by Matt Lebeau

Created on: July 13, 2008

Pornography and Free Speech
Pornography and Its Impact on American Culture

Pornography, defined by Webster's New World Dictionary, consists of "writing, pictures, etc. intended primarily to arouse sexual desire." This definition of pornography is much more broad and benign than the description given by Catherine MacKinnon, an American activist and feminist scholar. Along with many other feminists, she believes that pornography is "the graphic sexually explicit subordination of women, whether in pictures or in words." These two interpretations of pornography are clearly quite different and involve a wide-ranging degree of moral attention by the general public.

Ideally, in order to determine the morality of pornography, society would first be able to agree on the definition. Obviously, this is impossible, so in order to discuss the qualities of pornography and determine its inherent worth, if any, the definition used here will be as inclusive as possible.

Despite lacking a consistent definition, three main factions have emerged on the issue of pornography - pro-censorship, anti-censorship/anti-porn, and anti-censorship/pro-porn. Despite the extreme difference of opinion regarding the legality and morality of pornography among these groups, all sides seem to be in agreement that child pornography is wrong and that no one should be subjected to it. Therefore, for the purpose of this essay, child pornography will not be addressed assuming it is not at the heart of the debate.

However, another issue relating to children is at the center of a great deal of controversy. Today in the United States, a large number of kids have access to the Internet via personal and public computers. The pornography industry also has unlimited access to the Internet and enjoys a great deal of profit from online sites and services. Entrance to pornography sites currently cannot be policed in the same way that pornographic video stores can. With a few clicks of the mouse, minors can gain access to millions of sexually explicit images ranging from MySpace pages to hard-core video downloads.

Again, no matter which side of the pornography debate an individual happens to be on, the ease with which minors can access pornography websites is a disturbing issue. The opponents of pornography insist that the remedy to this dilemma is a crackdown on all sexually explicit materials currently available on the web. Even before the Internet, this issue has always received a significant amount of attention

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