McElroy notes that anti-porn feminists use definitions of pornography that employ built-in prejudices. For example, "Pornography is a form of discrimination on the basis of sex," or, "Pornography is violence against women." Not like violence, but is violence. McElroy strives to construct a definition that is logical, objective and neutral: "Pornography is the explicit artistic description of men and/or women as sexual beings."

The problem McElroy finds with "liberal feminists" opposed to the "radical anti-porn feminists" is that they are "anti-censorship" rather than pro-pornography. The anti-censorship feminists frequently accept what she contends are the flawed assumptions and ideology of the radical anti-porn feminists.

Sexually correct history considers the graphic depiction of sex to be the traditional and immutable enemy of women's freedom. Exactly the opposite is true.... The current backlash of censorship is an alliance between the Moral Majority (the Right) and the politically correct (the Left). This alliance is threatening the freedom of both women and sexual expression. The Right defines the explicit depiction of sex as evil; the Left defines it as violence against women. The result is the same.

Why does McElroy take this unorthodox, enthusiastic point of view? She contends: "Pornography benefits women, both personally and politically."

The drive to suppress pornography and other manifestations of sexuality is not a new impulse in history. McElroy's presentation of the history of the Comstock Laws in America both supports her thesis on the political importance of pornography to the rights of women. Anthony Comstock was a professional activist with the New York branch of the YMCA. Comstock tracked down producers and sellers of literature that offended him. His efforts to obtain a sweeping Federal law against "obscenity" were successful when what came to be called the Comstock Act passed on Sunday, March 2,1873 after less than an hour of debate.

Depictions or advocacy of abortion or contraceptive methods of birth control were treated as obscene by the law. Marriage reform (equal status of wives and husbands) advocacy was another Com-stock target. Comstock was not just combatting pornography but women's equality and sexuality itself.

McElroy looks to the past . draws the parallels with today.

The issue that united the antislavery and feminist movements was a demand for the right of every human being to control his or her own body and property. This same principle is the core of individualist feminism today.

Comstockery was not just an empty law on the books. Comstock was appointed as a special agent of the post office by Congress to inspect mail. In shades I of today's civil forfeiture abuses, The Society for the Suppression of Vice that Comstock headed received a share of the violators fines. Comstockery had real victims, who should be amongst today's heroes. McElroy's light of independent scholarship is shed on such figures as Ezra and Angela Heywood. They published a pamphlet entitled Cupid's Yokes in 1876 advocating love as the basis for marriage, birth control and the repeal of the Comstock laws. In 1878, Ezra Heywood was sentenced to two years at hard labor. Then Comstock prosecuted D. M. Bennett, founder of The Truth Seeker, for merely advertising Cupid's Yokes.

But the conservative enemies of pornography and women's rights are not the main targets of the book. McElroy focuses on the radical feminist brigade. She sees, correctly in my view, two sources of their hatred of pornography. They literally hate men and they hate capitalism. McElroy, advocates both capitalism and pornography, and explains that Marxist- influenced intellectuals such as Catherine MacKinnon do not believe there is a difference between voluntary, free exchange and coercion. "Only by understanding the deep and unmovable antipathy that radical feminists harbor toward free exchange and traditional sex is it possible to sound the near-bottomless depths of their hatred for pornography, which combines both." In other words, radical feminists are not "pro-choice," although they are so dubbed in connection with abortion.

XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography champions not just pornography but the philosophy of individual liberty and free markets. It will disconcert both the prejudiced opponents of pornography and the compromised supporters of toleration. It will hearten those who realize that freedom is indivisible and those who know that sex is a positive good.

XXX: A Woman's Right to Pornography by Wendy McElroy. 1995, ISBN: 0312135269, St. Martin's Press,175 Fifth Ave, NewYork, NY.10010; (212) 6745151, (800) 221-7945. @1995; 256 pages. $21.95.

Richard Cooper is an import manager and a freelance writer.