XXX Quotes

“Still others observe that women are particularly interested in seeing come-shots because men's ejaculations are generally hidden from them. In "normal" sex, women never see men come. To some of them, it may be as seductively elusive as the glimpse of a breast or lace panties is to a pubescent boy. In this context, the come-shot can be interpreted as almost romantic: The woman wishes to share in her lover's orgasm.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Moreover, some of the images covered by the definition go far beyond what can reasonably be considered pornographic. For example, "women's body parts . . . are exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts." This description would include everything from blue jean commercials which zoom in on women's asses to cream ads which show perfectly manicured hands applying the lotion-the sort of advertisements that have appeared in Ms. magazine. Although it is commonplace to criticize such ads for using sex to sell products, it is a real stretch to call them pornographic.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“The real question to ask is: Why not simply let women enjoy their fantasies? Why shouldn't a woman entertain the wildest sex her imagination can generate? What damage is done? Who has the right to question it?”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“It is charged that pornography objectifies women: It converts them into sexual objects. Again, what does this mean? If taken literally, it means nothing at all because objects don't have sexuality; only human beings do. But the charge that pornography portrays women as "sexual beings" would not inspire rage and, so, it has no place in the anti-porn rhetoric.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Let's examine the second accusation first: the idea that pornography is degrading to women. Degrading is a subjective term. Personally, I find detergent commercials in which women become orgasmic over soapsuds to be tremendously degrading to women. I find movies in which prostitutes are treated like ignorant drug addicts to be slander against women. Every woman has the right-the need!-to define degradation for herself.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“People in the industry kept telling me intimate and unsolicited details about their sex lives. I realized that pornography was as much an attitude or lifestyle as it was a business. The line between private and public was sometimes blurred to the point of being erased.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“I worry about the younger generation of women who have to go through the same sexual angst that confronts us all. If they turn to feminism, will they find a sense of joy and adventure? Or will they find only anger and a theory of victimization?”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“The current backlash of censorship is an alliance between the Moral Majority (the Right) and the politically correct (the Left). This alliance is threatening the freedom of both women and sexual expression. The Right defines the explicit depiction of sex as evil; the Left defines it as violence against women. The result is the same.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“On a personal level, every women has to discover what she considers to be unacceptable. Each woman has to act as her own censor, her own judge of what is appropriate.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“As recently as the fifties, respectable women were given the sexual choice of marriage or celibacy. Anything else meant ostracism. Women who demanded pleasure in sex were condemned as "nymphomaniacs," much as they are pitied today as "victims of male culture" by anti-porn feminists.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Pornography allows a woman's imagination to run wild. And nothing on earth is more human than wondering "what if.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Sexually correct history considers the graphic depiction of sex to be the traditional and immutable enemy of women's freedom. Exactly the opposite is true.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Pornography is the explicit artistic depiction of men and/or women as sexual beings.' This is not merely a working definition. It is a definition I propose as a new and neutral starting point for a more fruitful discussion of pornography.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Further, although pornography is predefined as a form of violence against women, several clauses of this definition have nothing to do with such abuse. Instead, they deal with explicit sexual content-e.g. women as sex objects who "invite penetration." This is more of an attack on heterosexual sex than it is on pornography. After all, if there isn't an "invitation to penetration," how can the man know that consent is present?”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“For over a decade, I have defended the right of women to consume pornography and to be involved in its production. In 1984, when the Los Angeles City Council first debated whether or not to pass an anti-pornography ordinance, I was one of two people -and the only woman-who stood up and went on record against the measure. I argued that the right to work in pornography was a direct extension of the principle "A woman's body, a woman's right.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“This book provides pornography with an ideology. It gives back to women what anti-porn feminism has taken away: the right to pursue their own sexuality without shame or apology, without guilt or censure.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“The message of this book is not that every woman should read or watch pornography. It is that every woman should decide for herself.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Women, who constitute a huge and growing market for pornography, should be taken seriously as consumers.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Pornography is a business like any other. It offers women rewards and insults, profits and losses.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Through much of their history, women's rights and pornography have had common cause. The fates of feminism and pornography have been linked. Both have risen and flourished during the same periods of sexual freedom; both have been attacked by the same political forces, usually conservatives. Laws directed against pornography or obscenity, such as the Comstock laws in the late 1880s, have always been used to hinder women's rights, such as birth control. Although it is not possible to draw a cause-and-effect relationship between the rise of pornography and that of feminism, such a connection seems reasonable to assume. After all, both movements demand the same social condition-namely, sexual freedom.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“It is because I know how brutal sex can be that I insist on reminding women that they also live in a world of sexual possibilities and pleasures. Sex is too important to surrender.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Modern feminism needs a little less dogma and a lot more heresy.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“The mere fact that some women are upset by the presence of pornography tells us very little. It tells us nothing about whether porn is right or wrong, valuable or useless. After all, feminism distresses a great many people. Yet feminists would argue that the movement should not only be tolerated, it should be nurtured. They consider women's rights to have a positive, rather than a negative effect on society-even if it causes distress. Perhaps the same is true of the graphic depiction of sex.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“I may not personally approve of their choices. I may find their choices distasteful. Nevertheless, every choice a woman makes enriches me because it expands my range of alternatives-even if it is an alternative I can't imagine ever pursuing myself.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“To blame words or images for the actions of people is simplistic. It retards any real examination into what motivates violent crimes, such as rape. Radical feminists are handing a "pornography made me do it" excuse to rapists. Nothing should be allowed to mitigate the personal responsibility of every man who physically abuses a woman.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Refusing to acknowledge the contracts of women in pornography places them in the same legal category as children or mental incompetents. In Indianapolis, the anti-pornography ordinance argued that women, like children, needed special protection under the law:

