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Pornography & Ethics

Hum 437- Ethics

Pornography is a social problem and is a commodity brought into existence by certain characteristics of a highly developed civilization. The problem with pornography is that any form of censorship or suppression cannot solve it. These aggressive methods would merely aggravate the disease and create other deplorable consequences. Prevention is better than cure, and by diagnosing the psychological motives of those who consume pornography, we may be able to change the instincts involved (McCune, 1985:).

In pornography a visual or verbal image acts as a direct stimulus to the erotic drives or impulses, which are always latent and ready to be stimulated in normal people (McCune 1985: 13). Television perhaps more than any other medium, is the average persons first glimpse at pornography. It invades your home through regular programming, cable and videos. A large part of this pornographic blitz pairs sexual pleasure with violence and develops the concept that women are expendable (McCune, 1985: 18). There are countless plots on television dealing with rape, murder, kidnapping, and beatings. All of this done to the leading man’s wife or girlfriend and has become the rule. Similarly, pornography in movies has become common entertainment. These movies leave little to the imagination and exhibit the most violent scenes of bondage, rape, and mutilation. The ultimate being the so-called "snuff" films where the victim is killed at the culmination of the abusers sexual release.

Your telephone has also become a vehicle for pornography through the infamous 900 numbers. Business was so good for these pay per call services in 1991 that sales reached a record $975 million. Dial-a-Porn has flourished as teens and children joined adults on instant phone sex.

Pornography has taken another profitable turn in the past few years with gangsta rap. Gangsta rap glamorizes brutality, murder, torture, rape, and perversion, which is usually directed toward women. The lyrics are usually obscene and the tape or compact disc provides entertainment for a hard-core pornographer. Since it is easily available and widely distributed, gangsta rap is especially harmful to young people who look up to these rappers as heroes.

While rap music is assaulting our ears, the print media is seductively applying their trade with high-tech visual images. The three most well known pornographic magazines are Playboy, Hustler, and Penthouse. Of these three, Playboy employs the approach in which centerfolds are portrayed as the girl next door. So readers are deceived into believing that everybody is using pornography. For this reason, Playboy may be more harmful than hard-core pornography, especially to the young. Playboy then uses articles about famous people to legitimize the pornography inside the magazine.

Other powerful visual images appear as advertisements. If you watch TV, ride a bus, or read magazines you have witnessed the lengths that companies will go to sell a product or an idea. The Design Industries Foundation for Aids plastered posters in cities depicting couples of all persuasions engaged in acts of all descriptions. Each poster bears the caption Safe Sex is Hot. We have all seen the gaunt Super Model whose vacant stare, unsmiling lips and frequently nude 105-pound body are on endless public display, mostly as Calvin Kline ads.

Then there is the newest and hardest to control pornography market, the Internet. All across America the pornography industry is invading our children’s bedrooms through home computers. You cannot access any site or any search engine without finding some link to pornography. Many Internet sites have the equivalent of an entire pornographic bookstore on line. Hard core pictures are being scanned into computers and being made available through web sites along with detailed pornographic stories. Federal law requires porno to sites make good faith efforts to restrict access to indecent material by requiring users to provide a verified credit card account number or a password. However, in a normal family children are usually the computer experts and have learned how to bypass this screening process by accessing newsgroups, and websites that display porno passwords.

Pornography is an attack on the family itself, the very foundation on which our society itself is built. Pornography undermines the moral fiber of the community and the nation. A nation that does not control pornography and protect acceptable standards of public morality does not survive (McCune, 1985: 14). Our families, cities, nation, and society are suffering with the disease of pornography.

Pornography is built on immorality and corruption, but in this it does not stand-alone. A world in which pornography was neither desired nor produced would be a better world. However, it is not within the power of government or even the majority of citizens to create such a world. A great deal of contemporary pornography constitutes an offense against human dignity and decency that should be shunned by citizens. Not because the evils of the world will thereby be eliminated, but because conscience demands it (Cliffered,1987: 44).

Pornography is a six billion-dollar a year racket and the

available profits are astronomical (McCune 1985: 13). A hard-core magazine for example, which is sold in an adult bookstore costs

between $1.25 and $1.75 to produce (McCune 1985: 13). The

bookstore then charges $10.00 or more for the magazine. With

profits like this, it is no wonder why organized crime has moved

into the pornography business. Two grand juries have found that

organized crime controls 90% of all hard-core pornography in this

country alone. Pornography is one of the largest moneymakers for organized crime ranking third behind gambling and narcotics

(United States Attorney Generals Commission on Pornography, 1986:

157). It is impossible to be in the retail end of the pornography

industry without dealing with organized crime according to the

FBI.

The prime reason pornography flourishes is because everyone and everything in this world relates and reacts to sex. People are fascinated with sex and are anxious to see something new or something they have not seen before. People are always looking for a form of sex that is different than the associated group of norms. This is pushing the pornography industry to progress one step further each time to keep up with the demand.

In addition to the endless number of other harms and antisocial effects brought about by pornography. There is a definite link between organized crime and many other types of criminal activity in the pornography business (United States Attorney Generals Commission on Pornography, 1986: 296). Physical violence, injury, prostitution and other forms of sexual abuse are so interlinked in many cases.

A 1998 study by the FBI found that 81% of all violent sex offenders regularly read or viewed violent pornography. A Michigan State Police study found that porn was viewed just before or during 41% of 48,000 sexual crimes committed over the past 20 years. Violent pornography is like a how-to-manual for rapists and child abusers. A FBI study on serial homicide concluded that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography. Ted Bundy states “I’ve lived in prison for a long time now and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence just like me. And without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography” (McCune, 1985: 140).

The traffic in pornography and obscenity has reached freighting proportions in this country. The smallest cities and...

McCune, Gary Pornography and Sexual Violence 1985.

US Department of Justice, Final Report of the Attorney

General’s Commission on Pornography, 1986.

Rutledge, Dom Does Pornography Matter, 1972.

Nobile, Philip United States of America Sex, 1986.

Carmen, Arlene The Meese Commission Exposed, 1987.

Lindecker, Cliffered Children in Chairs, 1981.

Kendrick, Walter The Secret Museum, 1987.

and Legislature to go about handling our country’s pornography disease.