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

T he burden of proof will be on those of us whohave been victimized. If I [any woman] am able toprove that the picture you are holding, the onewhere the knife is stuffed up my vagina, was takenwhen my pim p forced me at gunpoint and photographedit without my consent, if my existenceis proved real, I am coming to take what is mine.If I can prove that the movie you are looking atcalled Black Bondage, the one where my black skinis synonymous with filth and my bondage and myslavery is encouraged, caused me harm and discrimination,if my existence is proved real, I amcoming to take what is mine. W hether you like itor not, the time is coming when you will have toget your fantasy off my ass.Therese Stanton, “Fighting forO ur Existence” in Changing Men#15, Fall 1985In the fall of 1983, something changed. The speech ofwomen hurt by pornography became public and real. It,they, began to exist in the sphere of public reality. Constitutionallawyer Catharine A. MacKinnon and I werehired by the City of Minneapolis to draft an amendmentto the city’s civil rights law: an amendm ent that wouldrecognize pornography as a violation of the civil rights ofwomen, as a form of sex discrimination, an abuse of humanrights. We were also asked to organize hearings that wouldprovide a legislative record showing the need for such alaw. Essentially, the legislators needed to know that theseviolations were systematic and pervasive in the populationthey represented, not rare, peculiar anomalies.The years of listening to the private stories had beenyears of despair for me. It was hopeless. I could not help.There was no help. I listened; I went on my way; nothingchanged. Now, all the years of listening were knowledge,real knowledge that could be mined: a resource, not a