"Children are incapable of consenting to engage in pornographic conduct.... By the same token, the physical and psychological well-being of women ought to be afforded comparable protection, for the coercive environment ... vitiates any notion that they consent or `choose' to perform in pornography." [2]

This attitude of "I'm a helpless victim" could easily backfire on women who may be required to prove they are able to manage their own finances, or to handle custody of their own children. Moreover, the idea of men "emotionally or verbally coercing" women re-enforces the concept of men as intellectually and psychologically stronger than women. It is the old "Man of Steel/ Woman of Kleenex" myth.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“To condemn pornography, radical feminists must condemn the concept of individuality. They must deny that personal choices are personal.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Contracts are records of voluntary exchanges. Labor contracts are voluntary exchanges of work for wages. Most people enter labor contracts-that is, get a job-because they need money. But, to radical feminists, this is "economic coercion." Because they believe the free market forces people to take jobs, they view it as a form of violence.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“Anti-porn feminists want us to accept their sexual preferences as gospel. Presumably, their theories are based on solid fact and deep insight. Although they have been born and raised in the same patriarchal culture that has warped other women, radical feminists have somehow escaped unscathed. Just as they have escaped being damaged by the pornography they view. Somehow these women have scaled the pinnacle, from which they now look down and make pronouncements on the lifestyle of those beneath them.

Perhaps radical feminists are superwomen. Perhaps they are merely fanatics unwilling to respect any position other than their own.

If women's choices are to be trashed, why should radical feminists fare better than other women? Are they the elite? If the choices of pornographic models are not to be taken seriously, radical feminists cannot claim respect for their choices either. If culture negates the free will of women, anti-porn feminists are in the same boat as the rest of us.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography

“For centuries, women have struggled against tremendous odds to have their contracts taken seriously. At great personal expense, they stood up and demanded the right to own land, to control their own wages, to retain custody of their children-in other words, to become legally responsible for themselves and for their property. A woman's consent must never again become legally irrelevant.”
― Wendy McElroy, XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography