Online pornography—should families try to shield children from sexuality on the

The idea here is that there is almost limitless access to pornography. Yet, there is not one coherent and definitive voice about it. In fact, many disagreements exist about the issue of pornography from all fronts: free-speech advocates, anti-porn and anti-anti-porn feminists, religious groups, presidential commissions, civil society, and the pornography industry. The question remains why? At the heart of all the debate on pornography is the utter difficulty in defining it. As Justice Stewart famously said, "I know it when I see it." This now becomes the standard reply to the question, resulting to more confusion than not. Today, ―pornography is generally defined as sexually explicit material (verbal or pictorial) that is primarily designed to produce sexual arousal in viewers.‖⁸⁰ However, pornography may select different types of material in different contexts, since what is viewed as sexually explicit can vary from culture to culture and over time. The First Amendment thus allows for ―freedom of speech‖, although its meaning is actually debatable. In short, the U.S. court has a 3-part definition of obscenity:

 Appeal to prurient interest,

 Offend contemporary community standards,

 Lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

The pornography debates are ranging from:

1. Free speech and censorship—can a government legitimately prohibit citizens from publishing or viewing pornography, or would this be an unjustified violation of basic freedoms? This question lies at the heart of a debate that raises fundamental issues about just when, and on what grounds, the state is justified in using its coercive powers to limit the freedom of individuals.

2. Studies on pornography and harm—in 1970, the U.S. Senate Commission on Obscenity and Pornography released the following findings and recommendations:

there was no reliable evidence found that supported exposure to explicit sexual materials is related to criminal behavior among adults or youth. Adults should be able to choose what they will read. It did not distinguish types of erotica. However, the official goal of the 1986 Attorney General‘s Commission on Pornography was to: find

―more effective ways in which the spread of pornography could be contained.‖ It assumed that it was dangerous. It came to the opposite conclusion of the 1970 commission and made some recommendations. However, researchers that were cited in support of the commission condemned the report; at present, studies show little evidence that non-violent, sexually explicit films provoke anti-female reactions in men. Many studies show violent or degrading pornography does influence attitudes, however, they are unsure how long these attitudes last and if they influence behavior.

Male aggression tends to increase after seeing any violent movie.

3. Online pornography—should families try to shield children from sexuality on the

80 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ―In Pornography and Censorship.‖ May 5, 2004. Available online at http:// plato.stanford.edu/entries/pornography-censorship

internet? Should cyberspace be censored and legislated?

Traditionally, liberals defended the freedom of consenting adults to publish and view pornography in private, while moral and religious conservatives wanted pornography banned for its obscenity, its corrupting influence on consumers and its corrosive effect on traditional family and religious values. But, in more recent times, the pornography debate has taken on a somewhat new and surprising shape. Some feminists have found themselves allied with their traditional conservative foes in calling on the state to regulate or prohibit pornography—

although the primary focus of feminist concern is on the harm that pornography may cause to women (and children), rather than the obscenity or immorality of its sexually explicit content.

Some liberals have joined pro-censorship feminists in suggesting that the harm that violent and degrading pornography causes to women's social standing and their opportunities may be sufficiently serious to justify prohibiting pornography, even by liberals' own definition. Many others, both liberal and feminist, remain unconvinced. They are doubtful that pornography is a significant cause of the oppression of women or that the "blunt and treacherous weapon" of the law is the ideal solution to prevent the harm arising from pornography. As we shall see, the debate over whether pornography should be censored remains very much alive.

The anti-pornography arguments can be summarized as follows:

Pornography undermines family, authority, and society‘s morals and should be contained. Anti-pornography feminists see it as a way to silence and assault women, reinforce male dominance, and encourage abuse against women. Some believe pornography is more about power than sex.

On the other side, the anticensorship arguments can be summarized as follows:

Restriction of pornography will lead to a society ruled by censorship and the ability to try to challenge sexual stereotypes. Anti-censorship feminists believe censoring will lead to censorship of feminist writing and gay erotica. It is not clearly shown that pornography actually harms women.

Many are ambivalent, although most want to ban violent pornography, because they believe that it can lead to a loss of respect for women. Ironically, the pornography industry continues to thrive well in the Philippines, America, Europe and the rest of the world.

c. Female Celebrity Models in Lad Magazines and Selling Sexuality

In preface, I would like to discuss and explore one or two phenomena that may seem totally inappropriate to the topic at hand—bestiality (zoophilia) and objectophilia. However, I shall explain their relationship towards the end of this section.

Can we legislate and standardized thoughts and feeling about the way we view things, our feelings about things and people (animals too for that matter)? Can we rightfully say that what we think is correct, that our own moral judgment is the superior one? As if to accent

verifiability, police and probers now use lie detector machines and MRIs to ascertain certain predispositions to lying and racist violence (as demonstrated on one of the episodes of Boston Legal). We know that the lie detector test is at its best unreliable. As for MRIs, it is used to scan brain activity, and the possibility of accuracy cannot be discounted, given advancements in science and technology. But for now there is no reliable machine that can actually tell us what we think when we think it, and how we feel when we think it truthfully. We can guess, albeit crudely, but in no certain terms can we say that it is true to everybody.

When I began researching sexual images and selling sexuality particularly that part about erotic representation in history I was shocked to discover the openness and boldness of the people, men and women, and even animals of the ancient world in terms of erotica and eroticism. By contrast, there are repressive periods in history rivaling the Paleolithic age in terms of „pakikipagkapwa-tao‟, a relational view of the world towards fellow human beings.

Pakikipagkapwa-tao can be referred to as ―humanness to its highest level,‖ as a conviction and value in dealing with other persons as equal.

In Season 4 Episode 6 of Boston Legal, ―The Object of My Affection,‖ a woman was in love with a utility box. Gerry Espenson (Christian Clemenson), in his private conversation with his client Leigh Swift, addresses the issue of objectophilia as follows:

There are many people who find inanimate objects desirable… Most of it is about fear of intimacy and trust with a real person. I read one expert, he says, we become one isolated society what with computers and so forth, with so many socially isolated individuals, that the rise of objectophilia is not altogether surprising…You can achieve an intimate and trusting relationship with a real person. It‘s very terrifying, I know, but I think you should give real people a try.‖⁸¹

Gerry Espenson and his client Leigh Swift both suffer from Asperger Syndrome (AS). ―‗AS‘ is one of several autism spectrum disorders (ASD) characterized by difficulties in social interaction and by restricted and stereotyped interests and activities. ‗AS‘ is distinguished from the other ASDs in having no general delay in language or cognitive development. Although not mentioned in standard diagnostic criteria, motor clumsiness and atypical use of language are frequently reported.‖⁸² Gerry Espenson, however, is in fact one of the best and more brilliant lawyers in Crane, Poole and Schmidt Law Firm.

After careful considerations about zoophilia and objectophilia, I felt rather disturbed.

Ojectophile (objectum-sexual) is by no means just straightforward fetishist, for some people,

81 David E. Kelley. Boston Legal, Season 4 Episode 6: ―The Object of My Affection.‖ David E. Kelley Productions. Broadcast on October 30, 2007.

82 Wikipedia. Asperger Syndrome. Available online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome

their car becomes a fetish which they use to put themselves in the limelight and to attain sexual fulfillment. For the objectum-sexual, on the other hand, the car itself—and nothing else—is the desired sexual partner, and all sexual fantasies and emotions are focused on it.

Objectophilia is indicative of a modern trend away from human to human intimacy, a sign of coping mechanism, a way to compensate for lack of human affection. I suppose we can all relate to this a bit. This predilection, weakness or love may strike us as unconventional, odd, abnormal, anomalous and deprave even, but I nevertheless think require us to respect, if not accept. Nonetheless, the sexologist, Volkmar Sigusch, did not wish to classify such odd behavior as pathological. "The objectophiles aren't hurting anyone. They're not abusing or traumatizing other people,‖ And then he asks mildly: "Who else can you say that about?"⁸³ So said the question remains, what does zoophilia and objectophilia have to do with female celebrity models in lad magazines and selling sexuality?

At the outset, I would say nothing. However, the phenomenon itself is hardly new, as evidenced by its discovery in ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, regarded even by its excavators as pornographic. Found were erotic artifacts, frescoes depicting erotic, sometimes explicit, sexual scenes, symbols and inscriptions with strong sexual themes and connotations like regular household items like the Warren cup, candle holder, plates, bronze wind chimes of ‗phallus-animals‘, and street signages using the phalli and testicles as pointers.

The commonness of such imagery and items indicates that the sexual mores of the ancient Roman culture of the time were much more liberal than most present-day cultures, although much of what might seem to us to be erotic imagery was in fact fertility-imagery. This clash of cultures led to an unknown number of discoveries being hidden away again.

