Pornography or
porn is the
depiction of explicit
sexual subject
matter for the purposes of sexual excitement.
Over the past few decades, an immense industry for the production
and consumption of pornography has grown, with the increasing use
of the
VCR, the
DVD, and the
Internet, as well as the emergence of
social attitudes more tolerant of sexual portrayals. Performers in
pornography are referred to as
pornographic actors (or actresses), or
the more commonly known title "porn star" and are generally seen as
qualitatively different from their mainstream counterparts.
Amateur pornography has become
widely popular and generally distributed via the Internet for
free.
Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from printed
literature,
photos,
sculpture,
drawing,
painting,
animation,
sound recording,
film,
video, or
video game. However, when sexual acts are
performed for a live audience, by definition it is not pornography,
as the term applies to the depiction of the act, rather than the
act itself. Thus, portrayals such as
sex
shows and
striptease are not
classified as pornography.
From country to country pornography is considered and treated
differently, both culturally and legally, whether
depictions of nudity in art or
photography.
Etymology
The word derives from the
Greek
πορνογραφία (
pornographia), which derives from the Greek
words πόρνη (
pornē, "
prostitute"
and
pornea, "prostitution"), and γράφω (
graphō,
"I write or record," derived meaning "illustration," cf. "
graph"), and the suffix -ία (
-ia, meaning
"state of," "property of," or "place of"), thus meaning "a written
description or illustration of prostitutes or prostitution."
History
The depiction of sexual acts is as old as civilization (and can be
found painted on various ancient buildings), but the concept of
pornography as understood today did not exist until the
Victorian era. Previous to that time, though
some sex acts were regulated or stipulated in laws, looking at
objects or images depicting them was not. In some cases, specific
books, engravings or image collections were censored or outlawed,
but the trend to compose laws that restricted viewing of sexually
explicit things in general was a Victorian construct.
When large scale
excavations of Pompeii
were
undertaken in the 1860s, much of the erotic art of the Roman came to light, shocking the Victorians
who saw themselves as the intellectual heirs of the Roman Empire. They did not know what to
do with the frank depictions of
sexuality, and endeavored to hide them away
from everyone but upper class scholars.
The moveable objects
were locked away in the Secret Museum
in Naples
and what
could not be removed was covered and cordoned off as to not corrupt
the sensibilities of women, children and the working class.
Soon after, the world's first law criminalizing pornography was
enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1857 in the
Obscene Publications Act.
The Victorian attitude that pornography was for a select few can be
seen in the wording of the
Hicklin test
stemming from a court case in 1868 where it asks, "whether the
tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and
corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences."
Despite the fact of their suppression, depictions of erotic imagery
were common throughout history.
Sub-genres
In general,
softcore refers to pornography
that does not depict
penetration
(usually
genitals are not shown right on
camera), and
hardcore refers to
pornography that depicts penetration explicitly.
Pornography takes different forms depending on physical
characteristics of the participants, fetish, sexual orientation,
etc. Reality and voyeur pornography,
animated videos, and legally prohibited acts also
influence the classification of pornography. Some popular genres of
pornography include:
Economics
Revenues of the adult industry in the United States have been
difficult to determine. In 1970, a Federal study estimated that the
total retail value of all the hard-core porn in the United States
was no more than $10 million.
In 1998,
Forrester Research
published a report on the online "adult content" industry
estimating $750 million to $1 billion in annual revenue. As an
unsourced aside, the Forrester study speculated on an industry-wide
aggregate figure of $8–10 billion, which was repeated out of
context in many news stories, after being published in
Eric Schlosser's book on the American
underground economy. Studies in
2001 put the total (including video, pay-per-view, Internet and
magazines) between $2.6 billion and $3.9 billion.
A
significant amount of pornographic video is shot in the San Fernando
Valley
, which has been a pioneering region for producing
adult films since the 1970s, and has since become home for various
models, actors/actresses, production companies, and other assorted
businesses involved in the production and distribution of
pornography.
The porn industry has been considered influential in deciding
format wars in media, including being a
factor in the
VHS vs.
Betamax format war (the
videotape format war) and in the
Blu-ray vs.
HD DVD
format war (the
high-def format
war).
