Despite pornographic content not always using words, it is able to depict and
describe, in perlocutionary terms as well as possess an illocutionary force
(subordination), all of which are preconditions for a speech act. Additionally,
pornography has authority embedded within its locutions. This authority stems from
the historic marginalisation of women by men. Locutions dependent on a speaker’s
authority are known as “authoritative locutions” (Langton, 1993, pp.305). Langton
(1993) draws on Austin’s (1976) threefold distinction of locutionary, illocutionary and
perlocutionary acts to demonstrate how pornography is a speech act. Langton (1993,
pp.308) starts by identifying pornography as the illocutionary act (The “performance
of an act in saying something as opposed to the performance of an act of saying
something” (Austin, 1976, pp. 100) of subordination. Her paper identifies three ways
in which a speech act can be said to have the illocutionary act of subordination
(Langton, 1993, pp.307).
1. The act must rank people as inferior.
2. The act must allow for discriminatory behaviour.
3. The act must deprive an individual of powers and rights (Langton, 1993,
pp. 307).
An example of the following can be seen in the utterance of “Whites only”
(Langton, 1993, pp.302) in the context of deciding who can vote. The utterance
subordinates black people, ranks Black people “as having inferior worth” (Langton’s,
1993, pp.303), legitimises discriminatory behaviour, and deprives Black people of
important powers, namely the power to vote (Langton, 1993, pp.303). It is this ability,
the ability of a speech act to subordinate, which occurs to women as a result of
pornography.
Pornography is seen to rank women as sex objects and permit speech that allows for
sexual violence. Thus, subordination can be seen through the way in which
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