Pornography is tearing apart the very fabric of our society. Yet Christians are often ignorant of its impact and apathetic about the need to control this menace. Pornography is an $8 billion a year business with close ties to organized crime. (1) The wages of sin are enormous when pornography is involved Pornography involves books, magazines, videos, and devices and has moved from the periphery of society into the mainstream through the renting of video cassettes, sales of so-called “soft-porn” magazines, and the airing of sexually explicit movies on cable television. To some, pornography is nothing more than a few pictures of scantily-clad women in seductive poses. But pornography has become much more than just photographs of nude women.
Nearly 900 theaters show pornographic films and more than 15, 000 “adult” bookstores and video stores offer pornographic material. Adult bookstores outnumber McDonald’s restaurants in the United States by a margin of at least three to one. defined pornography as material that “is predominantly sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.” Hard core pornography “is sexually explicit in the extreme, and devoid of any other apparent content or purpose.” Another important term is the definition of obscenity. The first type of pornography is adult magazines. These are primarily directed toward an adult male audience (but not exclusively).
The Term Paper on Classification Pornography
... Both forms of pornography generally contains nudity. Softcore pornography generally contains nudity or partial nudity in sexually suggestive situations, but without explicit sexual activity, ... Pornography may be presented in a variety of media, including books, magazines, postcards, photographs, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video, and video ...
The magazines which have the widest distribution (e.
g. , Playboy, Penthouse) do not violate the Miller standard of obscenity and thus can be legally distributed. But other magazines which do violate these standards are still readily available in many adult bookstores. The second type of pornography is video cassettes.
These are rented or sold in most adult bookstores and have become a growth industry for pornography. People who would never go into an adult bookstore or theater to watch a pornographic movie will obtain these video cassettes through bookstores or in the mail and watch them in the privacy of their homes. Usually these videos display a high degree of hard core pornography and illegal acts. The third type of pornography is motion pictures.
Ratings standards are being relaxed and many pornographic movies are being shown and distributed carrying R and NC-17 ratings. Many of these so-called “hard R” rated films would have been considered obscene just a decade ago. A fourth type of pornography is television. As in motion pictures, standards for commercial television have been continuously lowered. But cable television poses an even greater threat. The FCC does not regulate cable in the same way it does public access stations.
Thus, many pornographic movies are shown on cable television. Like video cassettes, cable TV provides the average person with easy access to pornographic material. People who would never go to an adult bookstore can now view the same sexually explicit material in the privacy of their homes, making cable TV “the ultimate brown wrapper.” A fifth type of pornography is cyber porn. Hard core pictures, movies, online chat, and even live sex acts can be downloaded and viewed by virtually anyone through the Internet. Sexually explicit images can be found on web pages and in news groups and are far too easy for anyone of any age to view. What was only available to a small number of people willing to drive to the bad side of town can now be viewed at any time in the privacy of one’s home.
The Essay on Women and Pornographic Movies: The Issue of Sexual Liberation
Movies with pornographic content oftentimes involve women who are acting while in frontal nudity or are having sexual intercourse with another actor in particular scenes of a film. Feminists see this objectification of women as a form of sexist action and a “degrading, demeaning” and “woman-hating propaganda” (Stoltenberg, 2000, p. 123). It is therefore not surprising if feminists demand for an ...
A final type of pornography is audio porn. This includes “Dial-a- porn” telephone calls which are the second fastest growth market of pornography. Although most of the messages are within the Miller definition of obscenity, these businesses continue to thrive and are often used most by children. Pornography should be banned as a threat to women because it dehumanizes women into becoming sexual objects – things, commodities.
Women in pornographic movies are often raped and forced to act in degrading ways. But viewers of these films come to believe that these women enjoy these acts, leading men into believing that this is the way that all women like to be treated. When the thought of pornography comes to a person’s mind, one usually thinks of a Playboy magazine and very explicit sexual videos, but pornography goes way beyond those immediate stereotypes and preconceived notions. For a person to really get a grasp on the whole issue, you must look at many other factors that contribute to this controversial topic. You can look at the many reasons why people, women as well as men, are so fascinated by this and what causes them to want more of it, and you can also look at the many consequences that pornography inflicts. Many women’s rights organizations feel that pornography is degrading to women and sets them back to a time when they were looked upon as mere sex objects and nothing more.
Others also argue that many violent attacks such as rape and domestic violence are dramatically increased after being exposed to pornography.
