Attorney General's Commission on Pornography

Date: 1986

Place: Washington, D.C.

Significance: Conservatives, feminists, and religious leaders were among those who supported the commission and the creation of a division within the Department of Justice to attack pornography

The Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography produced a conservative, procensorship document. Such a result was predictable given the members of the commission. The panel included Fundamentalist Christian psychologist James Dobson, three current or former prosecutors who had specialized in obscenity cases—including Alan Sears, legal counsel for the antipornography group Citizens for Decency Through Law—another law professor whose long-held position was that pornography is not constitutionally protected, two experts on sex offenders whose work had focused on the pornography-sexual violence connection, a child abuse expert, and Father Bruce Ritter, a priest who worked with runaways in New York City (he later left his ministry after being charged with child sexual abuse).

The final report relied on four major points to come to its conclusion that pornography was indeed dangerous and should be subject to additional government prosecution and control. The first point was the testimony of those who had been harmed by the effects of pornography. The second was psychological laboratory research concerning the effects of viewing pornographic materials. The third point was investigation of what was available in adult bookstores. The fourth point was the views toward pornography that the panel members brought with them. Each of these points was challenged by opponents of the report.

The commission held public hearings in six major cities; those opposed to pornography were permitted to dominate the sessions. Those who testified included seventy-four law enforcement representatives, fourteen abused children, ten representatives of religious organizations, nine antipornography groups, seven antipornography feminists, six self-described former porn addicts, and five abused wives. Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Dorchen Leidholdt, Deborah Chalfie, and Martha Langelan all testified, the last three as representatives of Feminists Against Pornography. Others who gave testimony were Terese Stanton, Judith Reisman, and Linda Marchiano.

The commission had neither the time nor the money to do new empirical psychological research into the effects of pornography on viewers. Despite the many criticisms of existing research, the commission drew only upon extant studies to make its unambiguous claim that sexually violent pornographic material had negative effects on attitude and behavior, and was quite likely to lead to sexual assaults against women. When pornography effects researchers such as Neil Malamuth, Edward Donnerstein, Daniel Linz, Dolf Zillman, and Kathryn Kelley discovered how the commission had used their data, they quickly rushed to disavow any connection with the commission’s findings.

In order to determine the extent and types of pornography currently available the commission employed two vice detectives from Washington, D.C., who visited adult bookstores in a small number of major cities. Their findings, and particularly the way they were presented in the report, led to several criticisms that the commission wanted to present erotic materials in the worst possible light. The findings consisted of lists of 2,325 magazine titles, 725 book titles, and 2,370 film titles. At no point was a content analysis done of the films or magazines. Instead, the report simply listed cities in which the following types of pornography could be purchased: depictions of sex between humans and animals; urination and defecation; bondage, rape, and sexual violence; sex with amputees; and simulated child sex. The percentages that each of these categories represented of the available total was never stated.

The commission’s tendency to incorporate their own biases and moralize about pornography appears most clearly in its discussion of nonviolent and nondegrading materials—which they argued was a small percentage of the available market in porn in comparison to violent and degrading materials. The commission focused on the fact that these materials were antifamily.

The final report was sharply criticized by civil libertarians and social scientists—and even two commission members— when it was released. Commission members Judith Becker and Ellen Levine criticized the lack of concise definitions of pornography and antisocial behavior. They were particularly disturbed by certain commissioners’ desire to include such sexual practices as masturbation, homosexuality between consenting adults, or premarital sex as forms of antisocial behavior.

The final report included eighty-nine suggestions for actions that could be taken by the federal government, state and local governments, and private citizens to restrict the free availability of pornographic materials. These included calls for new statutes, increased law enforcement activities, the use of new forfeiture penalties, citizen boycotts of pornography outlets, and so on. Federal government activities geared toward the elimination of pornographic materials increased significantly after the publication of the report.