Pornography: Men Possessing Women, by: Andrea ... - Feminish

pornography, the woman says. I was drugged, raped,gang-raped, im prisoned, beaten, sold from one pim p toanother, photographed by pimps, photographed by tricks;I was used in pornography and they used pornographyon me; “[t]hey knew a child’s face when they looked intoit. It was clear that I was not acting o f my own free will. Iwas always covered with welts and bruises.. . . It was evenclearer that I was sexually inexperienced. I literally d id n’tknow what to do. So they showed me pornography to teachme about sex and then they would ignore my tears as theypositioned my body like the women in the pictures andused m e. ”4“As I speak about pornography, here, today, ” thewoman says, “I am talking about my life. ” I was raped bymy uncle when I was ten, by my stepbrother and stepfatherby the time I was twelve. My stepbrother was making pornographyof me by the time I was fourteen. “I was noteven sixteen years old and my life reality consisted o f suckingcocks, posing nude, perform ing sexual acts and activelybeing repeatedly raped. ”5These are the women in the pictures; they have steppedout, though the pictures may still exist. They have becomevery serious women; serious in the pursuit o f freedom .T here are many thousands of them in the United States,not all first put in pornography as children though mostwere sexually molested as children, raped or otherwiseabused again later, eventually becoming homeless andpoor. They are feminists in the antipornography movement,and they don’t want to debate “free speech. ” LikeFrederick Douglass, they are fugitives from the men whomade a profit off of them. They live in jeopardy, alwaysmore or less in hiding. They organize to help others escape.They write— in blood, their own. They publish sometimes,including their own newsletters. They dem onstrate; they4 . S a r a h W y n t e r , p s e u d o n y m , m a n u s c r i p t , J u n e 1 9 , 1 9 8 5 .5 . N a m e w i t h h e l d , m a n u s c r i p t ; a l s o t e s t i m o n y b e f o r e t h e S u b c o m m i t t e ev e n i l e J u s t i c e o f t h e C o m m i t t e e o n t h e J u d i c i a r y , U n i t e d S t a t e s S e n a t e , S e p t e m ­b e r 1 2 , 1 9 8 4 .