WHAT IS PORNOGRAPHY?
LET US DEFINE PORNOGRAPHY:
1. sexually explicit material: films, magazines, writings, photographs, or other materials that are sexually explicit and intended to cause sexual arousal
2.sexual images industry: the production or sale of sexually explicit films, magazines, or other materials.
INTRODUCTION
This article will provide a few facts and figures about pornography. If you are indulging in the viewing of pornography or know of someone who is, prayerfully, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the viewing will stop. Besides this article, there are other articles concerning pornography. See the article titled "When will we face our Porn Problem?".
EXPOSE OF PORNOGRAPHY
Through much of our nation’s history, Americans have intuitively understood the danger to family and community posed by pornographic and obscene material. But things have changed. Starting in the early twentieth century, increased automation, communication, and entertainment options brought about a more materialistic view of the world.
Movements promoting eugenics became popular and influential. These developments set the foundations upon which our current fascination with pornography stands. Human beings began to be seen less as unique creations with inherent dignity and more as objects to be manipulated to further personal aims. These ideas of the mere utility of people blossomed during the sexual revolution and have steadily grown to reap their disastrous reward today.
To win the battle against the consumption and disposal of human beings so common to pornography, we must rediscover what it means to be human, and live with the purpose of treating others, and ourselves, as such.
HISTORY
Although little is known about the origins of pornography, it is as old as written records. The ancient Greeks used pornographic themes in songs in festivals, and ancient Romans painted pornographic pictures on walls in the ancient city of Pompeii. Pornography was also prevalent in some ancient Eastern cultures, such as those of India, Japan, and China.
In medieval Europe, authors used bawdy ballads and verses to ridicule the church. The Old Testament of the Bible (The Torah) condemns the gods of the pagan nations.
It was not until the 1800s, however, that pornography became a social problem. It was primarily a problem because of the spread of technology, such as printing, photography, motor vehicles and other modern technology such as television and the internet.
PORNOGRAPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Both the availability of pornography and the growth of the pornography industry have exploded since the 1950s. These trends reflect an increased demand for pornography, greater social and legal tolerance, and the emergence of new technologies for distribution.
In the United States, the pornography industry went "above ground" in the 1950s with the creation of Playboy, which was the first mass-marketed "girlie magazine". By the 1970s many other magazines were available that had much more explicit and hard-core content. Hard-core pornographic movie theaters emerged for the first time in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
By the mid-1980s, however, pornographic magazines and movie houses were beginning to decline as new technologies emerged that made private viewing possible, especially videocassette recorders (VCRs) and cable television. Since the 1990s the Internet has increased the availability of pornography in the United States and many other countries.
PORNOGRAPHY AND CULTURE
There was a time when there was no need for research data to tell us that pornography was harmful. Yet, as pornography has entered the mainstream and society has began to lose its visceral reaction against such material, researchers have stepped up to prove what we once instinctively knew.
Studies now prove that pornography and other sexualized media have the capacity to drastically alter the user's brain chemistry and functionality. Whether or not one becomes addicted, virtually no one is immune to the mental, emotional, spiritual, and even physical affects of viewing pornography.
LEGAL STATUS
Since the beginning of the 20th century, court decisions have generally narrowed the range of pornographic material that can be considered obscene or illegal. Each country has its own approach to the law, however, and there is little international coordination despite the fact that pornographic material can be sent instantly anywhere in the world over the Internet. However, child pornography is illegal in nearly all countries, although enforcement varies across the globe.
Pornography is not the same thing as obscenity, although people often use the terms interchangeably. Obscenity is a legal concept that applies to those forms of pornography that society considers the most harmful to sexual morality, and that it punishes under criminal law. In the United States, for example, the Supreme Court limits the definition of obscenity to "hard-core" pornographic depictions, meaning extremely explicit portrayals of sex. Thus, pornography is illegal only if judged to be obscene. Therefore we are infiltrated with pornography that is very sexually explicit but is deemed constitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court. However, this pornography that is considered to be constitutional, is eating away at the very core of families throughout the United States and the world.
SUPREME COURT 1997
On June 26, 1997, the United States Supreme Court voted 7-2 to strike down the Communications Decency Act (CDA), a federal law that banned the distribution of obscene or indecent material over the worldwide computer network known as the Internet. Passed as part of the giant Telecommunications Act of 1996, the CDA was an attempt to curtail pornographic material on the Internet as the "Net" and its World Wide Web (WWW) grew in importance. But the law provoked widespread opposition from free speech advocates, computer hardware and software manufacturers, and Internet users, who argued that the CDA restricted freedom of expression and would hurt the growth of the Internet. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion of the court.
PREVALENCE AND AVAIBILITY
Pornography in the United States is now a multibillion-dollar business. In 1996 Americans spent more than $8 billion on hard-core pornographic materials, such as videos, adult cable programs, computer pornography, sex magazines, and peep shows. About 25,000 stores sold hard-core videos. In 1992 Americans rented 490 million hard-core pornographic videos, a substantial increase from the 75 million rented in 1985; In the year 2002 the number of rentals had increased to 801 million copies. A 1997 study of pornography on the Internet found approximately 34,000 pornographic web sites, in 2003 the number of sites is over one million. Some studies have maintained that organized crime is deeply involved in the making of hard-core pornography in the United States, Japan, and elsewhere.
ATTITUDES TOWARD PORNOGRAPHY
Attitudes toward pornography generally can be classified into one of four major perspectives:
Conservative Perspective
The conservative view is based on the traditional foundation of obscenity law, which focuses on how pornography corrupts moral virtue and social order. It takes the position that sexual desire should be restrained by rationality, interpersonal commitment, and responsibility, qualities that are preserved by marriage and commitment to the family.
Feminist Perspective
The mainstream feminist perspective rejects the moral and religious views of the conservative approach, focusing instead on how pornography contributes to the inequality and subordination of women in society. In this view, pornography is not about sex but about power; pornography reflects and reinforces male power and sexuality by depicting women as sex objects who exist to fulfill the pleasure of men.
Postmodern Perspective
Postmodern critics of censorship accuse both conservatives and pro-censorship feminists of adopting too simplistic a view of sex, equality, and government controls. Postmodernism is skeptical of all-encompassing explanations of complex social phenomena, so its advocates tend to eschew strong positions on either side of the censorship debate. According to the postmodernist perspective, pornography has many meanings and effects, so it is irresponsible to reduce it to one dominant meaning.
Liberal Perspective
The liberal and civil libertarian approach tolerates any consensual or voluntary form of adult sexual activity, as long as it does not directly harm others. In this view, making or viewing pornography is a legitimate expression of individual preference. Like postmodernists, liberals tend to interpret pornography relativistically, holding that its meaning and effects often lie in the eye of the beholder.
Christian Perspective
The Christian Perspective covers the conservative and some of the feminist views. Very simply Jesus said: I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matt 5:28-29. Therefore, the Christian view is based on the Word of God. In addition, we must not lose focus on how pornography corrupts moral virtue and social order. The Christian position is that sexual contact should be restrained and preserved in the Holiness of marriage.
"Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? Matt 19:4-5
Pornography contributes to the inequality and
subordination of women in society and depicts women as sex objects who exist
exclusively to fulfill the pleasure ofmen. That is a sad statement for the
Mother of our children! Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved
the church and gave Himself (He died) for her, Eph 5:25
