Pornography should be restricted by law

Introduction

The kind of thing that is regulated to hush talked in bars and strip clubs. Nothing creates more disgust or debate in America than porn. Mothers and lawmakers say that it is demeaning to women and a threat to stable families. The porn industry and its viewers claim that it is a harmless activity not much different than other more main stream activities. So is porn truly that bad or is it simply a harmless American pastime unfairly discriminated against? That can only be decided by people on an individual basis. (MacKinnon Pp 22) Porn is not anything new; it did not start with Playboy and Hugh Hefner. The Original porn book was the Kama Sutra was created in India during the 1st century BC, popular in India until it was translated by English and American explorers. The book is still popular today and is said to improve sexual relations.

Analysis

The first modern porn images started to appear around the 1840s when images circulated at doctors and instrument maker's shops (MacKinnon, 13). They continued to evolve with nudie postcards appearing in France and finally becoming the pin-up girls of WWII. At the end of WWII the pin-up girls grew in popularity and soon Hugh Hefner created the next step, in 1953 he created Playboy, the first adult magazine that featured fully-nude women. The 1960s brought Bob Guiccone with Penthouse and AL Goldstein with Screw. Private was the first magazine to legally publish penetration pictures. 1969 also brought the first movie to document the popular swinger lifestyle when Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice were released. MacKinnon P; 23)

Up until the mid 1970s porn was something seen in seedy downtown theaters late at night or in magazines shoved under beds, but by 1974 and 1976, Betamax and VCR brought a new revolution allowing for home porn videos. Porn viewing continued to rise and skyrocketed at the turn of the 1990s when the World Wide Web became operational, within years millions of adult sites flooded the internet, allowing for instant access to pictures and videos in one stop. Some of the sites were pay while more allowed for downloads of free samples and pictures. The United States common law distinguishes between offensive, indecent, and obscene speech. Offensive and indecent speeches have first amendment protection, but can be limited with a compelling government interest, as in the case of minors (MacKinnon, 13). However, obscene speech has no first amendment protections. Pornography is wrong in its abusive and degrading portrayal of women and female sexuality, in its use of children and animals, in its debauched scenes, not its sexual content or explicitness. MacKinnon Pp 25)

Who really gets hurt? Pornographic movies seem to have the common theme that a great many women would really like to be raped or have forced sex, and after being thus "awakened to sex" will become nymphomaniacs. This provides a sort of rationale for rape and forced sexual encounters; all women want it and it ...