Internet Pornography Cannot Be Considered Leisure - Essay Example

INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY CANNOT BE CONSIDERED AS LEISURE Name Institution Professor Course Date Introduction Following the inception of the internet, pornography has augmented than ever before and has seen the introduction of more graphic pornographic content. Recent studies indicate that the use of pornography holds adverse effects on individuals, families and society. Users of internet pornography can become psychologically addictive. More so, online pornography negatively affects sexual performance and health, quality of intimate relationships, families, sexual behaviour and marriages. Prolonged exposure to online pornography instigates diminished trust amid intimate partners, promiscuity, and scepticism about love or the call for affection and lack of attraction to child-raising and family. Besides, pornography is a deviant behaviour and a form of business with the final result being money rather than a pleasure to those involved in the making of pornographic materials. Given the negative effects of internet pornography and the fact that pornography is a form of business just like other money generating businesses, this essay contends that online pornography cannot be considered as leisure. Internet pornography entails the sexually overt content accessible online in different format including video games, images, streaming video and video files. Internet pornography involves the written or video material containing sexually unequivocal representations that people access and share via the internet. Internet pornography has been on the rise with approximately 68% percent of young adult males and about eighteen percent of females use online pornography at least once in a week (Veal, Darcy &Lynch 2012, p.363). Half of college-age females and two-thirds of college-age males claim that viewing online pornography is a satisfactory means of expressing sexuality. However, internet pornography is destroying families and marriages. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers indicate that fifty-six percent of break up cases entail one party holding a compulsive attention in pornographic websites (Eberstadt & Layden 2010, p. 24). Leisure entails freedom offered by the cessation of actions especially time free from duties or work. Honeybourne, Hill and Moors (2002, p.137) define leisure as time in which there is a prospect of choice. It is an activity, apart from of work, society and family to which an individual turns at will, for either diversion, broadening or relaxation experiences. Creek and Lougher (2008, p.347) define leisure as an activity that unlike work is entered into voluntarily and is intrinsically motivated. Unlike online pornography, leisure offers diverse forms of experiences to play such as participating in organised activities, religious worship and club besides passive forms of relaxation and rest. The essence of leisure is the freedom to selective engagement in an activity at any point in time and may entail unstructured and structured cultural and recreational activities such as cultural pursuits, hobbies and sport. Since its inception, the internet holds a major outlet for leisure activities such as online gambling and other activities that hold less or no effects on people. While internet pornography keeps people engaged when they are not working, it holds negative effects to children, couples and individuals. In this regard, online pornography cannot be considered as leisure. Internet pornography is not a mainstream leisure activity but a dark leisure activity. According to Spracklen (2013, p.210), dark leisure is linked to urgency and intentionality. People in the 21st century hold the freedom to choose to reject the forms of mainstream leisure in favour of those forms of leisure that disturbs the conventional society. Dark leisure entails the type of leisure activity that rejects the conventional leisure activity, transgresses values and norms and allows the persons are undertaking the leisure to identify themselves as rebellious, alternative, deviant, luminal and non-conformists. For the younger people, the act of intentionality is linked with illegality. Spracklen (2013, p.211) further asserts that dark leisure such as online pornography is a casual leisure activity and not an activity that could be described as serious leisure. This is because dark leisure entails activities linked to gratification where people search for their fix and are satisfied with it and turn away. People involved in the consumption of online pornography turn away from it when they get the pleasure they wanted or when they satisfy their needs. Consumption of online pornography does not demand the same amount of commitment and intensity as playing football at a competitive level (Jenkins & Pigram 2004, p.381). Unlike other leisure activities such as playing football, people consume online pornography to fulfil their sexual needs upon which they turn away from it. In addition, online pornography, unlike sports activities, does not offer users lasting experiences