Controversy vs. Communication

This ambivalence toward the pornographic state affects the ways Americans do and do not communicate about pornography. On the one hand, the topic of pornography is so personally and politically charged in these times that "we the people" can never leave the subject. Americans must talk about pornography and the politics of pornography, and must talk about both intensely. On the other hand, the diverse and divisive quality of the debate has made it virtually impossible to establish even a starting point for meaningful discourse. Ideological camps­­for example, conservative moralists ⁴⁶ and radical feminists, ⁴⁷ liberals and libertarians, ⁴⁸ the exotic Freudian ⁴⁹ and Foucauldian ⁵⁰ feminists­­may gather along anti­ censorship or pro­pornography lines. These pro­and­con divisions, however, disguise the fact that conformity in result has little to do with conformity in reason. The camps disagree fundamentally on their respective understandings of key concepts for the First Amendment treatment of pornography. "[S]hould pornography be viewed as obscenity? as sexual exploitation? as gender­specific sexual exploitation? as tyranny or domination? as self­expression? as an indication of sexual liberation? as speech? ... as 'defamation'? or perhaps even a 'harm'?" ⁵¹ Without any rational meeting or near­meeting of the minds at even primary definitional levels (i.e., the meanings of sex and pornography), productive discourse is unlikely.

Consider in this regard journalist Leon Wieseltier's general observation: "[W]here once there were rational deliberations that led to an end, there are now emotional conversations that lead everywhere, and never end." ⁵² For that reason, "[t]here is no point in looking for consensus where there is no consensus, or where consensus is available only at a level of such generality that it is morally and politically banal." ⁵³ Ironically, though modern society prides itself on promoting the free exchange of ideas, in the battle over pornography few, if any, ideas are ever exchanged. Too often, there is controversy but no communication; there is monologue after monologue but no dialogue; and there is clamor but no reflective silence.