Sexual offenders and pornography : a causal connection?
Goldsmith explores the relationship between pornography and sexual offences, citing overseas research which shows a connection between the two. She provides other examples which demonstrate a causative relationship and explores sociological, psychological and anthropological theories for this relationship. She also attempts to estimate the level of sexual violence in Australia by multiplying reported rapes by the estimated rate of non reporting.Published in: Without consent : confronting adult sexual violence : proceedings of a conference held 27-29 October 1992
Patricia Weiser Easteal (ed)
ISBN 0 642 19390 8 ; ISSN 1034-5086
Canberra : Australian Institute of Criminology, 1993
(AIC Conference Proceedings; no. 20)To download Chairman Goldsmith's document from the Government of Austrailia
SEXUAL OFFENDERS AND PORNOGRAPHY: A CAUSAL CONNECTION?
by Marlene Goldsmith, Chairman, Legislative Council Standing Committee on Social Issues, Parliament of New South WalesTHE QUESTION OF WHETHER A CONNECTION EXISTS BETWEEN THE availability of pornography and the prevalence of sex crime is an emotive one, canvassing as it does the issue of freedom of speech. As a result there has been, perhaps, a tendency to shoot the messenger, ignore the research or, as public opinion makers Phillip Adams (1992) and Richard Neville have done, express concern while at the same time opposing censorship and not being particularly helpful in suggesting alternative remedies. Perhaps Brownmiller best summed up the philosophical problems in dealing with this vexed question:
Pornography has been so thickly glossed over with the patina of chic these days in the name of verbal freedom and sophistication that important distinctions between freedom of political expression (a democratic necessity), honest sex education for children (a societal good) and ugly smut (the deliberate devolution of the role of women through obscene, distorted depictions) have been hopelessly confused (Brownmiller 1975, p. 392).Given the level of confusion about the meaning of pornography, it may be useful if it is defined for the purposes of this paper. The (unanimous) Canadian Supreme Court redefinition of pornography, in February 1992, as material that degrades women or promotes violence is the interpretation used here (Supreme Court of Canada 1992). This paper's concern is not about putting fig leaves on classical statues; it is about the increasingly virulent tide of material in which the primary concern appears to be to demean women and reassert their treatment as inferiors.
The following then, has three tasks: first, to demonstrate a connection between pornography and violence against women; second, to provide evidence that the connection is a causal one; and third, to then provide a theoretical explanation of the causal connection. A fourth task also may be useful: to show that the level of sex crime is high enough to matter.
Pornography and Rape: Is There a Connection?
The literature in this area is substantial and growing. A few examples follow:
- In a comparative study of rape rates in the USA, Scandinavia, Britain, Australia and New Zealand, Court (1984) found a connection between the availability of pornography and the level of rape. He specifically refutes earlier studies that purported to show otherwise, particularly in relation to Australia, where the uniform crime data:
actually support the case for an increase [in rape rates after the liberalisation of pornography] quite convincingly (Court 1984, p. 158).- In the USA, the eight major men's magazines (Chic, Club, Gallery, Genesis, Hustler, Oui, Playboy and Penthouse) have sales that are five times higher per capita in Alaska and Nevada than in other states such as North Dakota and rape rates that are six times higher per capita in Alaska and Nevada than North Dakota. Overall a fairly strong correlation was found between rape and circulation rates in the fifty states, even with controls for potential confounding variables, such as region, climate, propensity to report rape and police practices (Milne-Home 1991; Baron & Straus 1985 cited in United States Attorney-General's Commission on Pornography 1986, p. 944-5).
- Exposure to pornography of less than five hours over a six-week period resulted in a halving of sentences thought appropriate for rape (Malamuth 1984). Malamuth (1986) links pornography to the level of hostility felt towards women and, further, finds the level of hostility is a significant predictor of sexual violence.
- In New South Wales, in the period 1975-91, a time during which pornography has become increasingly available, there has been a 90.6 per cent increase in the level of rape (Categories 1-3 Sexual Assault) (New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research 1991; New South Wales Police Statistics Unit 1988-89).
- In the USA, while the overall homicide rate declined, sex-related murders rose 160 per cent between 1976 and 1984 (Faludi 1991, p. 11).
- A Michigan state police study found that pornography was viewed just before or during 41 per cent of 38,000 sexual crimes committed over twenty years (Pope 1987).
