 For MacKinnon, pornography involves men treating women as mere instruments in order to satisfy their sexual desires. Such treatment, at best, fails to recognize women as free and equal persons and, at worst, dehumanizes women and encourages their victimization. In response to MacKinnon, Martha Nussbaum questions whether sexual objectification always involves treating someone as a mere means to another’s ends, or whether it only does so in certain contexts (Nussbaum 1999: 214).