Normally when there’s an industry discussion about violent pornography, I’ll take an unpopular position and support those who produce it. My arguments in this editorial are somewhat long, and this is a very sensitive topic, so I respectfully ask the reader not to draw any conclusions until he or she has read through this entire commentary. If you draw your conclusions early, you probably will miss the point of this article.But before I get to my thoughts on this topic, I should probably lay down some “ground rules” concerning the scope of the discussion. I should specify right from the start that by saying “violent pornography,” I do not mean that which is commonly produced by the BDSM lifestyle community – which, regardless of how it may appear to an outsider, is (I believe) intended to depict individuals who are all enjoying their respective acts. Rather, by saying “violent pornography” in this discussion, I am referring to that which is produced by “extreme” porn companies looking mostly to capitalize off of shock value. In other words, scenes of women having their heads pushed into toilets while being anally penetrated. Scenes of women being slapped around, made to cry, or otherwise aggressively humiliated at the hands of an unsympathetic and mocking male partner. Women being tortured – not for their own pleasure or in a manner they desire, but only for the pleasure of their male partner. Simulated rape erotica. For the purpose of this discussion, this is the brand of “violent pornography” that is on my mind today.

I have always been a bit of a Free Speech purist, and I don’t think it’s my job to tell other consenting adults what they can watch. And I wouldn’t presume to tell an adult actress that she is a “victim,” or tell her she isn’t smart enough to make her own decisions about the company she keeps. This country has long treated women like children, and it’s high time that bullshit stops. You’ll notice that you seldom find a “family values” activist preaching that the men who participate in adult films are “victims” or “exploited.” That’s because in many western societies, women are still viewed as too weak to make their own sound decisions – but the same view is not commonly held of men, who are instead seen as sexual predators who know exactly what they’re doing when they engage in sexual acts with women. Women are commonly told, through a variety of vehicles both overt and veiled, that “father knows best,” that they should “submit” to the “will” of male authority figures, that they don’t really know what’s best for them. Feminist thinkers have rightly pointed out the error in this mindset; if an adult woman chooses to participate in violent pornography willingly, then I’m going to respect that decision. In my opinion, the “law” should only be concerned if the participation is not consensual, the participant claims an actual assault took place, or the participant was not a legal adult.

I also feel that most of the people who I’ve heard speak out against violent pornography have questionable motives. Some of these people are simply speaking from ignorance, but others are clearly looking for the political gain that can come from positioning oneself squarely against the violent porn producers of the world. That kind of grandstanding is, I believe, wholly unhelpful. America is what I like to call a “crime and punishment” society. Many Americans believe strongly in some absolute set of rules, and in the notion that those who don’t abide by these rules willingly should be forcibly made to abide by them. (Never mind that these “rules” are rarely understood on a universal level, and rarely shared from person to person.) This mindset has led to all kinds of unfortunate consequences, including (I believe) the current debacle in Iraq. I also believe that, in an odd way, the “crime and punishment” attitude is what drives both violent pornography and the standard opposition to violent pornography. Men who enjoy it seem to want women to submit to their sexual rules; those who oppose it want consumers of violent porn to submit to their societal rules.

Some of the worst “violent pornography” ever created was made not by the adult entertainment industry, but rather by American forces in Iraq. By now most of us have seen the pictures of Arab men being sexually humiliated in the Abu Ghraib prison. The difference between what you see there, and what some commercial porn producers create, is that the subjects being humiliated in the Abu Ghraib pictures were not willingly participating, and the abuse was not staged or fake. In fact, if you searched the planet high and wide you probably couldn’t find individuals less likely to participate willingly in those kinds of images. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself this question: Who was really shamed in those pictures? The victims, or the predators?

The important thing to remember about violent pornography – and now I’m back to the fake kind – is that even those of us who reject censorship can still find plenty of reasons to avoid violent pornography in our own lives. In my experience, however, if we choose to reject something we should do it for the right reasons, and with a full understanding of that which we reject. Many Americans who have been raised on “traditional” or “conservative” values will argue that all pornography is inherently sinful, exploitative, harmful, unhealthy or even evil. I wholeheartedly reject this myopic notion as profoundly ignorant. Pornography, like most things, is neither inherently good nor inherently bad. At the end of the day, it is what you make of it.

Many anthropologists have been fascinated by a concept known throughout the Polynesian region as mana. Although any true discussion of mana is beyond the scope of our discussion, mana as a universal archetype is, for lack of a better definition, the fabric of magic. Mana is not seen by those who believe in it as inherently good or evil – but rather simply a force that can be used for either positive or negative purposes. This concept was of course greatly influential on filmmaker George Lucas, whose Star Wars movies include a similar concept known as “the force” – which is the fabric of magic in that fictional universe; although the “force” is probably a bit more aligned with Western ideas on “good versus evil” due to the nature of the story in which it appears. While I’m not trying to convince you to believe in mana or magic (and for the record, I believe in neither), what I am suggesting is that some of the philosophical principles behind mana are sound and are universal enough to apply even to pornography. Pornography is a means for communicating and eliciting thoughts and emotions; whether those emotions are “positive” or “negative” depends on a variety of factors.

Back to violent pornography. The reason why I choose to avoid violent pornography in my own life is because I believe that it invites the mind to think of women in an unhealthy manner. It may be natural for men to desire some kind of control over their own sexual destinies, but our intellect grants us the ability to recognize that sexual acts ought to be consenting, and that it’s undesirable to cause intense suffering in others for the sake of selfish pleasures. Violent pornography creates a fantasy world in which women have no choice about the things that men do to their bodies – and frankly, that’s a fantasy world that’s all too real for my preference. The simple fact of the matter is that throughout history, men have abused their positions of authority at the expense of the women who were powerless to resist them. The sheer persistence of instances throughout history of men abusing women is simply staggering – and this tells me that, left to their own devices, many men have the inherent ability to dehumanize women to a point that allows them to carry out horrible acts of violence and aggression against women who have done nothing to deserve it. Once this fact is understood, it should become apparent that allowing oneself to retreat into a fantasy world where men abuse women at will is absolutely counter to the noble goal of learning to treat other human beings with respect and empathy. It is also counter to the noble goal of learning to solve problems without the use of violence. I reject violent pornography in my own life because it does not help me pursue the philosophies, emotions and state of mind that I most want to experience.

So why then am I against censorship of violent pornography? The answer to that question is complex and multifaceted, but one of the reasons I am against censorship is because I believe that when it comes to the adult mind, the path that it takes needs to be left up to the individual. For example, I believe the act of rape should indeed be punished strongly by law; but I don’t want to live in a society where women are not raped simply because men are afraid of the legal consequences of rape. I want to live in a world where men do not commit the act of rape simply because they understand the suffering that it causes, and they do not want to be the cause of that suffering for the sake of selfish gratification. It may be that a person needs to confront his own fantasies about rape before he can come to an ultimate understanding of the suffering this act produces. If violent pornography serves any useful purpose, it is the cave on Dagobah where Luke Skywalker was forced to battle a phantom Darth Vader that turned out to be himself. Violent pornography can be a tool for confronting our own demons and, hopefully, rejecting them. It is a test of our resolve to aspire for a noble existence and to reject the “dark side” of humanity.

That is why I reject violent pornography in my own life, but support your right to make it if you choose. How you feel about this subject is entirely up to you.