FREE ESSAY ON PORNOGRAPHY AND VIOLENCE

PORNOGRAPHY AND VIOLENCE

Pornography and Violence
Throughout this semester, I have looked through our book and made a decision on the topic
that interested me the most. This topic is one that affects our entire society. After
considering the increase in rape and molestation, sexual harassment, and other sex crimes
over the last few decades, and also the corresponding increase of business in the
pornography industry, does the media cause undesirable social consequences with specific
reference to pornography and violence. 
In the late seventies, America became shocked and outraged by the rape, mutilation, and
murder of over a dozen young, beautiful girls. The man who committed these murders, Ted
Bundy, was later apprehended and executed. During his detention in various
penitentiaries, he was mentally probed and prodded by psychologist and psychoanalysts
hoping to discover the root of his violent actions and sexual frustrations. Many theories
arose in attempts to explain the motivational factors behind his murderous escapades.
However the strongest and most feasible of these theories came not from the
psychologists, but from the man himself,  as a teenager, my buddies and I would all sneak
around and watch porn. As I grew older, I became more and more interested and involved in
it, (pornography) became an obsession. I got so involved in it, I wanted to incorporate
(porn) into my life, but I couldn't behave like that and maintain the success I had
worked so hard for. I generated an alter ego to fulfill my fantasies under-cover.
Pornography was a means of unlocking the evil I had buried inside myself According to
Edward Donnerstein, a leading researcher in the pornography field,  the relationship
between sexually violent images in the media and subsequent aggression and callous
attitudes towards women is much stronger statistically than the relationship between
smoking and cancer. After considering the increase of sex related crimes; the linkage
between violence and pornography needs considerable study and examination.
In order to properly discuss pornography, and be able to link it to violence, we must
first come to a basic and agreeable understanding of what the word pornography means. The
term pornography originates from two Greek words, porne, which means harlot, and
graphein, which means to write. My belief is that the combination of the two words was
originally meant to describe, in literature, the sexual escapades of women deemed to be
whores. As time has passed, this definition of pornography has grown to include any and
all obscene literature and pictures. At the present date, the term is basically a
blanket, which covers all types of material such as explicit literature, photography,
films, and videotapes with varying degrees of sexual content. 
Now that pornography has been defined in a fashion mirroring its content, it is now
possible to touch upon the more complex ways a community, as a society, views or defines
it. Some have said it is impossible for a group of individuals to form a concrete opinion
as to what pornography means. A U.S. supreme judge is quoted as saying,  I can't define
pornography, but I know it when I see it. This statement can be heard at community
meetings in every state, city, and county across the nation. Community standards are hazy
due to the fact individuals cannot express or explain in words that pornography is,
therefore creating confusion among themselves. For thousands of years, sex itself has
been considered evil and revolting. This is exactly why the concealment of the sex organs
and teaching feelings of shame toward human sexuality is so common worldwide. These same
feelings of shame are the chief reasons that sex is considered a personal and private
matter. Contrary to the beliefs of many, the mass media did not create these settings,
society creates this image. In some societies, women have no reservations with regard to
living their entire lives completely naked, while in other societies, females cover
themselves from head to tow, only revealing their eyes. The media had been bombarded with
criticism, overwhelmingly from the female community, relative to the amount of sexually
explicit material that is common argument against pornography is that the media portrays
women as being nothing more than sexual playthings and objects to satisfy male sexual
desires. As before, the media once again, is not to be held responsible for creating this
image: these views are products of society. It would be downright absurd to assume that
women in this society are treated as sexual objects only because the media releases or
broadcasts pornographic material. A magazine associated with make-up and skin care for
example will quite obviously not be concentrating on much else. Such a magazine would not
display pictures of women who mountain climb or women who water ski only images of
make-up and text referring to skin care would be relevant. 