and long-term personal growth. It instead offers people short-term gratification. Unlike leisure, pornography is a form of work. As indicated earlier, leisure entails freedom provided by the stoppage of activities especially time free from duties or work. On the contrary, those who engage in the making of pornography materials are in business. To them, pornography is like any other form of work or business where the end result is money. According to Veal, Darcy and Lynch (2012, p.363), in every 39 minutes, a novel pornographic video is being made in the United States. Pornography is a big business, and the industry hold bigger revenues than Amazon, eBay, Apple, Google, Netflix and Microsoft combined. In 2006, the global pornography revenues reached 97.06 billion dollars. Veal, Darcy and Lynch (2012, p.363) assert that Australia ranks fifth in the globe for the overall revenue raised via pornography. The country raises over 2 billion dollars every year from pornography while China leads the chart with 27 billion dollars per year followed by South Korea, Japan and the USA. This assertion is supported by Bryant (2012, p.275) who claims that the great deal of pornography is fake. The author maintains that pornography is made for male gaze with the final result being the money shot. Bryant (2012, p.275) asserts that while pornography remains a controversial issue that some people say leads to all forms of deviant conduct, it can be used positively in the sense that it is money generating. According to Spracklen (2013, p.206), pornography is almost certainly a dark leisure activity that represent the male power that taps into male fantasies of the subject and willing women. In this regard, online pornography is a form of business where those involved in their making are at work. As a result, online pornography cannot be considered as leisure. Online pornography is a deviant behaviour. According to Jajoza (2012, p.62,) online deviant conduct entails a range of actions considered illegal or immoral. The internet has changed the availability of information and has allowed people with akin beliefs to access each other and strengthen their behaviours some of which are considered unacceptable. The introduction of the internet pornography has influenced people’s marriages and familiar relationships. The internet presents some distinct prospects for deviant conducts. Novel prospects for deviant presented by the internet include cyber-bullying, identity theft, cyber terrorism, computer hacking and, more essentially, online pornography. According to Bryant (2012, p.275), sexually linked online behaviours have become a routine in the 21st century. The effects of the internet on pornography are astounding. It is a three billion dollar industry with over four million websites that hold pornographic content. Over seventy-five million persons access pornographic sites (Bryant 2012, p.275. Although law in some Western societies does not prohibit consumption of pornography, the mainstream culture remains as a zone where pornography is unacceptable. In addition, in some of the Western societies where pornography is not prohibited by laws, it is condemned as unsavoury and deviant. Although deviance is in the eye of the beholder, viewing pornographic materials is unacceptable and can pose legally challenges when minors are involved. Pornography is founded on the concept of sexual innocence or morality. Online pornography is historically exceptional not only because of its ubiquity but also because of its temperament, particularly in augmenting realism and addictiveness. Although not all users of online pornography are continual users, consumption of online pornography is detrimental (Hald & Malamuth 2008, p, 614). However, unlike tobacco, the effects of consumption of online pornography are hard to measure because it does not influence all people in the similar manner. Sporadic users of pornographic materials may be harmed more compared to chronic users. Apparently, some individuals are more predisposed toward heavy pornography use than others. Nonetheless, online pornography evokes behaviours that psychological or clinical literature refers to as addiction (Hald & Malamuth 2008, p.614). The addiction to online pornography can be more compulsive in the sense that it continues notwithstanding the negative upshots to an individual’s functioning in her or his relationships or work. For instance, the use of online pornography in the workplace distracts people from their roles an aspect that affects their productivity in their workplace. Online pornography poses harm to women. Any form of pornography degrades and subordinates women and incites sexual harassers, child molesters, clients of prostitutes, rapists and wife beaters. According to Bryant (2012, p.275), pornography is a contravention of women’s civil rights. It connects violence and sex through integrating violent domination of women as a major component of sexual fantasy and incites men to sexual violence. According to Bryant (2012, p.275), pornography shapes cultural expectations of women sexual behaviour. Online pornography brings