It started by way of messengers and scribes, evolved through the newspapers and radio, brought us together with television, and now world-wide via the ever-popular Internet. It is the mass media, and even earliest days of its existence, it has contributed greatly in ways that both and enrich society, and ways that deteriorate and perplex it.
It is not a learn, then, that the mass media is the most powerful source of have, and nothing else in today’s world influences public perception quite Unfortunately, however, most of what is broadcast or transmitted in the today is with reference to the chaotic condition of our planet, or hat society as a whole sees as detrimental or damaging. But the news on television is not the only type of media taking the criticism of society. of mass media, specifically movies and television programs containing pornography and violence have been heavily criticized.
The underlining to be debated here is that society is negatively influenced, specifically, by images of pornography and the result is increased violence against assumption, and it is indeed only an assumption, is completely fallacious, as no concrete and completely conclusive evidence has ever been support of the theory. The key premise here is that the mass media does cause undesirable social behaviour and in actuality, the media people be dubbed as the “bad guys”.
They simply use their power in the most constructive ways possible in order to promote their ratings and way to do that is to concentrate on what sells: sex, violence and disaster. Having said this, why is it then, that many in society still believe otherwise; they continue to believe that pornography is “evil” and is a major cause violence against women, specifically rape? There are many reasons for misinterpretation and through the following few points, an attempt will be how that pornography has very little to almost no correlation with against women (of course nothing is “absolute” in society).
In order to demonstrate this, it must be made evident that pornography is not “evil” not cause undesirable social behaviour by displaying nude women in explicit circumstances. Thus, it is important to indicate that women are only as sexual objects through the media. This is done in an attempt to traces of “evil” in pornography. Subsequently, a second point, that some consider to be completely bizarre, can be addressed; that pornography reduces the amount of violence against women.
For thousands of years, sex itself has been considered “evil” and exactly why the concealment of the sex organs and teaching feelings of toward human sexuality is so common worldwide (Christensen 1990:4). same feelings of shame are the chief reasons that sex is considered a and private matter. Contrary to the beliefs of many, the mass media did create these settings; society creates this image. In some societies, no reservations with regard to living their entire lives completely naked, other societies, females cover themselves from head to toe, only revealing eyes.
The media has been bombarded with criticism, overwhelmingly emale community, relative to the amount of sexually explicit material that published in magazines and that appears on television and in the cinemas. common argument against pornography is that the media portrays women being nothing more than sexual playthings and objects to satisfy male desires. As before, the media once again, is not to be held responsible creating this image; these views are products of society.
It would be downright absurd to assume that women in this society are sexual objects only because the media releases or broadcasts material. A magazine associated with make-up and skin care, for uite obviously not be concentrating on much else. Such a magazine display pictures of women who mountain-climb or women who water-ski; images of make-up and text referring to skin care would be relevant. society does not consider women to be beings who’s only purpose in life about make-up and skin care; but why are the complaints only directed pornographic media then?
The answer to this question may be more complicated, however, what remains obvious is that the media does not women as only being able to fill male sexual desires. To say that pictures nudity, etc, are making objects out of women is foolish. One should females who pin-up posters of male rock stars or children who collect baseball cards. Society, however, does not say that objects are being of these rock stars and sports heroes; pictures of clothed people are no objects than pictures of naked people.
Many complaints are also made to the effect that pornography only offers dimensional view to life; that women are seen as nymphomaniacs who are hysterically addicted to sex. It should be pointed out that events such as games, boxing matches, horse races and operas all offer a of life. One does not attend an opera hoping to see a horse race. The roblem here is that the above mentioned events are socially acceptable; displaying pornography is not.
It is also said that the media reduces collection of body parts through pornography (Christensen 1990:74). are their no complaints of advertisements in magazines displaying only example, or a nose, or feet? The reason is a simple one; society body parts to be “shameful” or disgusting and once again, the media can Realistically, the only way to prevent women from being seen as sex them to be seen as other things as well; but to say that women are not beings would be misleading because both men and women are very much Christensen 1990:42).
Similarly, to say that women are singled out in the fallacious due to the many examples of media where men are seen the needs of women; something known as chivralic sexism (Christensen Take, for instance, a recent television ad portraying young men groveling feet of supermodel Cindy Crawford, almost begging to be the “one” to her needs. There were no lineups of men aching to announce their with the sexist ad; and this is precisely why male stereotyping in the media goes unnoticed.
Similarly, it is pornography in the media that is noticed shunned by anti-pornographic and censorship organizations because it ingles out females for their bodies. It should be well noted, however, paperback romance novels, which make up an incredible 40% of total paperback sales (Gerbner 1988:15), depicts males as sexual objects, what is called “Sweet Savagery” (rape), just as pornography depicts sexual objects. But once again, this goes unnoticed. It is fundamentally important to realize that the media does not create images of hate or disagreement (Howitt, Cumberbatch 1975:80).
Influence the more appealing things in society (thus directly increasing their ratings). Although it is obvious that pornography is largely a male interest, ncrease in female interest would certainly cause an increase in the amount pornographic material geared for women; this relates to the laws of the Having discussed the untruthfulness of the claims against pornography and showing that pornography is not “evil”, it is now possible to consider the issue. Are men who are exposed to pornography likely to commit violent such as rape against women, more so than men who are not exposed to pornography?
