Pornography

Abstract

Abstract A speech act approach to pornography has scope, and also limits. Kate Greasley considers its scope afresh in Chapter 25, demonstrating its support for a key feminist claim about double standards in the law. She also considers limitations to a speech act approach. This chapter investigates a different key feminist claim, that pornography ‘eroticizes’ subordination. This focuses on the role of desire, and appears to resist a speech act approach. It is equally neglected by the law, and by Greasley. For the law, and for Greasley, this neglect may rest on a skewed assumption that the effects of pornography cannot be considered. But a speech act approach can take seriously the perlocutionary effects of pornography, which follow from pornography’s force as an illocutionary act that ranks women as inferior, legitimates discrimination, and silences women’s voices. Effects should be taken seriously, including effects on the politics of desire.