Arguments for and against Pornography - Essay Example

Arguments For and Against Pornography Pornography is the depiction of erotic behavior, as in pictures or writing, intended to cause sexual excitement. When we ask if there must be boundaries or limitations to pornography with regard to the First Amendment, for me I think that there must be. The First Amendment states that Congress shall not pass any law prohibiting the free exercise of religion or depriving citizens of freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to assemble peacefully and to petition the gov’t for a redress of grievances. So it’s clear that the First Amendment protects freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition. The US Constitution was signed without the Bill of Rights stating the essential freedoms. So after a vigorous debate, the Bill of Rights was adopted and the rights therein are those stated in the First Amendment. For the freedom of the press, debates on public issues, must not be restricted, firm in purposes and wide-open to the public. But the Americans question the application of the First Amendment. For them, although there must be freedom as stated in the Bill of Rights, there must be certain restrictions especially if a stated freedom will be detrimental to the welfare of the people. Most people approve of the Bill of Rights but some question those freedom which conflict with a generally applicable law, which is pornography, in particular, for them, there is a need to limit some forms of self-expression. This is especially true with the proliferation of pornography or obscene materials in public. At present, commercial pornography has flooded the Internet giving rise to erotic activities due to the porn boom. Businessmen profit from pornographic materials which move freely across borders. Such materials penetrate the realm of online porn and sexuality. Internet pornography is being patronized by net users and regarded as transnational commodity-culture by people of various cultures and places. Product distributors are the primary porn commercial agents producing videos and making web sites for global distribution who work together with porn companies. Examples of companies which benefit from the porn boom are hotel companies. They receive profit percentage from porn companies by offering in-room X-rated movies distributed by them. Then cable and satellite companies channel porn into millions of homes giving them huge shares of the profit paid by consumers. The Internet is the ultimate experience for adult entertainment where corporate ad independent pornographers whether professionals or amateurs produce, distribute and consume products. Then there are now independent women entrepreneurs who participate in the pornography industry. They set up their own nude Website making her the head of her own Playboy-like channel or publisher of her own Penthouse-like magazine. Fearing that the Internet would create violent, harmful and exploitative porn for children, legislator and corporations result to haphazard policy-making to control electronic information. Operation Ore, a UK-based action, is an example of a piece of legislation which enables the police to monitor and arrest web users engaged in child pornography. The Internet Watch Foundation composed of Internet industries, government and consumer representatives appeal to web users to report on illegal traffic. The Foundation encourages citizens to interact with policies to become autonomous governing bodies to use a centralized and user-friendly web site. The Foundation’s goal is to minimize having illegal Internet content, child abuse images in particular. There’s a moral outrage in the USA when nude minors were shown within the gay and lesbian networks. But such depictions are tolerated in other cultures such as Japan. What is obscene to western audiences maybe common in Japanese media; although urination and masturbation scenes are obscene for a western viewer, the most troubling acts for them involve scenes depicting interplay between male minors. Censorship measures and scenes of conflict between web users and Internet Service Providers of ISP’s forced the local government the most stringent measures of censorship legislation. An example is the Western Australian Censorship Act of 1996. It was created to protect local state territory from the influx of hard-core pornographic materials. Objectionable articles transferred into Western Australian territory through online communication are being reported by Australian citizens. A member of the police force or an authorized person can enter a place where “objectionable” articles are being exhibited even without a warrant. The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is a bill which states that the Internet automatically exposes children to pornographic materials. A debate between US Attorney General John Ashcroft and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) was about whether community standards of decency can be transferred from place to place. ACLU argues that the most conservative community standards would apply to the entire nation through a federal censorship law. Ashcroft’s idea is that community standards for minors being different from adults are likely to be “reasonably constant” throughout the nation. The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and the Institute for the Scientific Study of Sexuality have researchers who found out that there is no sufficient evidence that children are harmed by exposure to sexually explicit words or images. The 1998 Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) states that computers must be filtered if the public libraries want to retain federal funding. But the current filtering software according to Judith Krug of the American Library Association is still defective. According to here, instead of relying on software to help them; children and teenagers must be advised on the various uses of the Internet. Judith Levine authored the controversial book Harmful to Minors; The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, where she argues that obscenity standard in the US since 1968 is being revamped by the government so sexuality debates will be phased out rather than promoting tolerance and education. Instead of exposing children to censored versions of the Internet, they should be taught about media literacy and moral intelligence. This is Krug and Levine’s idea so children will have a chance to be exposed to the sexual world where adults saturate it with images of love and sex which are varied accurate and realistic (Jacobs). “Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet” is Susan Brownmiller’s essay. She aims to take pornography out of the essential freedoms being protected by the First Amendment as provided by the Bill of Rights. She fully supports First Amendment rights and she doesn’t favor censorship but she wants to set a limit to the protected rights. Pornography must not be one of them. According to her, the Feminist group where she belongs sternly objects to pornography because they believe that it represents hatred for women. The female body is being used by those involved in pornographic activities to stimulate erotic desires and pleasure. In doing so, they intend to humiliate, degrade and dehumanize it. Because of commercial entertainment and free speech, the female body is being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered. The feminist group gravely opposed to such presentation of the female body. If a material is humiliating the group, then it must be restricted, shut away from the public eye, instead of being displayed carelessly. An argument to consider is the perception that pornography is a form of art. She thinks otherwise saying that such is an unethical professional business making use of visual technology. Another argument is the court’s opposition stating that no one is compelled to look. It means that if you consider it obscene, then you must not look at it. For Brownmiller the solution would be to get the obscene material out of sight (Brownmiller). The Miller case in 1973 is about a person who mailed unsolicited sexually explicit material which violates a California Statute. The Memoirs obscenity test is incorporated in such California law so there’s a necessity that such materials must be evaluated by the contemporary community standard of California. The Memoirs obscenity criteria hold that the First Amendment does not protect obscene materials. If such material appeals to prurient or lewd interest in sex; portrays offensively, applicable state law specifically defined sexual conduct and when it does not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value; and then it will be subject to state regulation. There is a case where an appellant mailed five unsolicited advertising brochures of sexually explicit books. The books were entitled “Intercourse,” “Man-Woman,” “Sex Orgies Illustrated,” and “an Illustrated History of Pornography,” and a film entitled “Marital Intercourse.” Men and women very explicitly depicted in groups of two or more engaging in a variety of sexual activities, with prominently displayed genitals are primarily printed in the brochures. In Memoirs v. Massachusetts, the court articulated a new test of obscenity stating that three elements must be present to conclude that the material is obscene. They are as follows: a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; b) the material is patently offensive because if affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters; and c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value. Graphic illustrations and descriptions of human anatomy can necessarily be used in medical books for the education of physicians and related personnel. So its scientific value can merit First Amendment protection. So such materials can’t be classified as obscene because of their medical use (U.S. Supreme Court) . . References Jacobs, K. Pornography in Small Places and Other Spaces. [PDF document]. Retrieved from http://www.libidot.org/v2/pdf/articles/pornsmallplace.pdf U.S. Supreme Court. Retrieved from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=413&invol=15 Brownmiller, S. Summary of "Lets Put Pornography Back In The Closet". 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They set up their own nude Website making her the head of her own Playboy-like channel or publisher of her own Penthouse-like magazine. Fearing that the Internet would create violent, harmful and exploitative porn for children, legislator and corporations result to haphazard policy-making to control electronic information. Operation Ore, a UK-based action, is an example of a piece of legislation which enables the police to monitor and arrest web users engaged in child pornography. The Internet Watch Foundation composed of Internet industries, government and consumer representatives appeal to web users to report on illegal traffic.

