Feminist View On Pornography

Anne McClintock’s “Gonad the Barbarian and the Venus Flytrap”, focuses a lot of attention on how from the beginning of history, women have been denied some of the basic rights and freedoms that have been essential to the way that men live. Starting back from the times where they couldn’t vote and when women were basically seen as property when wedded. Women today and even in the earlier days could not express their sexuality and could not show that they were sexual beings. Anne McClintock gives the idea that women should be able to have the things that men have and they should be able to express it in the same way as men. In this essay, I will analyze how Anne McClintock views pornography as a form of pleasure that is mostly consumed by men and how women are incorporated into the employment of the industry and even in the home setting.

Anti-porn feminists believe that pornography is humiliating to women and turns them into sexual objects that satisfy men’s sexuality. But McElroy disagree saying that when it is analyzed critically it means nothing. Humans only are the ones known to have sexuality then how can objects have sexuality. McElroy basing on this concludes saying that anti-porn feminists who believes in this are lessening their fellow’s dignity. In her article McElroy continues to disagree with this saying that there is nothing shameful on focusing on woman’s

Professor’s Comment: This powerful essay contrasts the views of two feminist, Catherine MacKinnon and Sallie Tisdale, each of which perceives pornography in widely divergent ways. While MacKinnon's 'Not A Moral Issue' explains the adverse impacts of pornography to women and society as a whole, Tisdale's 'Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex' is receptive to pornography despite these adverse impacts, suggesting in fact that the solution to the problems associated with pornography is a greater role of women in production of that pornography.

The screening Pornland, produced by Gail Dines, focuses on the pornography industry and how the visuality of gender and sexuality influences gender construction and the power level between males and females. The pornography industry constructs males as dominant humans who have no capacity for love or empathy while females are portrayed as helpless and vulnerable. Moreover, the screening highlights how sexualised images from pornographic films are slowly becoming a part of popular culture, especially music videos, television shows and films. For example, the music video of the song ‘Blurred Lines’ by Robin Thicke uses a variation of softcore porn, consequently implementing pornography into normalised culture. The production of pornography is

MacKinnon believes that pornography maintains male-dominated views of sex and is an extension of the patriarchy and thus, from a feminist standpoint, it should be eliminated. First, it should be established that MacKinnon believes that “male dominance is sexual” (315). From that, it can be established that practices such as rape, sexual assault, prostitution, and pornography “express and actualize the

The article that I will be breaking down in the following paper is “Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech” by Catherine A. MacKinnon. I believe the best area to start is to briefly describe MacKinnon and her article. MacKinnon is a professor of law at the University of Michigan. The article deals with the affects of pornography on society. MacKinnon feels that some pornography should be illegal. Her reason for this view is not that she finds it offensive, but rather that she considers it as a form of sexual discrimination. There are many different views on pornography ranging from the belief that it is harmless fantasy all the way to it being a prime factor of the deterioration for

MacKinnon argues that pornography defines male treatment of women, and is the clearest demonstration of male dominance. Her perspective is radical, but valuable because it forces one to reexamine his or her view of pornography. She says that, “male power makes authoritative a way of seeing and treating women that when a man looks at a pornographic picture... the viewing is an act of male supremacy” (130). This form of expression dictates the way in which men view women as a class. The uneven distribution of power in this system makes pornography a form of discrimination. “Pornography causes attitudes and behaviors of violence and discrimination that define the treatment and status of half the population” (147). Not only women are subject to this form of oppression. “Pornography is the

Humanity has struggled with determining the best option to solve their ethical dilemmas that they run into in their life. Analyzing and determining the best option to take can leave an individual lost in faith and building a relationship with God. Building a God foundation in your life will help you in every ethical dilemma that you face. The only way to solve an ethical dilemma with viewing pornography is to view the dilemma according to a Christian worldview and compare different options to solve the ethical dilemma.

The majority of modern pornography is not art, and by using a selective definition of Leo Tolstoy’s version of art, and John Dewey’s theory of art as experience, we can determine that pornography is nothing more than shallow entertainment that exacerbates social inequalities of society’s gender roles. Despite this, pornography has the potential to become art, and should therefore not be censored.

Supporters may be varied and polarized but most believe that there is a real problem and

Thesis – Multiple outlooks have been taken on the ethics of pornography, and the means by which it may either negatively influence power in sexuality, or actually provide some sort of social value and worth. These different ethical perspectives display the flaws in the industry and what it represents; yet they also end up proving the fact that it can be modified with positive influence and that pornography is not something to be deemed utterly unethical.

For many years there has been a lot of arguments about the ethical and morality of pornography. pornography is defined as the depiction of erotic behavior intended to cause sexual excitement. When it coms down to pornography, people have different opinions about it. Some people might find it moral because it gives them pleasure and it satisfies them physically. some individuals see it as a form of art that describes the figure of a human body in an artistic form. Others see it as immoral because it harms and degrades an individual. Personally I believe that it all depends how pornography is conducted and how we respond to it. It can be morally healthy that we like it because it makes us happy, such as it helps with your marriage relationship in intimacy, and it can be immoral when it is used in an unhealthy that we do not like it because hurts an innocent person.

The pornification (or alternatively pornographication) of the social world has created lasting effects in the lives of people that they must deal with every day (Dines 1998, p. 164). Pornification is the process by which the social and cultural world is sexualised. This occurs through the expansion of media technology and the pornography industry, as well as changes in media regulations and restrictions which allow pornographic imagery to intrude into public spaces (Tyler 2011, p. 79). This essay will offer explanations for why the pornification of the social world is occurring, how the phenomenon differs from a freedom of expression issue and is instead considered a sociological issue, what consequences and harm arise from these explanations, and will offer social measures that can be adopted in order to deal with the issue. Pornification has occurred in almost every realm of the social world, including in its unaltered form on the Internet, social media, marketing, advertising, music, fashion, sport, and art. However, this expansion of easily accessible pornified content is a stark and confronting challenge for our social world.

Lindsay Rohland (2015) defined an ethical dilemma as, “a complicated situation in which one must make a difficult choice or decision in the face of conflicting morals.” The choice between right or wrong may seem a challenging but a person’s morals are typically influenced by religion. Christianity has answers for every dilemma a person could be facing. The ethical dilemma of pornography will be analyzed by the Christian worldview, and compared to the perspective of the pantheistic worldview.

The idea that pornography gives feminists of differing opinions this middle ground that they can meet on and see how to articulate the different desires of feminism and what they want to turn it into is one of the main reasons Catherine Lumby argues that feminists need pornography (par 60). As Lumby writes in “Why Feminists Need Porn,” chapter five of her book Bad Girls, “the notion that you can draw a cause and effect line between fantasy and social practice is disturbing and distasteful to some feminists,” (par 60).