Argumentative Essay On Pornography

Pornography can be defined as printed or visual material displaying erotic descriptions or visuals of sexual body parts or sexual activity, and is largely aimed to appeal to a male audience through sexual scenarios which often dehumanize and exploit women and their bodies. Though largely, pornography is is designed to please a masculinized audience, there are some feminists, from multiple genders, who aim to “reclaim their right to enjoy sexual images without violence and negativity” (Klinger). Ideally, pornography would be a context in which there would be a conscious movement towards eliciting a healthy reclamation of sexually charged images from all genders- especially women. Those against pornography usually emphasize the specifics of porn as it occurs in modern culture. Oftentimes anti-pornography feminists point out the extremely male-oriented vision of sexuality, the sexism, and with descriptions such as: “women presented as dehumanized sexual objects, things, or commodities; shown as enjoying humiliation, pain, or sexual assault; tied up, mutilated, or physically hurt; depicted in postures or positions of sexual submission or servility; shown with body parts- including though not limited to vagina, breast, or buttocks- exhibited such that women are reduced to those parts; women penetrated by animals or objects; and women presented in scenarios of degradation, humiliation, or torture, shown as filthy or inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes these conditions sexual” (MacKinnon). As the pornography industry is now, it contributes to the ideals of rape culture by fetishizing femininity and female “fragility” and/or “innocence”. This obviously misogynistic practice also creates a reliance on understanding...

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...omfortable. The way the majority of the pornography industry functions now is highly poisonous and detrimental to the perceptions people have of women- it tortures, violates and dehumanizes women, all in the name of artistic expression. If if there were a higher representation of women as pornography filmmakers that a large number of these issues would be resolved. Pornography made by women would at the very least put the camera and the power into a woman's hands, thus altering the male-controlled industry in those contexts. Fundamentally, pornography could be simply a healthy expression of sexuality. Obviously, in the patriarchal system in which pornography is ingrained that has stripped away women's power for centuries, there is no possibility that porn could be the only exception to the societal construction that lessens women and makes them subservient to men.