Discussions of freedom of speech and press typically define freedom in the negative: freedom from control, regulation, censorship. The pornography debate typically focuses on whether intervention violates someone's freedom to produce, sell, or consume pornography. I argue that the negative definition is inadequate for theorizing freedom of expression and that affirmative notions are more promising. If pornography can curb some women's expressive freedom, then legal approaches cannot be framed simply as restriction on the freedom of pornographers but become a balancing of two different types of freedoms. Controls on pornography can be an attempt to establish conditions that make the exercise of the freedom meaningful.