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Voting for Porn

by Nadine Strossen
Scribner $22.00 (Hardcover)

review by Tracy Quan
(Page 2)

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In real life, women do make tough choices when it comes to sex. Many women opt for security in lieu of erotic adventure. Is it really so taboo, then, to ponder the choice between social equality and freedom of speech? Why shouldn't women -- and not just women -- think about this choice, instead of assuming that we will never have to face it? Strossen cares deeply about our right to choose. What happens when we have a responsibility to do so? What if sexual equality is not sexual freedom -- and what if equality can only be achieved when it is forced upon the sexes? Some women, I believe, would take freedom over equality if they had to choose, and some would not.

Strossen is at her best not when trying to convince readers that women can "have it all", but when talking about people's quirky responses to porn and showing how laws affect x-rated (and other) business owners. At one anti-porn gathering, ritual book-shreddings were witnessed and a woman who left copies of a dissenting article on a table was "spat upon by conference participants who ripped up the reprints". More sobering is the fact that this spit-and-shred fest was held at a reputable law school and funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

Discussing the 1970 report of the U.S. Commission on Pornography and Obscenity, she reveals that Richard Nixon was as paranoid about porn as he was about everything else. As a Nixon-watcher, I find this oddly comforting. She also shows that some of porn's most succinct defenders have, in fact, been men. Unfortunately, too many of the women she cites have a tendency to sound like they are justifying pornography rather than defending it. Perhaps this book will, in the long run, help to change that.