Illiberal Thoughts on ‘Page 3’

Abstract

The first thing to avoid in thinking about pornography is trying to define ‘pornography’. Trying to distinguish pornography from erotica or to define its proper limits is either misconceived or mischievous. Just as we can discuss tables, chairs, typewriters and handbags — or murder, art and responsibility — without being able to define them so we can discuss pornographic pictures, writing and advertising without being able to define ‘pornography’. I am not implying that, however obscurely, ‘we all know what we mean’ in some (quasi-)intuitive fashion, I am simply making the point that within the limits of our fallibility and the parameters of historical and related circumstances, we can quite unproblematically discuss myriads of things which we cannot define in terms of formal ideas.