Pornography and Its Effects

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Pornography and Its Effects

Back in the 1960s and 1970s there was a debate over the nature of pornography as well as the clash involving conservative values. The term “pornography” has been the reason for numerous arguments recently. Proponents of this phenomenon maintain that pornography is good, while opponents claim that it is a negative phenomenon. Some people, on the other hand, are not willing to analyze this phenomenon, as they simply do not understand the exact definition of pornography. The problem here is that at present days, movies like that can hurt the morality of the society as it is and degrade males’ attitude towards the females (Cavalier, n.d.).

The majority of recognized magazines that feature naked female bodies like Penthouse or Playboy are viewed by Miller as obscene and thus should be considered inappropriate. In fact, these magazines do not lead to any violence against females, instead they are targeted at displaying the beauty of females’ bodies and thus can be viewed as erotically focused. In terms of underground, it is necessary to mention that there are many pornography magazines that feature inappropriate content provoking violent behavior targeted at women. Pornographic videotapes featuring “home pornography” enjoy high popularity. Such videos normally involve violent content where females are penetrated with unhealthy objects and are forced to take humiliating actions. Thus, those tapes feature illegal acts of sexual nature. Such tapes are likely to show females as objects that are used for the satisfaction of male sexual needs. Normally, such type of pornography shows a female being raped by a number of males.

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It goes without saying that there is a specific sort of the genre that has NC-17 rating as well as TV pornographies that are shown on peculiar channels and cable TV. The worst thing about such state of matters is that such channels are not censored and may feature any type of violence described above.

Internet pornography appears to be another case as it has all the aspects that were described above. With regard to the Internet pornography, it is necessary to dwell on pictures, movies, sex chats as well as online sex acts. Thus, it can be concluded that the popularity of the Internet pornography is rather horrifying. Actually, any perverted mind is likely to find anything that is up to his interest.

It is believed that being exposed to violence is likely to cause aggressive behavior. According to Edward Donnerstein, pornography is likely to bring about anti-social behavior as well as aggressive attitude to females. He also argues that pornography can make males indifferent to the facts that females are forced to sex. Furthermore, such state of affairs contributes to the trivialization of rape, and consequently violence becomes typical for the male audience.

In Mackinnon’s point of view, pornography appears to act against females twofold, firstly when it is produced, and secondly when it is viewed. First and foremost, females may be degraded, raped and even murdered in the process of making a pornographic movie. The users of pornography are encouraged to the degradation, murder and rape of females by pictures and films. One of the examples of such abuse was the case of Linda Marchiano, formerly known as Linda Lovelace who was beaten and even threatened with a gun by her former husband in the course of filming Deep Throat. According to Marchiano, a number of women were hospitalized after the movie had been released, some of them were raped by strangers, whereas others were coerced by boyfriends.

Although Mackinnon’s point of view may appear to be somewhat extreme, it is necessary to comprehend the validity of her ideas. She maintains that there is no moral difference between pornographic videos and concentration camp videos. She also points out that there is a specific sub-genre of S&M videos that might be compared to those videos that were shot in the concentration camps (“Mackinnon: Pornography Is Oppression,” n.d.).

It goes without saying that there has been a negative shift in terms of males’ attitude to women. As a result, females lose their value as personalities and turn into sexual objects for males who, in turn, believe that it is a norm of behavior to force them to sexual encounters. Female body is increasingly viewed as a tool that is required to reach sexual satisfaction in a violent form for a male, even with no permission of hers. The males’ attitude to women tends to change and even embitter. The primary harm of pornography in the context of changing attitudes towards females is that it can worsen the ties of family relations and prevent new families from emerging as well as destroy existing ones.

When analyzing pornography as the social issues of primary concern, it is worth dwelling on its ethical essence.

