As Dunia Montenegro says, “[i]n porn, the money is a big cake and the [large] companies eat it all. The porn actress gets nothing” (in Barss, 2010, p. 279). Montenegro’s solution is to create her own pornography Website and copyright her prostitution. Without this she “would get paid a couple of hundred dollars for a day of having sex on camera, and would never see another dime of profit” (Barss, 2010, p. 279). That Montenegro has pimped her own body is often celebrated as an example of self-empowerment and a role model for prostituted women. Attempts at reforming the sex industry, for example, the creation of better working conditions for prostituted women, women-owned porn companies and so on, are opportunistic. There is nothing to celebrate about the increased wages of a pornography prostitute; it is merely the temporary lengthening and lightening of a chain and nothing more. The point is to break the socioeconomic chains that have constrained women’s and girls’ work options to the barbaric point where a society offers women prostitution as a way of economic survival. Indeed, Montenegro’s example merely calls attention to the extreme levels of exploitation in the pornography industry. Unable to copyright their own prostitution, women are selling themselves for next to nothing. Pornography becomes, in effect, a form of sexual slavery.
The aggressive presence of the pornography industry within social networking sites, and across the Net as a whole, has normalised this trend. It is cool and fun to act like a sexy hot porn star. “We’re all prostitutes!” shouts the Facebook status of a teenager who is posed half naked on her bed. Within MSN, for example, there are peer-to-peer networks where women share pornographic pictures of themselves and perform pornographic acts on web cam without being paid. Adult social networking Websites also encourage women to web cam themselves to peers without pay. So-called homemade porn has a large circulation, seeping outside peer groups into territories women cannot predict. This new phenomenon cannot be called prostitution because women are not being paid for producing pornography. But what it reveals is that pornography prostitution has become so wedded to neoliberal ideas of sexual liberation that women are pimping themselves for free.
Although ‘free’ pornography might not generate money (and today the majority of pornography on the Net is free, which is not to say that ISPs do not benefit from it) it does generate powerful social or symbolic capital. In other words, the explosion of ‘free porn’ and peer-to-peer porn does not mean, as the porn industry often argues, the death of the porn industry as such. What it does reveal is that the idea of pornography has moved up from being part of a system of embodied economic exchange to becoming a form of symbolic exchange. Now pornography has become a form of social capital and has attached itself to the reproduction of social status. The pornification of everyday life has been achieved by the elevation of pornography prostitution to the level of social status.
Pornography prostitution has been re-branded by capitalism as the new ‘cool’: porn is cool, pimps and hos are cool, the Playboy logo is cool, DIY porn is cool, getting off on watching a prostituted woman gag and struggle under a quadruple penetration is cool. Once, pornography was associated with sexually frustrated old men; now pornography is associated with sexually successful, hip young men, women, and teens. Pornography is so cool that the global anti-capitalist movement have yet to really notice or fight it.
Combating the new cool social status of pornography is challenging. When people question their sexual and emotional investments in pornography they risk losing their ‘cool’ social status. However, this social status is a collective mask that hides the real face of global pornography. The sexual exploitation of living prostitutes to the point of death and beyond, the relentless violent degradation of the living bodies of women, children and men is nothing to gain cool social status from (see also Bray, 2011). And while pornography has been elevated to the level of social status and social capital, the global prostitution factory of pornography continues to thrive.
Time and time again, it has been proven that prostitution is both a symptom of women’s oppression and the foundation of a socio-economic system which treats women as sexual objects to be traded, abused, and discarded. As the shock and awe tactics of disaster capitalism smash through decades of workers’ rights across the world, plunging millions into poverty, more women will be forced to turn to pornography prostitution in order to survive. Women and children are always the poorest of the poor. These women cannot copyright their prostitution like Montenegro; they will not be in a position to negotiate for better pay with pimps. Many, like women immigrants and their children, will become sexual slaves in networks of human trafficking, their bodies turned into pornography. Pornography is a feminist issue, a social justice issue, a human rights issue and a socialist issue that requires urgent attention.
Are the women in the porn you are watching still alive?
Bibliography
‘A Tribute to Dead Porn Stars’,
Barry, Kathleen (1979) Female Sexual Slavery. New York University Press, New York.
Barss, Patchen (2010) The Erotic Engine: How Pornography Has Powered Mass Communication from Gutenberg to Google. University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia.
Bray, Abigail (2011) ‘Merciless Doctrines: Child Pornography, Censorship, and Late Capitalism’, Signs (Autumn, in press).
Dead Porn Stars Memorial,
Frances Farmer’s Revenge,
Gogou, Katerina: Athens’ Anarchist Poetess, 1940–1993,
Jeffreys, Sheila (2008) The Idea of Prostitution. Spinifex Press, North Melbourne.
