in his room, leaving with him, being a woman” (Hesni, 2018, pp. 959). The second is
that “The hearer deems the speaker not to have the authority to perform the speech act
(and behaves accordingly).” (Hesni, 2018, pp.959). Hesni (2018) concludes that
illocutionary frustration can accurately capture the harm that women are subject to via
pornography. She also recognises women’s individual autonomy, and ability to have
their refusal recognised, something which Langton’s (1933) illocutionary silencing
cannot encapsulate because she doesn’t accept that uptake has taken place in scenario
1.
After investigating Hesni’s (2018) argument for illocutionary frustration as opposed
to illocutionary silencing a judgement must be reached regarding Langton’s (1993)
claim that pornography leads to the illocutionary silencing of women. Before an
assessment is made it must be clear what Hesni (2018) is and is not arguing. Hesni
(2018, pp. 961) is claiming that both seniors discussed above are to be treated equally
due to them both having uptake which leads to us being able to state that a woman has
been successful in her refusal of sex. Langton (1993) only states this to be the case in
the latter, and so whiles she recognises both result in harm, she is faced with the
criticism of justifying why women in rape cases supposedly didn’t refuse (Bird, 2002,
pp. 3). Hesni (2018) at no point claims that women are not harmed by pornography.
She also points out that illocutionary frustration is not just reducing both scenario 1
and 2 to perlocutionary silencing as Langton (1993) suggest is occurring in scenario 2,
but that frustration is something different. This difference lies in its ability to capture
how the harm of pornography spreads through women via “cultural and social scripts
and myths about women and sex” (Hesni, 2018, pp. 961) and how it permits the
speaker’s refusal to be recognised via the performance of a speech act despite it not
being recognised.
I think that through Hesni’s (2018, pp.954) breakdown of non-literal speech a clear
and convincing case can be made that refusal has taken place in scenario 1 . This
leaves Langton (1933) wrong in her claim that illocutionary disablement, the main
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