It is tempting to believe that media influences males and overstimulates them through pornography to the point that they become aggressive towards females. But this is completely baseless; just as arouses or stimulates, it also satisfies. The American Commission on Pornography performed a study in which several college students were spend one and a half hours in an isolated room with a large volume of pornographic media, as well as a large volume of non-explicit media such Reader’s Digest (Howitt, Cumberbatch 1975:80).
The study was three week period over which time it was discovered that the males the experiment began to lose interest, or become desensitized to the nearing the end of the experiment, even if new material was added. To he argument that males are pushed over the “brink” into committing rape because of pornography, one may point to the evidence above; to cover female body would theoretically only increase male sexual desires.
Four separate experiments were conducted of which the above was one. experiments came to the conclusions that pornography does not cause against women and reported that the number of sex offenders that had exposed to pornographic material were smaller in number than the sex-offenders that had not been exposed to pornography (Christensen Harmon, Check 1988:28-30). These results can be offered as evidence laim that males become overstimulated and thus dangerous when pornography.
Other experiments conducted in the early 1980s by the Committee in England, reported that as the availability and abundance of sexually explicit material increased, the number of violent sex crimes such did not increase, but in fact decreased in many areas (Christensen So what is it about pornography that women and anti-pornography do not like? Violence! One of the greatest myths about pornography is contains an excess of violence against women inevitably resulting in violence against women.
Anti-pornography groups release propaganda edia approves of violence against women through pornography. In however, the total amount of violence in sex-related movies was found to approximately 6% in a study by T. Palys in the early 1980s in Vancouver, Even this material was almost entirely composed of verbal threats and (Christensen 1990:59). In addition to the above, studies in Ohio also amount of violence in “G”-Rated movies was a staggering two times more “X”-Rated movies.
In fact, major films such as Die Hard: With A Terminator 2, contain extreme violence 85-90% of which is directed There are, however, exceptions; the slasher genre of movies contain much iolence towards women, possibly due to the desensitization to violence genres of films. Because women are involved, violence against them create a true sense of horror. However, this does not suggest that men into society and rape a woman any more than it suggests that men should and kill other men.
Horror movie fans choose to watch these movies they enjoy portrayed violence. Needless to say, no sane individual would this violence to become a real-life conception. Similarly, sex also excites and because these two elements offer the most thrills in movies, they are It should be pointed out that women, and not just men, also enjoy these based on numerous studies. When discussing pornography, it is scarcely that men are not the only ones who enjoy fantasizing about sex. Women enjoy pondering sex; just not through pornography.
In fact, most of these involve some degree of violence or force and are largely driven by the novels discussed earlier (once again supporting the evidence that romance prove to be the female equivalent to male-geared pornography). Recent published by Nancy Friday, show that the number of female fantasies rape far outweigh the number of male fantasies involving rape. What surprise to many is that in male fantasies, the woman rapes the man and conversely, in female fantasies, the man rapes (“Sweet Savagery”), the (Christensen 1990:66).
Friday’s reports also provided some interesting the female fantasies. Her reports find that females fantasize about rape to that they are not acting in accordance with such “sinful” actions; to show is being “forced” upon them. Any other feelings towards the fantasized would prove to be “undesirable social behaviour” and amazingly, the even involved! Actual laboratory experiments (Hawkins, Zimring hown that when groups of women were shown erotic scenes involving reactions to the scenes were as or even more stimulating than less violent consensual lovemaking scenes.
This is not to say that all women want to raped; far from it. This is to say that if women can fantasize about rape wish to experience it, then men, too, can fantasize about rape and not In addition to the many other accusations against pornography, many in believe that there is definite connection between organized crime and pornography. Although this may be true, the idea is largely The reasoning behind this theory is very simple, yet very shallow. ornography is created by organizations and contains sexually explicit that may be thought to be legally obscene in some areas.
To make the connection, these anti-pornography organizations assume that the (hence organized) that produce the legally obscene (hence crime) operating illegally. It is obvious why pornography is attractive to anything that is banned or is made illegal, there is always someone who the high black-market price for it. Having considered the issues at hand, it can be said that since there is no concrete evidence to support otherwise, pornography in the media does cause undesirable social behaviour.
As mentioned before, sexually and magazines do not just arouse, but also satisfy. It is an undisputed fact feelings of love and happiness cancel out violent feelings (Zillman, Between Sex and Aggression) and to say that pornography endorse feelings fails to make sense; if it did, why would men want to be exposed suggest that pornography causes men to “go over the edge” and commit as ludicrous as suggesting that pictures of food cause the hungry to steal food. It has even been said by some women that rape is the fault of dress provocatively; “they ask for it”.
According to this logic, in the event ornography is banned, then an attempt should be made to force women cover their skin and wear clothing that completely hides the shapes of so as not to provoke rape. Absurd. As members of society, we recognize the power of the mass media. We understand that public perception can be easily persuaded. But it should clearly understood that pornography in the media alone cannot persuade cause harm to women; it cannot cause men to do things that are socially unacceptable. As was mentioned earlier, pornography only causes excitement and satisfaction and these feelings overpower those feelings of violence.