Non-commercial pornography
As well as the porn industry, there is a large amount of
non-commercial pornography. This should be distinguished from
commercial pornography falsely marketed as featuring "amateurs."
The
Alt Sex Stories
Text Repository focuses on prose stories collected from
Usenet. Various Usenet groups are focused on
non-commercial pornographic photographs.
Technology
Mass-distributed pornography is as old as the printing press.
Almost as soon as photography was invented, it was being used to
produce pornographic images. Some claim that pornography has been a
driving force in the development of technologies from the
printing press, through
photography (still and motion), to
video,
satellite
TV,
DVD, and the
Internet. With the invention of tiny
cameras and wireless equipments
voyeur pornography is gaining ground.
Mobile cameras are used to capture
pornographic photos or videos, and forwarded as
MMS.
Computer-generated images and manipulations
Digital manipulation requires the use of source photographs, but
some pornography is produced without human actors at all. The idea
of completely
computer-generated pornography
was conceived very early as one of the most obvious areas of
application for computer graphics and 3D rendering.
Until the late 1990s, digitally manipulated pornography could not
be produced cost-effectively. In the early 2000s, it became a
growing segment, as the modelling and animation software matured
and the rendering capabilities of computers improved. As of 2004,
computer-generated pornography depicting situations involving
children and sex with
fictional
characters, such as
Lara Croft, is
already produced on a limited scale. The October 2004 issue of
Playboy featured topless pictures
of the title character from the
BloodRayne video game.
Production and distribution by region
The
production and
distribution of pornography are
economic activities of some importance. The exact size of the
economy of pornography and the influence that it has in political
circles are matters of controversy.
Legal status
- See List of
pornography laws by region for detailed list
The legal status of pornography varies widely from country to
country. Most countries allow at least some form of pornography. In
some countries, softcore pornography is considered tame enough to
be sold in general stores or to be shown on TV. Hardcore
pornography, on the other hand, is usually regulated. The
production and sale, and to a slightly lesser degree the
possession, of
child pornography
is illegal in almost all countries, and most countries have
restrictions on pornography involving
violence or
animals.
Most countries attempt to restrict minors' access to hardcore
materials, limiting availability to
adult bookstores, mail-order, and television
channels that parents can restrict, among other means. There is
usually an age minimum for entrance to pornographic stores, or the
materials are displayed partly covered or not displayed at all.
More generally,
disseminating pornography
to a minor is often illegal. Many of these efforts have been
rendered practically irrelevant by widely available
Internet pornography.
In the United States, a person receiving unwanted
commercial mail he or she deems
pornographic (or otherwise offensive) may obtain a
Prohibitory Order, either against all mail
from a particular sender, or against all sexually explicit mail, by
applying to the
United
States Postal Service.
There are recurring
urban legends of
snuff movies, in which murders are
filmed for pornographic purposes. Despite extensive work to
ascertain the truth of these rumors, law enforcement officials have
been unable to find any such works.
The Internet has also caused problems with the enforcement of age
limits regarding performers and subjects. In most countries, males
and females under the age of 18 are not allowed to appear in porn
films, but in several European countries the age limit is 16, and
in Denmark it is legal for women as young as 16 to appear topless
in mainstream newspapers and magazines. This material often ends up
on the Internet and can be viewed by people in countries where it
constitutes child pornography, creating challenges for lawmakers
wishing to restrict access to such material.
Some people, including pornography producer
Larry Flynt and the writer
Salman Rushdie, have argued that pornography
is vital to freedom and that a free and civilized society should be
judged by its willingness to accept pornography.
The UK Government has criminalised possession of what it terms
"
extreme pornography" following
the highly publicised murder of
Jane
Longhurst.
Effect on sexual crime
Research concerning the effects of pornography is inconclusive.
Some studies support the contention that the viewing of
pornographic material may increase rates of sexual crimes, while
others have shown no effects, or a decrease in the rates of such
crimes. Moreover, all these studies focus on various correlations,
but
correlation
does not imply causation.
Anti-pornography movement
Opposition to pornography comes generally, though not exclusively,
from several sources:
law,
religion and
feminism.
Feminist objections
Feminist critics of pornography, such as
Andrea Dworkin and
Catharine MacKinnon, generally consider
it demeaning to women. They believe that most pornography
eroticizes the
domination,
humiliation, and
coercion of women, reinforces sexual and cultural
attitudes that are complicit in
rape and
sexual harassment, and contributes
to the androcentric
objectification
of women.