The above are only a few examples; the literature is extensive. For a more comprehensive overview, see Thomson (1991), a brief but well-researched article with an extensive bibliography; Weaver (1987), a PhD thesis which reviews the literature and has over 140 references; Milne-Home (1991) for a feminist overview; and of course, the report of the United States Attorney-General's Commission on Pornography (1986) which has attracted a certain amount of opprobrium from critics who allege that it is a biased report because it set out to find pornography harmful. The emotional response to the United States Attorney-General's Commission on Pornography is interesting because, although politicians may often have quite strong views on an issue at the start of an inquiry, this argument is not used to discredit the committee/commission process generally. Moreover, most politicians are quite capable of modifying their views and even changing their minds when the evidenciary weight of a committee inquiry contradicts their initial position. Committees frequently produce reports that contradict political expectations. It is interesting that critics are prepared to discredit not only the conclusions of this inquiry, but the substantial accumulation of research and testimony that forms the vast bulk of the report.
Is the Correlation Causal?
An examination of the above research might be sufficient to cause concern about the contribution of pornography to hostility towards and violence against women. However, an argument frequently presented to defend pornography in the face of such data is that correlation is not the same as cause: perhaps both these variables occur together because they are the result of some other factor. The 'other factor' generally used in such examples is the relative openness of a society: more open cultures (the argument goes) have both more pornography and more willingness to report sexual violence; therefore, there appears to be more sexual violence, although only the reporting rate has changed. Faludi states that crime statisticians in the USA, examining the data, 'have widely rejected this argument' (Faludi 1991, p. 504).
However, if the argument were sustainable, then moves to subsequently restrict pornography in already open societies should have no demonstrable effect. Consider, then, the following:
- in Hawaii in 1974, restrictions were placed on the sale of pornographic material. Rape figures fell for the following two years. The restrictions were then lifted, and rape immediately increased. (United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation 1973 -78); and
- in Oklahoma County, 'adult' stores were closed in 1985, and a 25 per cent decrease in the rape rate occurred over the next five years 1985-90. In the remainder of Oklahoma, there was no such law and no decrease in the rape rate (Macy 1991).
The correlation between sale of men's magazines and level of sex crime cited above would also suggest that the openness argument fails, as the different states are in the same country. However, there is more cultural diversity among American than Australian states, so perhaps we should examine our own record. In 1985, South Australia had the highest reported rape rate in Australia, Queensland the lowest. South Australia was the first state to liberalise the availability of pornography while Queensland was still the most restrictive state in 1985. The figures cited are reported rapes and there are problems with using reported rape alone but are South Australians so very dissimilar to Queenslanders? And the US magazine study controlled for variations in reporting and yet remained statistically significant.
The problem with using reported rape rates alone has created a great deal of confusion for researchers. Reported rape data, for example, are often used to deny any connection between pornography and rape. However, the reported rape rate is extremely low in Sweden, not because rape is rare but because the level of conviction is so low: in 1990 only 12.3 per cent of charged rapists were convicted. Not surprisingly, Swedish women are reluctant to pursue charges in the face of such a low likelihood of gaining a conviction. The statistical yearbook of Sweden for 1992 (325) reports a 34.9 per cent increase in rape from 1986 to 1990 (during a period when the population grew by 0.4 per cent). (For further discussion of Swedish and Danish data and detailed analysis of a number of critics of the pornography-rape nexus, see Reisman 1992).
Theoretical Explorations
Class, power and selling magazines: sociological issues
It is too soon to attempt prescriptive theories about the pornography-rape nexus. However, the definition of pornography in the introduction to this paper needs to be remembered: material that involves degradation or violence. Two particular magazines, in this context, have been instructive: People and The Picture. Until mid-1992, both magazines were sold openly on newsstands, without any submission for censorship classification, restriction or code of standards. The sorts of images of women in the two magazines included:
- frequent representations of women as animals or behaving like animals (the woman-on-a-dog's-lead cover being the most well known of these);
- images of female subordination, such as naked women being used as tables for men to rest their beers on while playing cards; and
- images of women subjected to various forms of violence (for example, covered in bruises).
The language used about women in these magazines is similarly depersonalising. These images are about violence and degradation; they are not what one would generally think of as erotica.
