Pornography: Men Possessing Women

The introduction and Chapters 1-3 are some of Dworkin's best and most accessible writing, on a subject that's as urgent today as it was when she wrote this. I think that this was a lot more concrete than what books like Intercourse talk about (though no less or more important!) and so this book has an immediacy to it. Chapters 4-7 of this were way too theoretical for me though, really abstract and kind of hard to understand. Obviously they're conveying really important information but some of it was sort of dense.
As with the other 2 Dworkin books I read I felt like this didn't really challenge me intellectually, because I already agree with what she's saying, so reading this was kind of just alternating between YES! She put it into show more words! and being abjectly horrified about the crazy shit she deconstructs. So because her writing doesn't challenge someone who's already a radical feminist, I also think this book probably wouldn't do any good at convincing someone who's pro-pornography to change their mind (which is why I originally read it, to have talking points against sex posi third wavers.) Maybe it's a matter of knowing your audience? but it was hard to tell who this book is for.
I still give this book a high rating because of the importance of what she's doing here though. I feel like people know more about what the media said about Dworkin than what she actually wrote in her books... everyone knows her as the mean feminist who wants to ban porn. So when I read the introduction I was surprised at how mild the legislation she was pushing was?? Like, she wasn't trying to ban porn, she was trying to legally define it so that women who have been hurt by the porn industry have legal recourse... It's hard to imagine people opposing that, unless of course they've been fed misogynist propaganda, and well of course they have because everyone has.
Lastly this is so random but Dworkin's wit is soo underrated, her analysis always has an undercurrent of sarcasm especially when exposing the hypocrisy of men. like it's not ha ha funny but really subtle satire show less

Andrea Dworkin shows us that pornography is at the heart of male supremacy. It defines women in terms of sexual colonisation. It says that women's bodies belong to men. Our repugnance for pornography is repugnance for the betrayal of our sexual integrity. we will be free only when pornography no longer exists: for we are the women in it.

I get it. Honestly, I do. I've spent half my life around feminists, including some very hard core, man hating ones, most especially prominent in some of my grad school/academia environments. And I've done plenty of volunteer work over many years for feminist and equality organizations. And I also read a lot of Dworkin back in the day. There's little debate she made an impact in the 1980s. But I have often wondered if she were alive to rewrite a new updated version, what would it look like? Because times have changed and things have changed and feminist today are not what they were in the 1970s and 1980s and frankly, a huge percentage of people watching pornography around the world today are women, of their own volition, not at freaking show more gunpoint! So, would she still be this hard core? Would she still be relevant? Is she effectively a dinosaur, like many of the early ones, per most of today's feminists? She was a product of her times and I think this book, if it was ever good to begin with, no longer contains any relevance it once had. For better or for worse. You decide. show less

It's not exactly a light and breezy beach read. Dworkin's take on the role of pornography in reinforcing patriarchal power structures is pretty damn heavy, and she doesn't pull any punches when it comes to calling out the violence against women that she sees in porn.

If you're in the mood for some heavy reading and a serious dose of feminist theory, give "Pornography: Men Possessing Women" a shot. But don't say I didn't warn you!

My first introduction to feminist opposition to pornography. The details and the passion of her work are inspiring and paints a realistic portrait of the harm that pornography does to women and our culture.

Personal experience and self-promotion are not substitutes for rigorous scholarship. I would hate to live in any world set up in a way that would align with Dworkin's expressed goals. I first read this in 1982 when I was in undergrad and recently reread most of it to discuss it with my son, now an undergrad who was reading it for a class. I thought it flimsy and absurd then, and that has not changed.

groundbreaking then, a classic now