Moreover, objectophilia and bestiality (zoophilia) are related to Isolation Syndrome (IS). „IS‟ is a social phenomenon of modern urbanized life characterized by a trend away from human to human intimacy. The rise of objectophilia and zoophilia can been seen as relevant to this phenomenon. Many people think that objectophiles (objectum-sexual) and zoophiles are perverts, but these ‗uncommon predilections‘ perhaps serve as a coping

83 Wikipedia. ―Volkmar Sigusch.‖ Available online at http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkmar_Sigusch

Retired professor and former director of Frankfurt University's Institute for Sexual Science, Volkmar Sigusch, is one person who believes he has unraveled the mysteries of objectophilia. He has extensively probed this attraction to objects as part of his research into various forms of modern "neo-sexuality." The sexologist views this inclination as proof of his hypothesis that society is increasingly drifting into asexuality: "More and more people either openly declare or can be seen to live without any intimate or trusting relationship with another person," Sigusch says, adding that cities are populated by an entire army of socially isolated individuals:

"Singles, isolated people, cultural sodomites, many perverts and sex addicts."

mechanism or way to compensate for lack of human affection. I suppose we can all relate to this a bit. The whole debate about female celebrity models in lad magazines and selling sexuality is in essence about the objectification of the female body and commoditization of the female body as well as the natural consequence of that ‘attitude‘.

From the moral stand point, the moralistas, the religious and even the so-called self-proclaimed ‗civil society‘ frowns upon and look down on women who flaunt their sexuality in public. These women are open with their sexuality, like those who posed for lad magazines (men‘s magazines), are considered ill-bred, lewd, indecent, licentious, sexually indiscriminate and promiscuous, and thus offensive and unacceptable. From this point of view, these women and their actions must be censored, stopped and finally must be punished.

From an economic point of view, media owners are generally driven by profits not moral values (which they like to portray as censorship) and will, therefore, make money out of anyone who can be commercially exploited. Media owners discovered that titillation with

‗hot‘ and ‗salacious‘ stories and images guarantees the highest possible returns. Women who pose for men‘s magazines view it in turn like a ticket to fame and fortune. Who will blame them for making money? It is not as though they are forcing people to buy their magazines with a veil of threat. This is capitalism, pure and simple.

Finally, from a feminist perspective, posing for lad magazines (men‘s magazines) is a kind of graphic sexually explicit subordination of women through images and texts. Women are presented as dehumanized, sexual objects, and women's body parts—including but not limited to vaginas, breasts, or buttocks—are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts. This objectification of the female body fosters violence and abuse of women.

This brings me to my main point about female celebrity models in lad magazines and selling sexuality. If the feminists are correct in saying that female body is being objectified and commoditized in the process, then are we in normative terms worse than objectophiles and zoophiles?

In conclusion, I argue that I am opposed to moralistic positions that deny women‘s agency and sexual autonomy. And I strongly negate any „androcentric‟ perspective and dispute the legitimacy of so-called „feminine mystique‟ in explaining women realities and positionalities. I am also totally for women liberation from patriarchal system enslavement, and I fully support women empowerment. But since patriarchy is a large part of our psyche today as it was 10,000 years ago, a change of system will take time. For now, women must work hard to work the system to make it work for them—from power-within to power-to!

Chapter Four: Beyond Structuralism and Exploitation/Choice Dichotomy—the Discourse of Power in Prostitution

The construction of Filipino female celebrity models‘ subjectivities underscores their decision-making agency in ways that may further feminist understanding of why and how these women themselves "choose" to enter the sex industry (posing for lad/men‘s magazines).

This is different from understanding women's decision-making agency as the result of being driven into sex work because of socio-economic conditions and patriarchal systems.

Before I explore this argument, I looked at different tenets of Filipino feminism that theorized sex work, prostitution in particular, and women's decision-making agency from a liberal/neo-liberal point of view. This chapter is dedicated to the examination of Philippine sex trade focusing on prostitution—bar girls. In doing so, it will be easier to see and locate Filipino female celebrity models‘ subjectivities within the sex industry and expose underlying hypocrisy by which we all tend to view sex work. This is not to condone it as a profession or to justify work performed by other than female celebrity models in less than human terms. I argue instead that, by offering the female celebrity models as an example, women can be sex workers yet still preserve and/or restore the social adequacy of being „maganda‟ (beautiful),

„disente‟ (decent) and „malakas na babae‟ (strong and powerful woman) within the power dynamics of the Philippine sex trade. By transcending patriarchal structural power, which leaves little agency for women, one can demystify the myth of male domination and sexual gratification that perpetuates the encouragement of female sexual passivity. By examining the subjectivities of female celebrity models within the Philippine sex trade and the spaces that they create for themselves, one can challenge existing rules of conduct and understand how they emerge victorious by gaining celebrity status that in turn enables them to exercise their will to attain self-determined personal goals. Nevertheless, distinguishing the work from the person is the first step in emancipating them from the stigma and shame that are typically attached, which will subsequently empower the sex workers and female celebrity models.