Pornography

Okay! Brace yourself!! It's kind of long!!! But I thought i'd share with you all a ROUGH(!!!!) draft of the article I'm working on. The concluion is weak and needs some help. I'm just waiting for one of those brilliant ideas to pop into my head and it hasn't happened yet. It's also about 3 and 3/4 pages long, so let me know what i can cut out! Thanks!! Here it is:


It is because of porn’s need to dehumanize women that it should be a restricted free speech issue. Not only is pornography degrading to women, it is also harmful to marriages and increases sex crimes. When the thought of pornography comes to a person’s mind, one usually thinks of a Playboy magazine and very explicit sexual videos, but pornography goes way beyond those immediate stereotypes and preconceived ideas.

Set aside what you picture when you think of pornography. You may think that it isn’t harmful to relationships, but you would be shocked to find that it could be. The average female porn star retires at the age of 27 and the average male porn star retires at 32. The reason this is, is that the porn star industry sees the human body at being at its physical peak between the ages of 19-27 for females and 21-32 for males. Over time, it will become more and more difficult to be sexually aroused by your life-mate because he or she will age while the porn star remains young. Not only are you putting yourself at risk for the temptation of an affair, but you are also killing what should be a beautiful thing between you and your spouse. If your mate likes to use porn to accompany sex, they can get wrapped up in the movie, and be making love on a fantasy level during intercourse. Most women make love on an emotional level. It can upset then when his attention is distracted by the technical side of sex instead of the emotional side.
I certainly would never want to be compared to a porn star, because in reality which is really the better body? The one whose breasts nursed, or will nurse, your children? The body that held you close and was there for you through sickness and through health? The world might see the young porn stars’ body as being the best, but which is really the best? Why would you want to give up the ability to be aroused by the best? In the long run, if someone continues to watch and only get aroused by porn, they have a big risk at becoming addicted.

Being in a relationship with someone who is addicted to porn isn’t only stressful but it is also very hurtful. An addiction to porn is a serious issue because addicts turn into people that they never want to be. It’s hard for them to stop and control. They can even become violent with it, which brings me to the point that over the year’s pornography has increased sex crimes. It’s not the typical pornography that you see on HBO every once in awhile that is increasing sex crimes. It’s the hard core, sometimes violent, pornography that is. One thing that cannot be ignored is the fact that 90% of sexual offenders admit to have used pornography “frequently”. The images that are seen on pornography are found to be disturbing. It sickens me to think that there is hardcore porn out there that shows videos of women violently engaging in sex. If these videos are being bought, they must be being enjoyed by somebody. If a video like this excited them at one point, who is to say that they’re not going to try and live out their fantasy? Who says that a woman who was raped wasn’t just a subject that a man used to experience something that he once saw? Do people just come up with these things in their sick minds or are they learning it from somewhere? From the book, “Making Violence Sexy”, they interviewed a rapist and this is what he had to say:
I went to a porno bookstore, put a quarter in a slot, and saw this porn movie. It was just a guy coming up from behind a girl and attacking her and raping her. That’s when I started having rape fantasies. When I seen that movie, it was like somebody lit a fuse from my childhood on up. . . . I just went for it, went out and raped.

Reading things like that definitely shocks me but my biggest issue with pornography is that it is so degrading to women. Hardcore porn hardly ever shows pictures of the women’s face, it focuses more on their body parts. These women are not seen as women. They’re seen as things. Sure, Hugh Hefner may publish a few little facts about his latest centerfold (birthday, major, favorite flower, whatever), in an effort to humanize her. But I would imagine those statistics are pretty tough to read while holding the magazine sideways. It doesn’t work. And it can’t work. The men who read Playboy don’t necessarily care about getting to know her. After all, they’re not fantasizing about having an intellectual conversation with these women. They’re not fantasizing about these women themselves at all, except as an appealing body or object. John P. Araujo writes in the book, “Pornography: Opposing Viewpoints”, that: Art and science can portray a nude female without robbing her of her dignity and humanity, but pornographers must reduce women into tools of sexual satisfaction in order for women to suit their purposes.

Pornography is by far not the biggest problem we have in today’s world but it is also an issue that will always be out there. I know that people are going to continue to watch, read and enjoy it and that’s O.K. I just thought I’d open your eyes and let you know what pornography might be like from a women’s point of view.