The Foundation encourages citizens to interact with policies to become autonomous governing bodies to use a centralized and user-friendly web site. The Foundation’s goal is to minimize having illegal Internet content, child abuse images in particular. There’s a moral outrage in the USA when nude minors were shown within the gay and lesbian networks. But such depictions are tolerated in other cultures such as Japan. What is obscene to western audiences maybe common in Japanese media; although urination and masturbation scenes are obscene for a western viewer, the most troubling acts for them involve scenes depicting interplay between male minors.

Censorship measures and scenes of conflict between web users and Internet Service Providers of ISP’s forced the local government the most stringent measures of censorship legislation. An example is the Western Australian Censorship Act of 1996. It was created to protect local state territory from the influx of hard-core pornographic materials. Objectionable articles transferred into Western Australian territory through online communication are being reported by Australian citizens. A member of the police force or an authorized person can enter a place where “objectionable” articles are being exhibited even without a warrant.

The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is a bill which states that the Internet automatically exposes children to pornographic materials. A debate between US Attorney General John Ashcroft and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) was about whether community standards of decency can be transferred from place to place. ACLU argues that the most conservative community standards would apply to the entire nation through a federal censorship law. Ashcroft’s idea is that community standards for minors being different from adults are likely to be “reasonably constant” throughout the nation.

The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and the Institute for the Scientific Study of Sexuality have researchers who found out that there is no sufficient evidence that children are harmed by exposure to sexually explicit words or images. The 1998 Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) states that computers must be filtered if the public libraries want to retain federal funding. But the current filtering software according to Judith Krug of the American Library Association is still defective.

According to here, instead of relying on software to help them; children and teenagers must be advised on the various uses of the Internet. Judith Levine authored the controversial book Harmful to Minors; The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, where she argues that obscenity standard in the US since 1968 is being revamped by the government so sexuality debates will be phased out rather than promoting tolerance and education. Instead of exposing children to censored versions of the Internet, they should be taught about media literacy and moral intelligence.

This is Krug and Levine’s idea so children will have a chance to be exposed to the sexual world where adults saturate it with images of love and sex which are varied accurate and realistic (Jacobs). “Let’s Put Pornography Back in the Closet” is Susan Brownmiller’s essay. She aims to take pornography out of the essential freedoms being protected by the First Amendment as provided by the Bill of Rights.

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