Pornography and Repression: A Reconsideration (From Criminal Justice System and Women, P 335-351, 1982, Barbara Raffel Price and Natalie J Sokoloff, eds. -- See NCJ-115340)

• NCJ Number: 115357
• Author(s): I Diamond
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 17 pages
• Sale Source: Clark Boardman Company, Ltd
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. From Signs, V 5, N 4 (1980)

Annotation

This chapter examines liberal and feminist views of pornography and reviews the findings of the 1970 Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.

Abstract

The liberal view, espoused by the Commission, holds that pornography is harmless and may even be beneficial by serving as a safety outlet for men's sexual fantasies and thereby eliminating the desire to act upon them. The alternate view holds that the subject matter of pornography is violence, rather than sex; and that the violence is directed against women. Pornography depicts women as victims, reinforces and fosters attitudes of male domination of women, and contributes to the actual physical brutalization and victimization of women. In reaching its conclusion that pornography is harmless, the Commission relied on attitude surveys, laboratory studies, and social indicator statistics. However, their opinion data did not address the empirical consequences of exposure to pornography, and other studies suffered from methodological deficiencies and a tendency to ignore or explain away any indication that pornography might increase aggression or encourage sexual offenses. Thus, the conclusion that pornography is harmless is unwarranted by the data used. More recent research provides evidence that exposure to erotica increases aggression, particularly against women, and suggests that exposure to pornography may be associated with violence against women, including both sexual offenses and wife battering. 53 footnotes.