The European Union Rejects a Ban on Porn

The European Parliament has rejected a proposed ban on pornography. The ban was a part of a report by the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality to eliminate gender stereotypes in the European Union and its member states. The report looks at all types of gender stereotyping and discrimination against women in the media and recommends several actions - one of which is a complete ban of any type of pornography. On Tuesday, the parliament voted in favor of passing the report but rejected the section regarding the porn ban.

If the report had been passed in full, the ban would not have become law but it would have been the EU's seal of approval on such an action and provided support for any country wanting to pursue censorship of pornography.

I heard about this proposal just last week and was completely shocked. Most countries in Western Europe have a very liberal attitude towards sex in general and access to porn is even easier and more abundant than it is in North America. This report originated in the Netherlands. I wondered where such a proposal could be coming from when lots of members of the EU seem to have a pretty open attitude toward sexual expression. Then I read the recommendations of the report and was torn. I agree with the authors of the report that women are represented unequally in the media and are very often portrayed in demeaning and sexualizing ways. I do believe this is a problem. However, where I differ with the authors of the report is the solution to that problem. They want to enact measures to make it illegal to portray women in these ways. I don't see how that is even possible. This is a subjective issue - what one would consider demeaning and sexualizing, another may not. The message and intention behind any piece of media could be interpreted in a number of different ways. Who will be the one to say which interpretation is correct? And even if it was possible to determine that, how would these laws be enforced? The sheer volume of media produced in the EU (and everywhere else for that matter) makes it pretty much impossible to vet everything before it goes out for public view. It's just not realistic.

The report's proposal of a ban on pornography is even more problematic than it's other recommendations because it doesn't propose just a ban on violent or demeaning porn, it proposes a ban on all porn. This assumes that absolutely all pornography portrays women in demeaning ways. That's simply not true. Sure, yes, a lot of it does, but certainly not all. Do you just go ahead and ban all forms of sexual expression because there might be some that could be considered objectionable? This is a pretty severe form of censorship.

The other problem with the whole approach in this report is that it favors punishment and legalism rather that discourse and education. It doesn't encourage conversations about this issues, it just advocates banning anything that could be a part of the problem of objectifying and sexualizing women. Because this is a subjective issue, I think a much better approach is to put together bodies that create public education campaigns that encourage people to really look at and consider the messages they receive in the media rather than passively consuming them. I think we need to encourage people to question and to make complaints directly to producers of media that we find offensive - tell them that we don't like it and we are not going to support them with our dollars. In the long run, that will have a much bigger effect than just handing down fines. Fines hurt but losing your customer base hurts much more.

You can find more information on the report and the vote here and here.