Legal objections
Religious objections
Some religious groups discourage members from viewing pornography,
and support legislation restricting its publication. These
positions derive from broader religious beliefs about human
sexuality. They believe that God created human beings and created
sexual intercourse for them in the context of marriage. Thus,
sex-oriented entertainment, as well as lack of modesty, are
considered to cheapen human sexuality and be a misuse of it.
See also
Further reading
Advocacy
- Susie Bright. "Susie Sexpert's
Lesbian Sex World and Susie Bright's Sexual Reality: A Virtual Sex
World Reader", San Francisco, CA: Cleis Press, 1990 and 1992.
Challenges any easy equation between feminism and anti-pornography
positions.
- Betty Dodson. "Feminism and Free
speech: Pornography." Feminists for Free Expression 1993. May 8,
2002
- Kate Ellis. Caught Looking: Feminism, Pornography, and
Censorship. New York: Caught Looking Incorporated, 1986.
- Susan Griffin. Pornography and
Silence: Culture's Revenge Against Nature. New York: Harper,
1981.
- Matthew Gever. "Pornography Helps Women, Society", UCLA Bruin,
1998-12-03.
- Jason Russell. "The Canadian Past-Time" "Stand Like
A Rock"
- Michele Gregory. "Pro-Sex Feminism: Redefining Pornography (or,
a study in alliteration: the pro pornography position paper)
- Andrea Juno and V. Vale. Angry Women, Re/Search # 12. San
Francisco, CA: Re/Search Publications, 1991. Performance artists
and literary theorists who challenge Dworkin and MacKinnon's claim
to speak on behalf of all women.
- Michael Kimmel. "Men Confront
Pornography". New York: Meridian—Random House, 1990. A variety of
essays that try to assess ways that pornography may take advantage
of men.
- Wendy McElroy defends the
availability of pornography, and condemns feminist anti-pornography
campaigns.
- "A Feminist Overview of Pornography, Ending in a Defense
Thereof"
- "A Feminist Defense of Pornography"
- Annalee Newitz. "Obscene Feminists: Why Women Are Leading the
Battle Against Censorship" San Francisco Bay Guardian Online May 8,
2002. May 9, 2002
- Nadine Strossen:
- "Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex and the Fight for
Women's Rights" (ISBN 0-8147-8149-7)
- "Nadine Strossen: Pornography Must Be Tolerated"
- Scott Tucker. "Gender, Fucking, and Utopia: An Essay in
Response to John Stoltenberg's Refusing to Be a Man" in Social Text
27 (1991): 3-34. Critique of Stoltenberg and Dworkin's positions on
pornography and power.
- Carole Vance, Editor. "Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female
Sexuality." Boston: Routledge, 1984. Collection of papers from 1982
conference; visible and divisive split between anti-pornography
activists and lesbian S&M theorists.
Porn studies
- Linda Williams:
Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible
(University of California Press, 1989). Expanded Paperback Edition:
Univ of California Press, 1999, ISBN 0520219430
- Linda Williams (ed.): Porn Studies, B&T, 2004,
ISBN 0822333120
External links
- Commentary
- Government
- History
- Sociology
References
- President's
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. Report of The
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography 1970, Washington, D.C.:
U. S. Government
Printing Office.
- Schlosser's book repeats the $10 billion figure without
additional evidence
- Ron Wagner, Director of IT at a California porn studio: "If you
look at the VHS vs. Beta standards, you see the much higher-quality
standard dying because of [the porn industry's support of VHS] ...
The mass volume of tapes in the porn market at the time went out on
VHS."
- Feminism and Free speech: Pornography
- Pornography Helps Women, Society
- Pro-Sex Feminism: Redefining Pornography
- You Are What You Read?
- A Feminist Overview of Pornography, Ending in a Defense
Thereof
- A Feminist Defense of Pornography
- Obscene Feminists: Why Women Are Leading the Battle
Against Censorship
- Nadine Strossen: Pornography Must Be Tolerated
- Gender, Fucking, and Utopia: An Essay in Response
to John Stoltenberg's Refusing to Be a Man
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