certain issues of well-being and health among women whose partners are users as well as among females involved in grim, supposedly monogamous relationship with a pornography user. In most Western societies, women seek for marital connections based on mutual respect, romantic love, shared power and honesty. However, pornography, as shown in the internet, enshrines the contrary in the sense that it depicts marital relationships as a connection based on detachment, abuse, promiscuity and disrespect. The disparity instigates unique harm and distress when a wife realises that her partner is secretly involved in the consumption of online pornography. Studies indicate that women feel mistrust, loss, betrayal, anger, devastation when they find that that their partners are involved in the use of pornography. Besides the psychic effects linked to online pornography, there are other adverse effects. These effects include the likelihood of family break-up and divorce when a wife discovers that her husband is an online pornography user. According to the report by American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, fifty-six percent of divorce cases, entails one party in a marriage holding an obsessive interest in online pornography (Eberstadt & Layden 2010, p. 24). Internet pornography harms children and families. According to Livingstone and Haddon (2009, p. 159), children, young people and their relations tend to be inclined in the forefront of the novel media adoption. However, they encounter a range of negative and risky experiences. Although statistics of children and teenagers using online pornography is hard to measure, a high number of children hold access to the internet. In the 21st century, parents and teachers allow children to use the internet to research topics (Lam, Mitchell & Seto 2010, p.173). While some children use the internet in full knowledge of their parents, others do so without the consent of their parents. Adolescents and children are far more exposed to online pornography given their increased access to the internet. According to Eberstadt & Layden 2010, p. 27), 11.5 million children and adolescents have peers who frequently access online pornography. Notwithstanding, the illegality of exposing sexually overt materials to children and teenagers, the pornography industry fails to deny these people access to their products. More so, there lack no productive filtering systems in place for cell phones. This leaves so many children exposed to online pornography that affects their moral values, social life and their education. Boys exposed to pornography materials become sexually abusive. Besides, children exposed to online pornography use it to pressurise others into sexual behaviour Conclusion The inception of the internet has increased the number of leisure activities including internet games. The internet has revolutionised the world and has brought people closer to each other. It has enhanced communication between people in different geographic regions. Despite the benefits of the internet in the modern world, the use of the internet comes with negative effects. Internet pornography has been on the rise since the inception of the internet era. Some people have resorted to using online pornography during their leisure times. However, given the adverse effects of online pornography on children, couples, women, families and marriages, online pornography cannot be considered a leisure activity. Apparently, a leisure activity is supposed to exhibit long-term development but online pornography offers gratification over a short period. Consumers of online pornography use it and after satisfying their need, they turn away from it. In addition, online pornography is a form of work to those involved in making it pornographic content as they get money from it. In this regard, online pornography is linked to intentionality and urgency unlike other serious leisure activities such as sports. Therefore, online pornography cannot be considered leisure. References Bryant, C 2012. Routledge handbook for deviant behaviour. UK: Taylor & Francis. Creek, J., & Lougher, L 2008. Occupational therapy and mental health. USA: Elsevier Health Sciences. Eberstadt, M & Layden, M 2010. The social costs of pornography: A statement of findings and recommendations. USA: Witherspoon Institute. Hald, M & Malamuth, N 2008, ‘ Self-perceived effects of pornography consumption’, Archives of Sexual Behaviour, vol.37, no.4, pp.614-625. Honeybourne, J, Hill, M., & Moors, H 2000. Advanced physical education and sports for AS-level. UK: Nelson Thornes. Jajoza 2014. What parents need to know about internet pornography. USA: Lulu-com Jenkins, J & Pigram, J 2004. Encyclopaedia of leisure and outdoor recreation. UK: Routledge. Lam, A, Mitchell, J & Seto, M 2010, ‘ Lay perceptions of child pornography offenders’, Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, vol.52, no.2, pp.173-201. Spracklen, K 2013. Leisure, sports and society. UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Veal, A, Darcy, S & Lynch, R 2012. Australian leisure. Australia: Pearson Higher Education AU. Read More