The publisher of the magazines, Richard Walsh, has claimed publicly (Olle, Andrew 1992, Interview with Richard Walsh and Beatrice Faust, Radio 2BL, 14 May) that they are 'good working class material' and that 'these magazines are aimed at young working class men'. One might question Walsh's glib categorisation which is an insulting generalisation about working class men as his target might be a somewhat different one: such as, men who perceive themselves to be of low social status because their jobs and/or environment give them little support for their self-esteem. Walsh's magazines gives them someone to look down on: no matter how low their self-image, the male readers of People can reassure themselves that they are superior to 50 per cent of the human race¾the female 50 per cent. (A relevant comparison here is the American Ku Klux Klan, which draws its membership from a similar socioeconomic group and provides them with the reinforcement of feeling superior to blacks.)
In the same radio report, noted feminist scholar and writer Beatrice Faust states:
The sex life of the working class is nasty, brutish and short. Every survey of behaviour, whether it's sexual offences or marital behaviour or premarital behaviour shows that. I had a dear friend who used to say 'tell me how a man makes love and I'll tell you how he votes', and that is absolutely justified in terms of what we know about class attitude and conduct in sexual matters (Faust in Olle, Andrew 1992, Interview with Richard Walsh and Beatrice Faust, Radio 2BL, 14 May.).Faust cites Miriam Dixson (1976), in The Real Matilda, as reinforcing this view, by arguing that Australian working men have power only over women. Unfortunately, Faust's response to the problem is to 'put down-market stuff in down-market outlets'¾in other words, to ignore the plight of the working class [sic] woman and hope fervently that this nasty stuff can be kept safely quarantined from the rest of us.
Rapists in the recent ABC-TV documentary Without Consent did not describe their motivation and pleasure as sexual but as the thrill of exercising power over another human being. Rape is not about sex, it is about power. From Brownmiller (1976) on, the sociological literature has established rape as a crime of violence rather than lust, aggression rather than sex¾a crime that is about power.
The power of the image: psychological issues
Weaver's substantial review of the literature and research led him to conclude that:
exposure to sexually explicit themes results in a general 'loss of respect' for female sexuality and self-determinism (Weaver 1987, p. 86).How such a loss of respect might operate is a relevant question.
The visual image is processed by the right side of the brain; print by the left. The latter is rational and analytical; the former holistic and pattern-recognising. Left brain/right brain research is beyond the scope of analysis of this paper, but clearly questions need to be asked about the impact of the visual (whether photographic or film) image on the brain, particularly the male brain, which recent research indicates has much less connection between its left and right halves than the female brain, and therefore possibly much less opportunity for the rational left to control the impulses generated by the impressionistic right.
A further point: even many apparently non-violent images of naked women show them presenting as if in estrus¾as if already aroused and frequently in poses reminiscent of animal sexuality. Human females do not experience estrus, so such poses are a lie. However, they may well function to arouse the male (as pornography avowedly aims to do anyway), who is then left with no real partner to share the experience, only a magazine or film. Unsatisfied arousal may become displaced as anger and hostility against 'provocative' but unobtainable women (Reisman 1992, p. 25).
Status, violence and culture: anthropological issues
An anthropological perspective on rape is provided by Sanday (1981) using a cross-cultural examination of 156 separate societies. Although these societies were studied at different times by different anthropologists with different focuses (this last a relevant point in the likelihood of disclosing sensitive information about rape), Sanday nevertheless found sufficient information about rape to analyse ninety-five of the societies.
Some 47 per cent of the societies experienced little or no rape, 17 per cent were 'unambiguously rape-prone', while the remaining 36 per cent had evidence of rape but no clear indication of its incidence. These last were incorporated into the 'rape-prone' category. Sanday found patterns of behaviour that differed markedly between the two kinds of society. As Benderly (1982) summarises:
Societies with a high incidence of rape . . . tolerate violence and encourage men and boys to be tough, aggressive, and competitive. Men in such cultures generally have special, politically important gathering spots off limits to women, whether they be the Mundurucu men's club or the corner tavern. Women take little or no part in public decision making or religious rituals: men mock or scorn women's practical judgment. They also demean what they consider women's work and remain aloof from childbearing and rearing. These groups usually trace their beginnings to a male supreme being (Benderly 1982, p. 42).Benderly's conclusion is that:
The way society trains its boys and girls to think about themselves and each other determines to a large extent how rape-prone or rape-free that society will be (1982, p. 43).In other words, societies that provide negative images of females and female roles are societies which are rape-prone. Pornography specialises in negative images of women.
