Pornography's Authority? Response to Leslie Green
Green's critique raises questions about social construction, and about the ‘jurisdiction’ of pornography's authority. Drawing on a comparison with speech that may subordinate gay men, he argues that pornography lacks the authority to subordinate, and even if had authority, it would not subordinate women: saying so would not make it so, and women would not be within the authority's jurisdiction. Authority depends on conditions of efficacy and legitimacy, absent for pornography. Green is mistaken. Pornography does have the relevant authority, and examination of its verdictive and exercitive dimensions sheds light on social construction: on how its saying so may, after all, make it so.
Keywords: Green, social construction, authority, subordinate, efficacy, legitimacy, verdictive, exercitive
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .