Pornography and censorship are two interrelated concepts affected by social norms and moral values. When sexual themes are as dominant as they are in pornography, and are presented, as they often are, in a repulsive, depraved, and even violent manner, then sex becomes dehumanized, and love is transformed from a beautiful four-letter word to a common, harsher one. Sex without love is what pornography is all about. It should be pointed out here that the term pornographic has no legal significance. Some people often use it interchangeably with erotic, which means anything that can arouse us sexually. There is some difference of opinion over whether erotic material is necessarily pornographic.
Obscenity is a legal concept under which certain publications can be banned or restricted because of their graphic treatment of sexual material. Definitions of obscenity usually include phrases such as “disgusting to the senses,” “abhorrent to morality and virtue,” “designed to incite to depravity or lust.” Pornography (or erotic material) does not belong solely to the twentieth century. Admittedly, sexual explicitness has risen (or sunk, depending on your perception of the matter) to new levels in the last few years, due in part to changing attitudes toward sexual behavior and the desire for more personal flexibility in the making of moral decisions. “The etymology of the word “pornography” suggests that its primary use should be to refer to obscene depictions of sexual organs or behavior” (Copp and Wendell 2003, p. 17).
Legislating against pornography is one thing. As late as 1961, in fact, American dictionaries defined pornography only as of the “description or portrayal of prostitutes or prostitution” (Jensen 2007, p. 43). Later, this was extended to include “obscene or licentious writing, painting or the like,” a definition that generally holds today. In Japan, pornography is defined as “that which stirs up or excites sexual desire, spoils the normal sexual modesty of the ordinary human being, or is contrary to good sexual morals” (Jensen 2007, p. 43). U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart put it more simply, however, when he declared that he knew it when he saw it. In 1969, the Court said that under the First Amendment an individual is allowed to have whatever material he or she wants in the home, even if it is obscene. Prosecution for private possession of pornographic material is unjust. There have been several other rulings, some quite incomprehensible to the non-legal mind, others inconsistent with other cases. In general, as matters stand today, individual states have the right to pass laws banning works that “appeal to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” Determining what is “prurient” or “patently offensive” is left, under the recent rulings, to local judgment. The difficulty with applying community standards, though, is that it’s another case of one person’s blizzard being another’s ski trip (Dines, 1997).
Censorship is an extremely dangerous policy. Abridgment of the constitutional right of free speech and press paves the way toward an authoritarian state where only the views and values of the current leadership will prevail. Freedom of speech, however, carries responsibility with it. It is difficult to condone someone’s falsely crying “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater; disclosing military secrets when the country’s survival depends on them; lying in court, in articles, or advertisements; or maliciously hassling someone by mail, telephone or in a newspaper (Jensen 2007, p. 43). There is also that quality known as “taste,” which people all ought to develop, a style and a form that respects the general rule of propriety and does not cheapen. The use of “dirty” words, obscene gestures and pornographic material should not be encouraged. But it is true that individual opinions of right and wrong, decency and perversion, differ markedly. In 1973, after one of the Supreme Court rulings on obscenity, store owners in Boise, Idaho, immediately removed all “skin” magazines from their racks, including one of the oldest and most popular, Playboy. The state’s attorney general, who was an innovator of a state law that banned all “obviously obscene” publications, commented that he was befuddled by the move and that he liked to read the magazine once in a while. Storekeepers were being overcautious until the law could determine just which magazines were legal and which were not. In addition, people can generally choose whether or not to use vulgar language, attend obscene performances, or read erotic material (Jensen, 2007).
To examine the impact of pornography on the population, an experiment was conducted at the University of North Carolina. Young men over age twenty-one were continually shown pornographic films, pictures and books. The scientists conducting the study found that this constant exposure usually led to boredom rather than sexual arousal. A similar experiment with middle-aged couples in Palo Alto, California, indicated that pornography excited the couples to more than normal sexual activity, but that the effects did not last long (Jensen 2007, p. 61). While constant exposure to pornography would probably turn more people off than on, it has been argued that occasional encounters with erotic material have some merit. It stimulates fantasy, say the psychologists, and this can be good either as a pleasant diversion or as a way to exercise the mind. Sexual fantasy is a normal activity and one should not feel guilty or deprived for having engaged in such a pastime (Skinner, 2005). Many psychologists have also suggested that the earlier people are exposed to erotic material, the less apt they are to develop sexual problems later on in life. If one had to choose between being raised in a sexual vacuum where the subject of sex is never discussed, or being raised in an atmosphere of honesty about sex, even with exposure to erotica, it would be far better to choose the latter (Skinner, 2005).
Pornography has also played a part in sex education courses and some medical schools and colleges, as well as in the work of those who deal with couples whose sex lives are not satisfactory. Students who took the course were expected to come to a clearer understanding of their sexuality and moral values, Physicians, people ought to point out here, are just as lacking in understanding of human sexuality as most everybody else is. Although their training in anatomy and physiology has taught them a great deal about the sexual organs, they rarely learn much in school about sexual activities or about the psychological aspects of sexuality. The use of audiovisual materials that focus on sexually explicit themes thus might be one way to help them give better care to patients who come to them for sexual counseling. The second was that those who had been made angry by the reviews but not exposed to the films were not as aggressive. The finding was that the men were more aggressive toward women than women were toward men, an interesting conclusion (Copp and Wendell 2003).
In sum, the dangers of pornography have to do with how it portrays love, and how it portrays people as nameless objects of passion in which men can relieve themselves. Sealed off from love and consideration and esteem, as men are by pornography, the stunning, women of the porn world blind a man to the realities of sexual behavior. Repressed and poorly shaped attitudes toward sexuality have been behind too many sexual deviations and maladjustments for us to err on the side of silence or dishonesty and failure to accept the fact that people are sexual beings.
References
Copp, D., Wendell, S. (2003). Pornography and Censorship. Prometheus Books.
Dines, G. (1997). Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality. Routledge; 1 edition.
Jensen, R. (2007). Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity. South End Press; 1 edition.
Skinner, D. B. (2005). Treating Pornography Addiction: The Essential Tools for Recovery. GrowthClimate.