SOURCE: Scruton, Roger. “Kiss Me, Cate.” National Review 45, no. 21 (1 November 1993): 61-2.

In the following review of Only Words, Scruton enumerates the weaknesses of MacKinnon's case against pornography and free speech and asserts that her arguments function to incite hatred against men.

I read Only Words with horrified amazement—at the thing against which Professor MacKinnon rails, and at the manner of her railing. I knew in outline of the American culture of pornography, and was familiar from her other writings with Miss MacKinnon's hate-intoxicated style. But never had I guessed at the relation between them—the magnetic force with which pornography grips the feminist imagination, and the reckless obsession that results from this. Here, in 150 relentless pages, are the two most degrading of present-day America's sins against the spirit: pornography and misandry. Miss MacKinnon's diatribe is a vivid instance of what she condemns, a dirtying of life and...