XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography Read Online Free PDF Page B

storeowner was one among many industry people who seemed eager to concede that violence on TV leads to violence in the street. Yet, in agreeing that images and words are threats to safety, he virtually conceded the entire antipornography position.
    Finally, Cookie was free again. I resumed the interview, which I now realize must have resembled an inquisition. I asked if she had ever been "coerced into performing a pornographic act." The question had one salutary affect: She stopped laughing nervously. She scowled out the word no. I asked if she knew of anyone who had been coerced. At this point the scowl deepened into genuine annoyance. She repeated no and looked pointedly away.
    I closed my notebook, put aside my pen, and apologized for not having better questions to ask.
    My apology was strategic. Bill Margold had urged her to talk with me and I knew Cookie was insecure enough to blame any unpleasantness on herself. I didn't want her to feel she was to blame.
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    In fact, my questions were precisely the ones I needed to have answered. It was my technique that needed work. I had treated Cookie like a case study, instead of a human being. She was not a lab animal-she deserved courtesy. Thereafter, I asked women about violence only when the conversation provided a natural segue.
    SWITCHING METHODOLOGY MIDSTREAM
    The experience with Cookie made me rethink my methodology. I decided to squelch the skepticism I had about what people were telling me. This was difficult, because I tend to doubt most of what I hear. With people in the industry, my skepticism was heightened by at least three factors:
    1. Pornography is filled with people who are good at a con. This may have more to do with their being in entertainment than being in porn. Anyone who can raise money to produce a picture, or who can draw a performance out of an actor or actress, is good at manipulation.
    2. I was new to the real world of pornography. Most of my information came from the sex-bashing rhetoric of radical feminism. I was beginning to realize how much of this was misinformation. This left me with no sense of perspective, no background against which to check the probable truth or falsehood of statements I was hearing.
    3. I had a bias: I wanted women in the industry to be mentally competent adults. I didn't want to believe that they were like three-year-olds who should be stripped of the right to make choices. I was entering the situation with a prejudice. This was not an insuperable barrier, but it definitely raised a red flag.
    I began to critique my own methodology as though it was that of a stranger. The first thing I'd want to know about the researcher was his or her underlying assumptions. Mine have already been detailed.
    Next, I would object to the anecdotal nature of the report; that is, it does not contain hard statistics or double-blind studies. Fortunately, my research was aimed at countering accusations against pornography, which are also anecdotal. For example, the allegation that women are coerced into pornography is based on first-person accounts, such as the one provided by Linda Lovelace. Perhaps the most appropriate response to such data is "in kind."
    A third problem with my methodology was the sweeping statements I made based on a limited exposure to the industry. Was I generalizing from too few particulars? Fortunately, for my purposes, generalizations were not necessary.
    The antiporn claim is that every woman in porn has been coerced into the industry, either through direct violence or indoctrination. All I had to do was to discover one woman who had not been so coerced. This would disprove the accusation. (This follows the old logic-book example: All that is necessary to disprove the assertion "All swans are white" is to find one black swan.)
    In the final analysis, I settled for offering an honest account of my impressions of the industry.
    Short of laboratory conditions, no one could do more.
    THE UNDERLYING POLITICS OF PORN
    As I