Violence And Pornography

Violence And Pornography — Sex Or Subordination Essay, Research Paper Violence and Pornography — Sex or Subordination?In the late Seventies, America became shocked and outragedby the rape, mutilation, and murder of over a dozen young,beautiful girls. The man who committed these murders, TedBundy, was later apprehended and executed. During hisdetention in various penitentiaries, he was mentallyprobed and prodded by psychologist and psychoanalystshoping to discover the root of his violent actions andsexual frustrations. Many theories arose in attempts toexplain the motivational factors behind his murderousescapades. However, the strongest and most feasible ofthese theories came not from the psychologists, but fromthe man himself, as a teenager, my buddies and I wouldall

sneak around and watch porn. As I grew older, Ibecame more and more interested and involved in it,[pornography] became an obsession. I got so involved init, I wanted to incorporate [porn] into my life, but Icouldn t behave like that and maintain the success I hadworked so hard for. I generated an alter-ego to fulfillmy fantasies under-cover. Pornography was a means ofunlocking the evil I had burried inside myself (Leidholdt47). Is it possible that pornography is acting as the keyto unlocking the evil in more unstable minds?According to Edward Donnerstein, a leading researcherin the pornography field, the relationship betweensexually violent images in the media and subsequentaggression and . . . callous attitudes towards women ismuch stonger statistically than the relationship

betweensmoking and cancer (Itzin 22). After considering theincrease in rape and molestation, sexual harassment, andother sex crimes over the last few decades, and also thecorresponding increase of business in the pornographyindustry, the link between violence and pornogrpahy needsconsiderable study and examination. Once the evidence youwill encounter in this paper is evaluated and quantified,it will be hard not come away with the realization thathabitual use of pornographic material promotes unrealisticand unattainable desires in men that can leac to violentbehavior toward women.In order to properly discuss pornography, and be ableto link it to violence, we must first come to a basic andagreeable understanding of what the word pornographymeans. The term pornogrpahy originates

from two greekwords, porne, which means harlot, and graphein, whichmeans to write (Webster s 286). My belief is that thecombination of the two words was originally meant todescribe, in literature, the sexual escapades of womendeemed to be whores. As time has passed, this definitionof pornography has grown to include any and all obsceneliterature and pictures. At the present date, the term isbasically a blanket which covers all types of materialsuch as explicit literature, photography, films, and videotapes with varying degrees of sexual content. For Catherine Itzin s research purposes pornogrpahyhas been divided into three categories: The sexuallyexplicit and violent; the sexually explicit andnonviolent, but subordinating and dehumanizing; and thesexually explicit, nonviolent,

and nonsubordinating thatis based upon mutuality. The sexually explicit andviolent is graphic, showing penetration and ejaculation. Also, it shows the violent act toward a woman. Thesecond example shows the graphic sexual act and climax,but not a violent act. This example shows the womanbeing dressed is a costume or being talked down to inorder to reduce her to something not human; such as abody part or just something to have sex with, a bodyopening or an orifice. Not only does erotica show theentire graphic sexual act, it also depicts an attractionbetween two people. Her research consistently showsthat harmful effects are associated with the first two,but that the third erotica , is harmless (22). Thesethree categories basically exist as tools of discerningcontent. Although