The Level of Sexual Violence
It is difficult to estimate the actual level of sexual violence in Australia. There appears to be little research available on, for instance, the level of actual as opposed to reported sexual violence. Moreover, the elimination of the term 'rape' from the legal lexicon, while undoubtedly promoted by the best of motives, has perhaps confused the issue: 'sexual violence' can include everything from violent language to the most brutal of rapes.
The Council of Europe survey was the basis for Without Consent. The survey involved over 2,000 Australians as well as similar sized samples from thirteen other countries. It found Australia to rank the highest of all in the level of 'sexual incidents' (including offensive behaviour) (van Dijk, Mayhew & Killias 1990). The Standing Committee on Social Issues of the New South Wales Legislative Council will be examining this report carefully in the near future.
Rape is the principal concern of this paper. Reported rapes (Category 1-3 Sexual Assaults) totalled 2,171 in New South Wales in 1991 (New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research 1991, Table 4.1). Estimates of the level of actual as against reported rape in Australia vary, from 2:1 to 9:1. Taking the lowest level (2:1) as a conservative estimate (Centre Against Sexual Assault 1991¾a Victorian study, as the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research had no figures for New South Wales), then there were at least 6,500 rapes in New South Wales in 1991. Given that over 90 per cent1 of rapes have a female victim, and extrapolating over an, again conservative, seventy-five year lifespan, then on 1991 rates, every female in New South Wales would have at least a one-in-eight chance of being raped during that lifespan.
Walker (1992a) in a radio interview has estimated that the level of sex crime in Australia is 'not extraordinarily bad'. However, one of his conclusions from the data he surveyed is that the risk of a rape or an attempted rape is around 1:200 women per year. Over a seventy-five year lifespan, that equates to three in every eight women experiencing rape or attempted rape. One is tempted to wonder what level this crime must reach before it is perceived as being high.
Conclusion
Sexual assault is a major and growing social problem, a fact that this paper contends is directly related to the availability and increasing toxicity (in terms of violent and degrading images) of pornography, and its effects on those who become sexual offenders.
Businesses spend billions of dollars on advertising, in the belief that media can and do have an effect on human behaviour. We support and encourage the arts, in the belief that novels, films and such have the capacity to uplift and enhance human society; in other words, that the arts have a capacity to influence people. Yet we are expected to believe that the increasing tide of pornography does not affect attitudes to women.
A 1983 Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA city ordinance proclaimed pornography as sex discrimination and therefore actionable for damages. The ordinance states that pornography:
is central in creating and maintaining the civil inequality of the sexes. Pornography is a systematic practice of exploitation and subordination based on sex which differentially harms women. The bigotry and contempt it promotes, with the acts of aggression it fosters, harms women's opportunities for equality of rights in employment, education, property rights, public accommodation and public services . . . (Merck 1992).Minneapolis foreshadowed the Canadian Supreme Court decision in February 1992. A reading of the judgements in that case is instructive. Yet in Australia we appear still reluctant to acknowledge the existence of this issue or to undertake substantial research on it or even to feature it at conferences dealing with rape (this paper is a late inclusion, following my discussions with the Australian Institute of Criminology after seeing the original program). Political freedom of speech is one thing; the systematic degradation of, and promotion of violence against, half of the population quite another.
1 Oral information from police; statistics available only for sex of victim across all categories of sexual assault in 1991, 84 per cent female (2,568 of 3,057 cases).
References
Adams, P. 1992, 'Is censorship ever justifiable? How should we deal with violence and pornography?', Questions for the Nineties, ed. A. Gollan, Left Book Club, Sydney.
Benderly, B.L. 1982, 'Rape free or rape prone', Science 82, vol. 3, no. 8.
Brownmiller, S. 1975, Against Our Will: Men Women and Rape, Simon & Schuster, New York.
Canada. Supreme Court 1992, Donald Victor Butler v. Her Majesty the Queen & Ors., File No. 22191, February.
Centres Against Sexual Assault 1991, Results of Phone-In for Report to Real Rape Law Coalition, 27-28 April, Federation of Community Legal Centres, Fitzroy, Vic.