Marx, Karl (1976) Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1 Trans. Ben Fawkes, Penguin, Harmondsworth. Originally published in 1867.
Russell, Diana (1993) Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm. Russell Publications, Berkeley, California.
Tankard Reist, Melinda (2011) ‘One Wanted a Bigger Bum, One Wanted Bigger Breasts, Both Are Dead’,
Whisnant, Rebecca (2004) ‘Confronting Pornography: Some Conceptual Basics’ in Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography edited by Rebecca Whisnant and Christine Stark, Spinifex Press, North Melbourne, pp. 15–27.
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1 This is from the translation offered by Taxikipoli,
2 See also Sheila Jeffreys (2008), Diana Russell (1993).
3 See Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy Vol. 1 where he writes “[c]apital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks” (1976, p. 342).
4 See Melinda Tankard Reist’s blog on
5 See:
6 See:
7 See:
Hiroshi Nakasatomi1
When Rape Becomes a Game: RapeLay and the Pornification of Crime2
The animated computer game RapeLay3 contains content based on brutally misogynistic attitudes towards women and the normalisation of the sexual enslavement of women and girls. The game features scenes that depict women and girls being subjected to commuter train groping, stalking, forceful confinement, rape and gang rape until they succumb to the assaults, even up to the point where a victim is shown begging her rapist to abuse her.
The concern of critics of pornography has been tha
t men who watch rape scenes in pornography might emulate them like a game and perpetrate rape in real life. Ironically, RapeLay has now made rape an actual ‘game’. In fact, RapeLay stands for ‘rape play’, and the game has turned rape into a recreational activity. RapeLay’s aim is to turn women into sexual slaves by taming them through sexual assault. RapeLay portrays the male player as a tamer who is in a position of power and control over women. It is important to note that inflicting rape and controlling the women in the game gives a sense of pleasure and entertainment to the male player and instils in him a rapist mind-set.
RapeLay inflicts a severe blow on the reproductive autonomy of women
One of the notable aspects of RapeLay is its brutal attack on, and attempt to control, the reproductive functioning of women. One of the main scenes of RapeLay depicts a mother and her two daughters being raped and made pregnant and then forced to have abortions. Failing to make the victims get abortions results in the game player being stabbed to death by one of the victims. Pregnant women are depicted as demons in this segment which also confirms the misogyny of the game.
Another criminal aspect of RapeLay is its plot which contains a scene in which a mother and her two daughters are raped out of revenge to punish an older sister who, after witnessing a rapist sexually assaulting a woman on a commuter train, reported the incident to police. RapeLay conveys the idea that reporting sexual assault to authorities is a betrayal of men and men’s sexual privilege. Reporting is portrayed as a treacherous act, and this is a further indication of the male-dominant ideals that permeate the game.
RapeLay as a form of child pornography
The Komeito Party and parts of Japan’s media see RapeLay as a problem confined to the issue of child pornography. Indeed, RapeLay does contain child pornography – of the 3 female victims depicted in the game, 2 are children below the age of 18. However, it is common knowledge that under Japan’s Act on Punishment of Activities Relating to Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and the Protection of Children, only materials containing images of real children are legally defined as child pornography. Under this definition, computer games such as RapeLay which use graphically animated images do not count as child pornography. At present, there are 2 laws in Japan that govern the sexual depiction of a person. The first is Article 175 of the Penal Code: ‘Distribution of Obscene Objects’. The article applies to any person who distributes, sells or displays in public an obscene document, drawing, or other item. The second is the Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Act, which regulates the sexually explicit depiction of persons under 18 years. The scope of Article 175 is limited because the law applies only to the public display of genitals and sexual intercourse. On the other hand, the Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Act can be more widely applied. However, while images in comic, animation and computer graphics are subject to regulation under Article 175, they are not covered in the Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Act, and this makes the Act even more limited with regard to child pornography offences than Article 175.
As a result, children are endlessly subjected to abuse, torture, and exploitation in a sexually explicit way in the animated world in a fairly open manner in Japan. These materials circulate more or less freely on the Internet. Animated depictions portray children in a sexually explicit way which makes the material child pornography. Nonetheless, people in Japan argue that animated depictions cannot constitute child pornography because, they say, in the animated world children cannot have their rights violated. As a result, the animated depiction of sexually explicit images of children continues in an unregulated state in Japan. The legal regulation of pornography, including rape simulation computer games, is strongly opposed by many factions in Japan. Opposition to the regulation of pornographic computer games is stronger than opposition to the regulation of child pornography, but only because the number of gaming enthusiasts – including the majority of male left-wing intellectuals – is larger than the number of child pornography users.
