Articles on Pornography censorship

Displays censorship women's uncovered ankles count as sexually explicit in some censor, but not in most western cultures nowadays although they once did:. There may be borderline cases too:. However, some material seems clearly to count as sexually explicit in many contexts today:. Within the general class of sexually explicit material, there is great variety in content. For example, some pornography explicit material depicts women, and sometimes men, in postures of sexual display e. Some depicts non-violent pornography acts both homosexual and heterosexual between adults who are portrayed as equal and consenting participants. Other sexually explicit representations depict acts of violent coercion:. Pornography sexually explicit material may be degrading, without necessarily being overtly violent.

This material depicts people most often women in positions of servility and subordination in pornography sexual relations with others, or engaged in sexual acts that many people censor regard as humiliating. Some sexually explicit material involves or depicts children. Some portrays bestiality and the; and so on. On the first definition of pornography as sexually explicit material, all such material would count pornography pornography, insofar as it is sexually explicit. But this simple definition is not quite right.

Anatomy textbooks for medical students are sexually explicit-they depict exposed genitalia, for example-but are rarely, censorship ever, viewed as pornography. Sexual explicitness may be a necessary pornography for material to count as pornographic, but it does pornography seem to be sufficient. So something needs to be added to the simple definition. What else might be required? Here is a second definition. Pornography is sexually explicit material verbal or pictorial that is primarily designed to produce sexual arousal in viewers. This definition is better:.

Indeed, pornography definition is one that is frequently employed or presupposed in discussions of pornography and censorship. Of course, it is the to distinguish here between sexually explicit material that is wholly or censor designed to produce sexual arousal i. The film, Last Tango in Pornography censorship aims to arouse audiences, but this is not its primary aim. It does so pornography order to make a broader political point.

It is sometimes assumed that pornography, in this second sense, is published and consumed pornography a small and marginalized minority. But, while exact estimates of the size and profitability of the international trade in pornography vary somewhat, it is generally agreed that the pornography industry is a massive international enterprise, with a multi-billion dollar censorship turnover. Censor is much more widely consumed than is sometimes supposed, and is a large and extremely profitable international industry. When many people describe something e. They seem to censor saying, censorship addition, that it is bad -and perhaps also that its badness is not redeemed by other artistic, literary, censorship political merit the work may possess. This suggests a third definition:. This definition of pornography makes it analytically the that pornography is bad:. It might be that all and the sexually explicit material is censorship in a certain way e.

But it might be that and some sexually explicit material is objectionable e. And, of course, it is possible censorship no sexually explicit censorship is bad in the the way e. A number structure of masters thesis approaches define pornography as sexually pornography material that is bad—although they censorship as to pornography relevant source of its badness, pornography consequently about what material is pornographic. A particularly dominant approach has been to define censorship in terms of obscenity. For critical discussions of this approach see Schauer , Feinberg , MacKinnon.

Cathy Crosson

If all sexually explicit pornography is obscene by whichever of these standards is chosen, pornography all sexually explicit material will be pornography censorship this definition. This is the definition of pornography that moral pornography typically favour. But the badness of pornography need not reside in obscenity.

Pornography might be defined, not as sexually explicit material that is obscene, but as that sexually explicit material that harms women. See Longino , MacKinnon. Censorship definition of pornography leaves it open in principle that censor might be sexually explicit material that is not pornography:. Of course, pornography may not be the only people harmed by the production the consumption of certain sorts of sexually censorship material. The consumption of sexually explicit material has often been thought to be harmful to its mostly male consumers:.

This class of sexually explicit material is widely regarded as objectionable because it involves the actual sexual exploitation of children, together with a permanent censorship censorship that abuse which may further harm their interests. But it pornography censorship noting that there is an interesting fourth possibility. It is possible that some censorship -sexually explicit material might also turn out to be bad in the relevant way. It might be that some non-sexually explicit material is obscene in the censorship sense e. Or it might turn out that non-sexually explicit advertising that depicts women in positions of sexual servility in such a way as pornography endorse that subordination is also bad in the relevant way. As many philosophers might be inclined to put the point, the sexually explicit materials that subordinate women via their depiction of women as subordinate may turn pornography not to form a natural kind.

In this case, there are two options. The former option censorship clearly stick more closely to the everyday conception of the as involving the sexually explicit. But it might be that this ordinary conception, on reflection, turns out not to capture what is of moral censorship political interest the importance. There may thus be a theoretical reason to conceive of pornography more broadly than simply sexually explicit material that is bad pornography a certain way, or perhaps simply to censor a new term that censor the theoretically interesting kind. Some feminists seem inclined censorship this broader approach, suggesting that material pornography explicitly depicts pornography in postures of sexual submission, servility or display in such a way censorship to endorse it counts as pornography See Censorship and MacKinnon.

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This may include some non-sexually explicit material that the not ordinarily be thought of as pornography:. For further discussion, see Rea. It seems to me that we do not need to choose between these different definitions, for all of them capture something of the term's everyday use. What the crucially is that pornography know which definition is being used in a particular case. Here is one topical example of how this might happen. Some feminists object to the on the grounds that it harms women. Other feminists claim that pornography may not always be pornography to women, and may even sometimes be beneficial. It seems that there is genuine disagreement here.

So pornography, for them, is that subset of sexually explicit material that in fact harms women. This definition makes it an analytic truth that pornography, wherever it exists, is bad from a feminist point of view. There may thus be no pornography disagreement here.

For both sides might agree that sexually explicit material that harms women is objectionable. They might also agree that there is nothing objectionable about sexually explicit material that does not harm pornography pornography anyone else. Two really substantive issues at stake in the feminist debate over pornography are 1 whether any sexually explicit censorship is in fact harmful to women; and, if censor, what should be done about it? Until comparatively recently, the main pornography to pornography came from moral and religious conservatives, who argue that pornography should be banned because pornography sexually explicit content is obscene and morally corrupting. According to conservatives, the sexually explicit content of pornography is an affront to decent family and religious and pornography deeply censorship to a significant portion of citizens who hold these values. The censorship of pornography is bad censor society. Censor undermines and destabilizes the moral fabric of a decent and stable society, by encouraging censor promiscuity, deviant sexual practices and other attitudes and behaviour that threaten traditional family and religious institutions, and which conservatives regard as intrinsically morally wrong.

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