Court, John 1984, 'Arguments for an association between rape and porno-violence', in Pornography and Sexual Aggression, eds N.M. Malamuth & E. Donnerstein, Academic Press, Orlando Fla.
Dixson, M. 1976, The Real Matilda: woman and identity in Australia, 1788-1975, Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, Vic.
Faludi, S. 1991. Backlash, Chatto & Windus, London.
Macy, R. 1991, Testimony as Oklahoma Country District Attorney, before US Senate Judiciary Committee.
Malamuth, N. 1984, 'Aggression against women: cultural and individual causes', in Pornography and Sexual Aggression, eds N.M. Malamuth & E. Donnerstein, Academic Press, Orlando Fla.
----------- 1986, 'Providers of naturalistic sexual aggression', Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 50, pp. 953-62.Merck, M. 1992, 'From Minneapolis to Westminster', in Sex Exposed: Sexuality and the Pornography Debate, eds L. Segal & M. McIntosh, Virago, London.
Milne-Home, J. 1991, Pornography and Women's Anger: Signifying Out-Rage, Paper presented to the Second Australian Cultural Studies Association Conference, 2-4 December 1991, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba.
New South Wales. Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research 1991, New South Wales Recorded Crime Statistics 1991, New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Sydney.
----------- Police Statistics Unit, New South Wales Crime Statistics 1988/89, New South Wales Police, Sydney.Olle, Andrew 1992, Interview with Richard Walsh and Beatrice Faust, Radio 2BL, 14 May.
Pope, D.H. 1987, Testimony given by Det. Lt. Darrell H. Pope, Commanding Officer (Retired), Sex Crime Unit, Michigan State Police, to the Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families, Washington DC, September.
Reisman, J. 1992, 'R' and 'X'-Rated Materials and the Harm Factor', Testimony before the Australian Senate Select Committee on Community Standards Relevant to the Supply of Services Utilising Telecommunications Technologies.
Sanday, P.R. 1981, Female Power and Male Dominance: on the Origins of Sexual Inequality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge NY.
Thomson, D. 1991, 'Pornography: Harmful or Not?', Paper presented to Victorian Criminal Justice Council, Melbourne Criminal Justice Symposium, University of Melbourne, 16 March 1991.
United States. Attorney-General's Commission on Pornography 1986, Attorney-General's Commission on Pornography: Final Report, US Department of Justice, Washington DC.
----------- Federal Bureau of Investigation 1973-78, Uniform Crime Reports, 1973-78, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington DCvan Dijk, J.J.M., Mayhew, P. & Killias M. 1990, Experiences of Crime across the World: Key Findings from the 1989 International Crime Survey, Kluwer, Deventer.
Walker, J. 1992a (unpub.), Transcript of an Interview on the Andrew Olle Program, ABC Radio, Wednesday, 23 September.
----------- 1992b (unpub.), Victims of Sexual Assault or Criminally Offensive Sexual Behaviour, extract, fax 24 September.Weaver, J.B. 1987, Effects of Portrayals of Female Sexuality and Violence against Women on Perceptions of Women, PhD Thesis, Mass Communications, Indiana University.
"Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself. "
A lot has been said about how to prevent rape.
Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts. Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Heck, they shouldn't dare to get drunk at all.Instead of that bull, how about:
If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 a.m., don't rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her.If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend.
If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and report him as a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, and sons of friends it's not okay to rape someone.(My addition - if you get the chance, beat him senseless).
Don't just tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
Don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl.
Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.
SourceWebmaster note: I placed the report by Chairman Goldsmith on this site, due to the numerous interesting facts in the report. Since doing so, I have spent quite a bit of time, further research and consideration of Goldsmith's paper.
I am not quite in full agreement that pornography itself is fully responsible for violent sexual crimes, rather it serves as "the gentle nudge" some men needed to push them over the edge into sexual violence. Goldsmith quotes the Anthropologist Benderley's conclusion that rape-prone cultures tend to trace their origins to a male deity.
Goldsmith's paper is an excellent resource for information about Pornography and statistics of violent sex crimes. I agree with Goldsmith's conclusions on several issues, however I do feel the actual cause runs much deeper than a simple image inspiring sexual crimes. When we take a look back at Nazi Germany, images were employed in anti-semitic propaganda and the effect was undeniably powerful across the German population. Images can influence, but the anti-semitic hatred of Jews had already existed long before Adolf Hitler took power --for centuries the Jews had already faced persecution from the Church. The propaganda of Goebbels was merely the "gentle nudge" the German people needed to inspire the nation into a rage against the Jewish people.
