Self-Expression in Pornutopia

Pornotopia's self­gratification radically transforms the First Amendment concept of self­expression. Pornography entices people to lust after sexualized images while readily abandoning the experience of real people. It concocts a pseudo­world in which all too frequently decent talk among men and women succumbs to indecent views of men and women; togetherness surrenders to selfness; and contact and communication between the sexes yield to auto­ eroticization. When pornography leaves the commercial quarters of its producers and enters the private sanctuaries of its consumers, "communication" between producers and consumers might be called discourse in only the loosest sense of the term. Alternatively, in a much more revealing sense, pornography might be seen as a "one­way process," ³¹ in which "[t]he image is not forged for purposes of communication, but for the joy which is the [viewer's]. The [viewer] and the medium are self­sufficient." ³² Notably, this idea gives new meaning to the popular First Amendment phrase "self­expression." As reconstructed in the pornographic state, self­expression is not communication about the self to others. It is rather the self silently "talking" back to itself through an image. At the core of this revised notion of self­expression is a revised right to be let alone, a right to self­expression free of the entanglement of communication with living beings.

Electronic technology, along with profit and pleasure, plays a crucial role in the evolution of the pornographic state. Much of today's pornography is the product of the cinematic revolution that accustomed the American psyche to the human body in motion. Linda Williams insightfully observes: "With the invention of cinema, ... fetishism and voyeurism gained new importance and normality.... Cinema implanted these perversions more firmly, normalizing them in technological and social 'ways of seeing.' " ³³ Tomorrow's pornography may well be the product of a computer revolution that habituates the American psyche to a virtual reality.

Listen to Susie Bright and others muse on the delights of virtual reality: It is "an instant invitation to bring my most forbidden taboos to life.... 'The line between fantasy and reality would shift very quickly.' " ³⁴ Moral and constitutional qualms aside, "you could even have sodomy in Georgia." ³⁵ As envisioned by computer's high techies, virtual reality would be a regime of "interactive tactile telepresence," ³⁶ in which technology would offer a dizzying surfeit of sexual opportunities in a marketplace now called "cyberspace." ³⁷ Without fear of veneral diseases or emotional commitments, and with full visual, aural, and tactile sensations, real people could share erotic moments with imagistic "people." Whatever today's technology may be, it is more important to ponder tomorrow's technology and its consequences. And what may those consequences be for the pornographic state?

Imagine a society of advanced technology in which pornographic virtual reality could be privately produced and privately experienced without any fear of law's intervention. In other words, imagine a culture in which consumers themselves are producers of pornography created with entirely generic and legal home technologies. Practically speaking, this would place pornography beyond virtually all legal restraints. Feminists, moralists, civic republicans, and other pornography critics would take their place in history alongside the likes of Prohibition's Anti­Saloon League. In pornotopia, people are intoxicated with their First Amendment rights. ³⁸