profit. The industry, we believe, cannot survive the Ordinance.
Those who defend pornography and oppose the Ordinance
also believe that the pornography industry cannot survive the
Ordinance. Pornographers especially understand this, because they know they cannot create pornography without hurting women and they know that the pornography is used
to sexually violate women and children. They even know that
pornography keeps women’s civil status low, because they
know how much contempt for women is necessary to view violation as entertainment. If they are held accountable for the harm they do, including the harm to women’s civil status, they
cannot continue to produce or distribute their product.
Because the pornography industry cannot survive the Ordinance, you wil hear the Ordinance called “censorship. ” People who say this mean that to them a society without pornography
is one in which freedom is by definition restricted. In a free
society, they maintain, there is pornography. We think that a
society without pornography would be one in which women
especially would have more freedom, not less. We think that
the Ordinance does not take “rights” from anyone; we think it
takes the power to hurt women away from pornographers. We
think that the freedom to exploit and hurt women is no freedom at al for women. We believe that it is wrong to talk about freedom as if everyone has it when women are being violated
for purposes of profit and entertainment. We think we have a
right to freedom from second-class status and sexual abuse. We
think that the Ordinance wil force real social change. We think
the Ordinance wil help us toward social and sexual equality
by stopping an industry built on our pain. We think the Ordi
Questions and Answers
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nance is a restrained means of achieving this end. It does not
expand police power. It expands the rights of actual people:
people who want human dignity and civil equality.
The Ordinance challenges the legal system in this country
to recognize the human worth of women.
The Ordinance gives women a forum of authority—the
courts—in which to make arguments in behalf of equality. The
Ordinance gives women a forum of authority—the courts—
in which to articulate the injuries of sexual inequality: what
they are, how they operate, why they must be disavowed.
Final y, the Ordinance gives women who have been treated
like slaves—the women in pornography and the women on
whom pornography is used in rape, torture, battery, and other
sexual abuse—real rights of citizenship. If one’s human rights
are violated and one has no recourse, one has no viable rights
of citizenship. Pornography violates the human rights of
women purposefully and systematical y. The Ordinance provides a remedy that gives women the dignity of citizenship.
Q: How can we pass the Ordinance?
A: The Ordinance can be passed as an amendment to an already existing civil-rights law. Or the Ordinance can be passed as a freestanding statute. If the Ordinance is amended to a
civil-rights law, complaints would initially be made to a civil-
rights board. If the Ordinance is freestanding, a person would
go directly into court.
