about his life; at this story from the Cincinnati Enquirer, which recounts an obscenity trial connected with his photography; and at this "not safe for work" page, which includes six of the photographs that caused such a stir. Be forewarned that there are reasons they caused a stir.

Lynne Segal, "Sweet Sorrows, Painful Pleasures: Pornography and the Perils of Heterosexual Desire", in L. Segal and M. McIntosh, eds., Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993), pp. 65-91 (DjVu)

Optional: Lynne Segal, "Only the Literal: The Contradictions of Anti-Pornography Feminism", Sexualities 1 (1998), pp. 42-62; reprinted in P.C. Gibson, ed. More Dirty Looks: Gender, Pornography and Power (London: BFI Publishing, 2004), pp. 59-70 (DjVu). Segal also wrote a book, Straight Sex: Rethinking the Politics of Pleasure, that takes up many of the mentioned themes about heterosexuality. Also optional: Thomas Macaulay Millar, "Towards a Performance Model of Sex", in J. Friedman and J. Valenti, eds, Yes Means Yes! Visions of Female Power & a World Without Rape (Berkeley CA: Seal Press, 2008), pp. 29-42 (PDF).

Martin Barker, "The 'Problem' of Sexual Fantasies", Porn Studies 1 (2014), pp. 143-60 (Taylor & Francis Online, PDF)

Optional: Feona Attwood, "What Do People Do With Porn? Qualitative Research Into the Consumption, Use, and Experience of Pornography and Other Sexually Explicit Media", Sexuality & Culture 9 (2005), pp. 65-86 (DjVu, Springer)

Ingrid Ryberg, "Carnal Fantasizing: Embodied Spectatorship of Queer, Feminist and Lesbian Pornography", Porn Studies 2 (2015), pp. 161-73 (Taylor & Francis Online, PDF)

Optional: Linda Williams, "Pornographies On/Scene", in M. McIntosh and L. Segal, eds., Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate (New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993), pp. 233-65 (DjVu); Heather Butler, "What Do You Call a Lesbian with Long Fingers? The Development of Lesbian and Dyke Pornography", in L. Williams, ed., Porn Studies (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2004), pp. 167-97 (PDF)

Presenters: Christina and Ruth

Nancy Bauer, "How To Do Things With Pornography", in How To Do Things With Pornography (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), pp. 52-87 (PDF)

Simon Hardy, "Feminist Iconoclasm and the Problem of Eroticism", Sexualities 3 (2000), pp. 77-96 (Sage Publications, PDF)

Optional: Scott MacDonald, "Confessions of a Feminist Porn Watcher", Film Quarterly 34 (1983), pp. 10-7 DjVu)

Stephen Maddison, "'Choke On It, Bitch!': Porn Studies, Extreme Gonzo and the Mainstreaming of Hardcore", in F. Attwood, ed., Mainstreaming Sex: The Sexualization of Western Culture (London: I.B. Tauris, 2009), pp. 37-54 (PDF)

The serious study of Gonzo as a genre or style of pornography was launched by Maddison's paper and, in the same year, Enrico Biasin and Federico Zecca's "Contemporary Audiovisual Pornography: Branding Strategy and Gonzo Film Style", Cinéma & Cie 9 (2009), pp. 133-147 (Academia.edu, DjVu). The journal Porn Studies had a special issue on gonzo in 2016.

Linda Williams, Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible" (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)

Optional: Constance Penley, "A Feminist Teaching Pornography? That's Like Scopes Teaching Evolution!", in T. Taormino, et al., eds., The Feminist Porn Book: The Politics of Producing Pleausure (New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2012), pp. 179-199 (DjVu). There's also a video presentation based on the paper: "Non-Adult Film/Adult Film: The Marked and the Unmarked" (Vimeo).

Presenters: Logan and Margot

Christy Mag Uidhir, "Why Pornography Can't Be Art", Philosophy and Literature 33 (2009), pp. 193-203 (PhilPapers, Project Muse, PDF)

Optional: Jerrold Levinson, "Erotic Art and Pornographic Pictures", Philosophy and Literature 29 (2005), pp. 228-240 (PhilPapers); Hans Maes, "Drawing the Line: Art Versus Pornography", Philosophy Compass 6 (2011), pp. 385-97 (PhilPapers)

Cain Todd, "Imagination, Fantasy, and Sexual Desire", in H. Maes and J. Levinson, eds., Art and Pornography: Philosophical Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 95-115 (Academia.edu, PDF)

Optional: Kathleen Stock, "Pornography and Imagining about Oneself", in Art and Pornography, pp. 116-36 (PDF); Christy Mag Uidhir and Henry John Pratt, "Pornography at the Edge Depiction, Fiction, and Sexual Predilection", in Art and Pornography, pp. 137-57 (PDF); Shen-yi Liao and Sara Protasi, "The Fictional Character of Pornography", in H. Maes, ed., Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2013), pp. 100-18 (PhilPapers, PDF)

Petra van Brabandt and Jesse Prinz, "Why Do Porn Films Suck?", in Art and Pornography, pp. 161-90 (PhilPapers, (PDF)

Susanna Paasonen, "Strange Bedfellows: Pornography, Affect, and Feminist Reading", Feminist Theory 8 (2007), pp. 43-57 (Sage Journals, Academia, PDF)

Optional: Olga Marques, "Women's 'Ethical' Porn Spectatorship", Sexuality & Culture 22 (2018), pp. 778-95 (Springer, PDF). This paper reports the results of interviews with 26 women about their experiences with pornography, focusing on how they think about the 'ethical' status of their engagement with it.

Rebecca Whisnant, "'But What About Feminist Porn?': Examining the Work of Tristan Taormino", Sexualization, Media & Society (2016) (Sage Journals, PDF)

Hans Maes, "Falling In Lust: Sexiness, Feminism, and Pornography", in Beyond Speech, pp. 199-220 (PhilPapers, DjVu)

Petra van Brabandt, "In/Egalitarian Pornography: A Simplistic View of Pornography", in Beyond Speech, pp. 221-42 (DjVu)

The Great Blowjob Debate: A series of blogposts by various women who identify as feminist pornographers (PDF)

Willa Maxine Tracy, "Backwards and In High Heels", A Priori 3 (2018), pp. 25-52 (PDF)