Webmaster Note
I came across an interesting article today on the same issue, and wanted to make visitors aware of it. I happen to share the same sentiments as the author.Pornography and "Freedom"
Pornography claims that its basis is "freedom," particularly "freedom of expression." But pornography relies in part on the titillation, the brazen baring of the usually hidden breast, sex organs, and sex acts, to create superficial, temporary arousal. Pornography would lose some of its appeal if women were routinely topless in society. Pornographers, while exposing the female body, exploit and degrade women, defining women against their will. One result is that women are restricted or discouraged from going topless. In publicly baring her breasts, a woman may unwittingly invite comparison to and association with pornography.The majority of people believe pornography can safely and surely be defined as words and images depicting explicit sexual acts. There is little agreement beyond that, nor is there broad agreement about whether the availability of pornography should be more restricted than it presently is. The disagreement has generated inertia and a lack of action. Because it is difficult to determine the distinction between erotic art, which edifies and uplifts, and pornography, which denigrates and objectifies, does not excuse society from the task.
Many less explicit images will be seen as pornographic by some. For example, it is generally acceptable for films depicting childbirth and showing a woman's vulva to be presented on cable TV. Otherwise, woman's vulva's are not shown, except in fleeting glimpses in certain R-rated films.
In 1950, the American Museum of Natural History filmed a documentary of the Latuko (or Lotuko) people, a tribe residing in the province of Equatoria, Sudan. The documentary was banned by censorship boards across the United States since the men and the women omitted wore nothing to cover their loins.
Pornography takes something that is inherently beautiful, the act of sex relations, and by commercializing it, debases and exploits it. It demoralizes the sexual act.
Pornography replaces a genuine, native, erotic desire—the desire for another as an individual—with generalized titillation and shame. It displaces real feelings of attraction and erotica, the possibility of relationship, with short-term, immediate gratification in the form of lust. It trains people to see others as objects solely for their sexual gratification.
"The big problem with pornography is defining it. You can't just say it's pictures of people naked. For example, you have these primitive African tribes that exist by chasing the wildebeest on foot, and they have to go around largely naked, because, as the old tribal saying goes: "N`wam k`honi soit qui mali," which means, "If you think you can catch a wildebeest in this climate and wear clothes at the same time, then I have some beach front property in the desert region of Northern Mali that you may be interested in." So it`s not considered pornographic when National Geographic publishes color photographs of these people hunting the wildebeest naked, or pounding one rock onto another rock for some primitive reason naked, or whatever. But if National Geographic were to publish an article entitled "The Girls of the California Junior College System Hunt the Wildebeest Naked," some people would call it pornography. But others would not. And still others, such as the Spectacular Rev. Jerry Falwell, would get upset about seeing the wildebeest naked."
— Dave BarryPornographers continue to frame control of the distribution of pornography as a censorship issue. Some attempt to paint those against pornography as automatically endorsing censorship. The implication is that any kind of censorship is wrong, more wrong than pornography. Many citizens are unhappily confused by the issues of so-called freedom of the press vs. their own right to be free of vulgarity and depravity. The issue is not censorship. The issue is about a society's right to choose what kinds of ideas, images, and learning their children are subject to. The issue is about an individual, especially women, being free from images and ideas that they find degrading, harassing, or demeaning. One person's right only exists so long as it does not trample on the rights of others.
Further confusing the issue of pornography, which is definitely sexist, are some feminists who would like to prohibit via government control (i.e., censorship) "sexist" advertising. This is advertising which is increasingly widespread that uses "female flesh" to sell products and in the women's mind is demeaning to women. By Islamic standards, much of what is considered normal in American advertising is actually pornographic.
However, the absolute nature of pornography is a greater debate than we can tackle here. Others have tried and done better.
What is certain is that the commercialization of women's sexuality turns women into objects and dehumanizes them so that responding to a simple issue such as public toplessness or nudity becomes very complicated. Yet the debasement of the female image must be overcome if the exploitation is to be stopped.
Source: http://brassieres.freehosting.net/
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