RapeLay as a rape simulator
The main reason RapeLay has attracted international criticism is not because of its computer generated graphics or video imagery, but because it is a computer game. If RapeLay had been an animated movie containing pornography, its pornographic content might not have generated such international outrage, given the relatively common circulation of animated films containing this kind of content. International uproar over RapeLay arose because of the understanding that violent and pornographic computer games have a stronger impact on users than pornographic comics or animated films. People in Japan came to understand this dangerous effect of rape simulation games only once international campaigns emerged over RapeLay. There is a clear correlation between men using violent pornography to seek sexual gratification and the perpetration of rape against women. Graphically animated violent pornography is not currently banned in Japan because of the argument that a rights violation does not occur due to the absence of a victim. However, it can be clearly demonstrated that violent computer games do violate children’s rights.
In rape simulation computer games like RapeLay, the player can simulate rape which makes the impact of the violent pornography stronger. The impact is stronger because the player uses his hands (through a console) to move the on-screen victim in any direction he wants. He is able to manipulate the victim a full 360 degrees as if the victim were a puppet on a string. The game player is able to use the characters as objects for his sexual gratification, as things he can play around with. As a result, the player feels a sense of dominance and conquest over the female characters in the game.
The extent of the harmful impact of games like RapeLay, if the player acts out his experience in real life, is immeasurable. Accordingly, in the campaign to enact legislation to ban all forms of child pornography in Japan it is important that the harmful effect of animated pornography is recognised. With the spread of animated child pornography throughout the world via the Internet, more and more countries will come to prohibit such material. This will increase pressure on countries like Japan that do not maintain a ban, and on countries like Japan from where the material originates.4
Bibliography
Equality Now (2009) Information on Japan for consideration by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women at its 44th Session,
Moses, Asher (10 March, 2010) ‘Rape simulator game goes viral amid calls for censorship’ Sydney Morning Herald,
Nakasatomi, Hiroshi (2009) ‘Reipurei mondai no keii to hou kaisei no kadai’ Poruno/baishun mondai kenkyuu kai: Ronbun/shiryou shuu Vol 9, pp. 21–43.
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1 Translated by Caroline Norma and R. Sanjeewa Weerasinghe.
2 This is an edited excerpt of an article about the Japanese animated computer game RapeLay (see Hiroshi Nakasatomi, 2009).
3 Women’s groups around the world protested this game’s release in 2009, and a complaint to the Australian Communications and Media Authority by Melinda Tankard Reist in that year prompted the Australian government to prohibit the downloading of the game, in spite of opposition from groups like Electronic Frontiers Australia (Moses, 2010). In the USA and the UK, Equality Now led the protest campaign, and received “vitriolic rape and death threats” as a result (Equality Now, 2009).
4 The Yokohama-based company, Illusion, also produces the games Battle-raper and Oppai slider, which include pornified and violent content.
Chyng Sun
Investigating Pornography: The Journey of a Filmmaker and Researcher
I grew up in Taiwan and did not see a hardcore pornographic film until I was 31 years old, when I came to the United States as a graduate student in Boston in 1990. Unlike many women who are pushed to watch pornography by their boyf
riends, mine was a shy one, and I was the one who sometimes rented porn videos. I would stand on my toes to reach the top shelf at the Video Smith in Brookline, a suburb of Boston, and then I went through the tortuous ritual of ignoring men peering at me out of the corner of their eyes, holding the extra-large video box with vivid pictures while I stood in a long check-out line, and then waiting for the clerk to slowly take the video out of its box and put it in a black box which everyone knew was for porn. There was something thrilling and daring about renting a porn video. I thought I was acting against the prohibition by both Chinese and American patriarchies of women pursuing sexual pleasure. I figured that if not being allowed to watch porn was part of sexual repression, then rebelling against it must be liberating and even feminist.
However, the act of renting the videos was for me more exciting than watching them. On-screen porn women seemed to be coy, infantilized, not caring who had sex with them, enjoying whatever was done to them, and wanting to be dominated. I asked myself: If these types of images appeared in a beer ad, wouldn’t I call them sexist? On the other hand, it was just so cool to be a girlfriend who was taboo-breaking and adventurous. Did I really want to ruin the fun? Although I felt unsettled, I did not have the knowledge and conceptual tools, or the willingness, to think it all through clearly.
I picked up my tangled thoughts 15 years later when I started making my documentary, The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality and Relationships.
1 Approaches to the film
My film was aimed at exploring pornography as a media genre and an industry, through the examination of the 3 aspects of production, content and consumption.
Big Porn Inc: Exposing the Harms of the Global Pornography Industry Page 27