Imagery of Pornography Hysteria
Toward the beginning of “Thinking Sex,” one of the examples of a moral panic that Rubin considers is child pornography. She looks at how this moral panic has over-reacted to imagery of children. For instance:
But the child pornography laws define as obscene any depiction of minors who are nude or engaged in sexual activity. This means that photographs of naked children in anthropology textbooks and many of the ethnographic movies shown in college classes are technically illegal in several states. (146)
In this passage, showing the benign imagery of children in textbooks is Rubin’s way of calling out the out-of-proportion reaction of the moral panic. In fact, by outlawing this kind of material, the moral panic actually sexualizes children by asking us to consider these images as pornographic when they are in fact educational.
Imagery of S/M
Rubin also discusses a moral panic within feminism, when anti-pornography feminists have similarly over-reacted, in Rubin’s opinion, to depictions of domination and bondage. Here she discusses the panic’s chosen imagery:
Feminist anti-pornography ideology has always contained an implied, and sometimes overt, indictment of sadomasochism. The pictures [of "ordinary" sex] that comprise the bulk of pornography may be unnerving to those who are not familiar with them. But it is hard to make a convincing case that such images are violent. All of the early anti-porn slide shows used a highly selective sample of S/M imagery to sell a very flimsy analysis. Taken out of context, such images are often shocking. This shock value was mercilessly exploited to scare audiences into accepting the anti-porn perspective. (163-4)
In this passage, Rubin considers how imagery can be exploited. One of the ironies, however, is that in order for anti-porn activists to select these images, they would have had to watch a lot of porn. Moreover, they are actually publicizing these images rather than repressing them, because they show them in slide shows in order to enrage people. This is what makes this a moral panic. It stokes emotions more than it advocates for a coherent policy or law.