Clearly, society does not consider women to be beings who's only purpose in life is to
worry about make- up and skin care, but why are the complaints only directed toward
pornographic media then? The answer to this question may be more complicated, what
remains obvious is that the media does not portray women as only being able to fill male
sexual desires. To say that pictures featuring females who pin-up posters of male rock
stars or children who collect hockey or baseball cards. Society knows not say that
objects are being made out of these rock stars and sports heroes, pictures of clothed
people are no less objects than pictures of naked people. Many complaints are also made
to the effect that pornography offers a one-dimensional view to life, that women are seen
as perverts who are addicted to sex. It should be pointed out that events such as hockey
games, boxing matches, horse races and operas all offer a one-dimensional view of life.
One does not attend an opera hoping to see a horse race.
It is also said that the media reduces women to a collection of body parts through
pornography. But why then are there no complains of advertisements in magazines
displaying only ears, for example, or a nose, or feet? The reason is simple; society
considers certain body parts to be shameful or disgusting. Realistically, the only way to
prevent women from being seen as objects is for them to be seen as other things as well,
but to say that women are not sexual beings would be misleading because both men and
women are very much sexual. For instance, a television ad portraying young men groveling
at the feet of supermodel Cindy Crawford, almost begging to be the one to cater to her
needs. There were no lineups of men aching to announce their displeasure with the sexist
ad and this is precisely why male stereotyping in the media often shunned by anti-
pornographic and censoring organizations because it seemly singled out females for their
bodies. It should be also noted that 40% of all sales of romantic novels depict male
models as sexual objects just as pornography depicts females as sexual objects. 
Having discussed the untruthfulness of the claims against pornography and showing that
pornography is not evil, it is now possible to consider the violence issue. Are men who
are exposed to pornography more likely to commit acts, such as rapes against women more
so than men who are not exposed to pornography? It is tempting to believe that media
influences males and overstimulates them through pornography to the point that they
become aggressive towards females is baseless, just as pornography arouses or stimulates
. The American Commission on Obscenity and Pornography performed a study in which several
college students were asked to spend one and a half hours in a isolated room with a large
volume of pornographic media, as well as a large number of non-explicit media such as
Reader's Digest. The study was conducted over a three week period of time it was
discovered that the males involved began to lose interest, or became less interested to
the erotic media nearing the end of the experiment, even if new material was added. Four
more separate experiments were conducted of which the above was the conclusion. Three
other experiments came to the conclusion that pornography does not cause violence against
women and reported that the number of sex offenders that had been exposed to pornographic
material were smaller in number than the amount of sex-offenders that had not been
exposed to the pornography. These results can be offered as evidence against the claims
that males become overstimulated and thus dangerous when exposed to pornography. It
should be also pointed out that women and not just men also enjoy these thrills based on
numerous studies. 
When discussing pornography, it is scarcely noted that men are not the only ones who
enjoy fantasizing about sex. In fact, most of these fantasies involve some degree of
violence or force and are largely driven by the romance novels. The reports published by
Nancy Friday, show that the number of female fantasies involving rape far outweighs the
number of male fantasies involving rape. What comes as a surprise to many is that male
fantasies, the women rapes the man and conversely, in female fantasies, the man rapes the
women. Having considered the issues at hand, it can be said that since there is no
concrete evidence to support, pornography in the media does not cause undesirable social
behavior. It is an undisputed fact that feelings of love and happiness cancel out violent
feelings and to say that pornography endorses violent feelings fails to make sense, if it
did, why would men want to be exposed to it?
To suggest that pornography causes men to go over he edge and commit rape is as ludicrous
as suggesting that pictures of food cause the hungry to steal more food. As members of
society, we recognize the power of mass media. We understand that public perception can
be easily persuaded. But it should be clearly understood that pornography in the media
alone couldn't persuade men to cause harm to women; it cannot cause men to do things that
are socially unacceptable. Pornography only causes feelings of excitement and
satisfaction and these feelings overpower those feelings of violence.
Bibliography
Bibliography
1. Pornography, Christensen F.M., 1990, New York, Praeger.
2. Mass Media, Violence and Society, Howitt, Cumberpatch, 1975, London, Elek Science.
3. Role of Pornography in Woman Abuse, Harmon, Check 1988 American Commission on
Obscenity and Pornography. 
4. Pornography in a Free Society, Hawkins, Simring, 1988