Pornography: Sex Or Subordination?

Pornography: Sex or Subordination?


     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 and 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 by

fantasies under-cover. Pornography was a means of unlocking the evil I had

buried inside myself” (Leidholdt 47).  Is it possible that pornography is acting

as the key to unlocking the evil in more unstable minds?

     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 mush stronger

statistically than the relationship between smoking and cancer” (Itzin 22).

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, the link between violence and

pornography needs considerable study and examination.  Once the evidence you

will encounter in this paper is evaluated and quantified, it will be hard not to

come away with the realization that habitual use of pornographic material

promotes unrealistic and unattainable desires in men that can lead to violent

behavior toward women.

     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,

porn, which means harlot, and graphein, which means to write (Webster's 286).

My belief is that the describe, in literature, the sexual escapades of women 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 video tapes 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 Court

judge is quoted as saying, “I can't define pornography, but I know it when I see

it” (Itzin 20).  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 that when asked what pornography is to them, most individuals cannot

express or explain in words what pornography is, therefore creating confusion

among themselves.

     Communities are left somewhat helpless in this matter since the federal

courts passed legislation to keep pornography available to adults.  The courts

assess that to ban or censor the material would be infringing on the public's

First Amendment Right (Carol 28).  Maureen O'Brien quotes critics of a

congressionally terminated bill, the pornography Victim's Compensation Act, as

saying “That if it had passed, it would have had severely chilling effects on

the First Amendment, allowing victims of sexual crimes to file
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