Human actions as sensible acts can be conceded to a form of the syllogism, with the overall premise as its fundamental principle that is a subjectively posited base and rule. Here, a certain principle is the particular circumstances. Under the circumstances that it are fulfilled, the action is the conclusion in its narrow sense. It can be viewed as a set of particular principles the most vital in the actions taken by a person. Moreover, it can be also stated that comprehensible knowledge of these principles is the most important aspect of a person. He thought that full knowledge of such principles is the most important in the course of the actions taken. Full knowledge of these moral-related principles provides the basis for right decisions, only if they are taken by a virtuous personality that possesses the right sense of tact and discretion. It may also be maintained that the problem of moral choice does not deal with the action to be taken, but with its fundamental basic principle. The value of moral decisions deals with the principle of volition. Thus, the object of ethics here is the question of what the principle and moral law are. The ethical approach to some extent can be viewed as a kind of sanction of rational human sensuality. It can be attempted to liberate human activities in their material content as well as the inner motivation of substantial moral guardianship. Consequently, this makes it possible for them to evolve within their criteria and objectives.

Kant brought up a problem of the moral in such ratified aspects that made it possible for the air to be devoid of certain impurities that are required in life. According to Kant, an individual can be perceived as moral only as mankind. Although one can notice certain contradictions in Kant’s ethical theory, his ideas should be supported. Thus, there is no denial of the fact that the most important thing about individual’s behavior is the actions he takes. Having knowledge is relevant only in case people can become more humane, acquire moral grounds and fulfill the concept of good. Kant’s idea that the foundation of moral values is not to be derived form the experience because they are complicated by their nature. All the notions relating to the concept of morality are plausible solely as a speculative concept of the things in the things, suggesting the noumenal world.

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The ethical strategy provided by Kant proves to be the opposite to the notion of morality. It is based neither on how personalities actually act in any particular situation, nor on the identification of the reasonable nature of private self-interest or certain virtues. Kant, in turn, is concerned with the moral law and duty rather than with the ethical virtues and the highest good. Thus, his field of interest is the duty of the whole humanity, instead of the behavior of any given person in a certain situation or the duty of a particular person. Embodied in the field of the moral law, such an approach is the only possible subject of ethics as the subject. Overall, people can have a moral virtue not within themselves, it can be attributed to their existence as individual units and their interrelations in regard to the universal moral law. The man is the aim only in the context and extent that correlate with other similar beings. Two primary examples can be found in Kant’s writing that certainly support his ground, since they were viewed by him as an illustration. In one of his essays, Kant illustrated the following situation. Suppose a friend of yours who escapes from a robber who was about to kill him, hides in you home, and you allow this to happen. Then, in case the robber inquires whether the other man hides in your house, you must not lie. As the second illustration of his point, it is necessary to dwell on the example found in “Metaphysics of morals”. Thus, in case any of the people on an island who live on an independent basis suddenly make a decision to put an end to their independent political existence and set out for the world as separate individuals, they should adhere to the principles of the moral duty and introduce the practice of the death sentence. Nevertheless, Kant cannot be considered as the man deprived of humane emotions. He simply tried to be consistent as a philosopher. Taking into consideration that morality is unconditional and there exists a universal law, this results in morally justifiable cases of derivation. In the first example, Kant tries to help you comprehend the rigid content of his views. Kant and Aristotle view the situations of the action. It is predetermined by the fact that an individual who tries to make morally right decisions proves to be an integral part of the situation. A situation like that is rather uncertain and cannot be predicted due to the course. The result is sure to be different with regard to the choice that one makes. Moral choices are different from any other type of choice in a fashion that the peculiar nature of moral choice is that they rely merely on the behavior of individuals (Irwin, 2009).

According to the feministic point of view, pornography is a sexually explicit subordination of women. A great number of people assume that the essence of pornography is the humiliation of females. Thus, apart from the morality-related issues, pornography is concerned with an idea of men humiliating women. Males are likely to defend pornography as compared to the desire of women to ban it completely. In terms of feminism pornography appears to be a type of cultural sadism involving women as victims of rape and violence. There is no denial that the perspective of females is degraded because of pornography. It is arguably possible to imagine a male who respects a female and is thrilled to spent time with her after watching a female being involved in sexual encounters with different males.