"only words"

free speech 'absolutists' -those who argue that no restriction on speech at all is justified- are absolutely stupid. Their stupidity surfaces in all its pettiness when they argue against anti-pornography regulations. "Do not censor any idea, no matter how contemptible and disgusting you find it -they say- for ideas can do you no harm". Contempt and disgust is what most feminist theorists feel when they are confronted with these arguments, and their retort to them is that it is disingenuous to assert that words of sexual abuse, such as those that are typical in pornographic material, are harmless. Catharine MacKinnon: "As incantations while sexual abuse is occurring, they carry that world with them... sexual terms [do not merely] reference a reality [...] they reaccess and restimulate body memory of it for both aggressor and victim [...] 'Being offended' is the closest the First Amendment tradition comes to grasping this effect." In the eyes of most 'absolutists', pornography is conceived in terms of what it says, not in terms of what it does. In this view, forms of communication cannot do anything bad but offend. But offense is all in the head, the argument goes. It is assumed that words have only “referential relation to reality”. Thus pornography is defended as "only words".
This view, MacKinnon argues, is problematic because it conveniently disregard the fact that social inequality is created and enforced –done— through words and images. Social hierarchy cannot and does not exist without being embodied in meaning and expressed in communications. (“Whites Only”, “Juden nicht erwuenscht”, “fuck me or you’re fired”, and so on). “Elevation and denigration are all accomplished through meaningful symbols and communicative acts in which saying it is doing it”. That is why it is better to understand pornography in constructing and performative terms, than in referential and connotative ones. Absolutism notwithstanding.