The following is quoted from a summary of a research about
The Social Costs of Pornography: Findings and Recommendationspublished that year by the Witherspoon Institute (11): Mary Ann Layden’s“Pornography and Violence: A New Look at the Research”is especially illuminating. Layden emphasizes that pornography is a potent teacher of beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes toward women and children, interpersonal relationships, and the meaning of human sexuality.Contemporary pornography, especially that readily accessible to adolescents and adults (and even children) on the Internet, reinforces the “rape myth” that women themselves are to blame for their being raped because deep down they want to be raped and ask to be raped by dressing and acting provocatively. Research she cites shows that “males shown imagery of a woman aroused by sexual violence and then shown pornography that involved rape were more likely than those who hadn’t [been shown the pornography] to say that the rape victim suffered less, that she enjoyed it, and that women in general enjoy rape.” And this is precisely what pornographers want males to believe and act on.
A meta-analysis of 33 studies showed that exposure to either violent or non-violent pornography increases acts of sexual violence. Taken as a whole, they indicate that many kinds of pornography and frequent use of pornography are connected to both violent fantasies and actual violent sexual assaults, with violent pornography having the greatest negative effect.
Studies also show that male porn users end up viewing women simply as objects for their gratification; they become emotionally detached from others, concerned only to satisfy their lustful desires. As a result of this the women whom they abuse, whether prostitutes or their wives, suffer severe depression, guilt feelings, and similar harms.
In Egypt, my country of origin, many girls find the behaviors of men nowadays rather confusing and shocking. Verbalcommentary escalated from the mildly annoying, sometimes flattering flirting to extreme verbal abuse in the form of cursing, expressing wishes for sex, degradation and labeling. Prior to the advent of the internet when the porn industry had an effect confined to its country of origins and the closely neighboring countries,other remotely located countries did not experience online communication and had its cultural habits and traditions majorly shaped by its own media influences. Nowadays, the rampant availability of the internet made pornography a global phenomenon that transcends gender, ethnic background and religion; it negatively shapes beliefs about women and reinforces socially harmful behaviors that tremendously affect women and their self-esteem.
In conclusion, the social cost of pornography falls heavily on women and the emotional, physical, psychological and mental abuse that they encounter from men brainwashed by pornography. Additionally, children may be a victim as well, falling prey to males affected by porn fantasies revolved around child porn. The list could go longer to include misused youth potential and impaired work performance. That is why I believe that the answer to the 3rdquestion-could pornography incur a social cost? - is a definite yes.
The 4th and final question: could it provide long post-action pleasure? In adolescence, pornography kicks of as the cool factor; our mental environments are white sheets of paper and the black dots that pornography starts jotting are still proliferating. So, the harmful effects are still subliminal. You enjoy the orgasm, you are still into plain and not extreme porn types, guys of your age are doing the same, and you are feeding your raging sexual appetite. Your social skills are still okay. You do not leave important stuff to watch porn. Gradually, however, you start getting more involved with porn; you start getting habituated to the types of porn you watch, you start seeking more dopamine-surging imagery, masturbation starts getting wired to pornography, pornography starts to slowly override other social sources of pleasure. Your lifestyle, at this critical phase, could rather inhibit or accelerate porn addiction depending on many variables.
Slowly, pornography starts having a more overriding effect on your life. As it started in your childhood adolescence, as an adult, you grow to identify it as a very desirable medication mechanism; it goes further than its sexual reference to override psychological aspects as well. When you start college, work, or any other source of continuous responsibilities and accountabilities, pornography can stand small in front of a hectic and empowering life style or maneuver its way into your spare time, to continue starring as the secret that is weighing you down. On the long term, pornography creates high levels of social anxieties. Somehow, when people look us in the eyes, we feel that they know what we do in the dark; we feel ashamed and not confident enough to mingle comfortably with secrets that would terribly shock the people that you are keeping a good image in front of.
Pornography addiction impairs your intimacy skills. Simply, all the sex you know is porn sex. You know that it should be rough, wild, and bizarre. You learned that kisses, hugs, caressing and flirting are boring. You want to get straight to the plot scene like you have watched on screen a million times. Your spouse might feel a profound turn off and you will be left wondering, not understanding that pornography does not deal in reality. You might engage in a lot of relationships with a recurring sexual purpose. In your moments of consciousness and sobriety, it truly breaks to know that you turn into a raging monster when you get into this auto-pilot mood; long hours of pornography watching which eventually reinforces a willingness to act out these sexy and out-of-this-world porn types.
Pornography does not provide long-term post action pleasure; it deteriorates your intimacy skills, it sexualizes all the neutral gestures of female acquaintances, it erodes your impulse control, it creates internal conflicts, it overrides other concerns, it sabotages your understanding of human sexuality, it could lead to sexual impotency, it spurs living a schizophrenic life and a spectrum of other consequence that conflict with the notion of long term post-action pleasure.
In a nutshell, pornography is an epidemic. The purpose of this thesis is to allow you to rationalize the harmful effects of pornography. As a result of a year and a half of research and analysis on the personal level, I am confidently claiming that pornography ruins; it is not compatible with the notion of pleasure because it negatively answers the 4 questions stated above in an obvious manner. Pornography does harm; it is the manner with which we pleasure ourselves to spiritual and psychological death. List of references
11: Quoted from: The social cost of pornography article, the 6th, 7th, and 8th paragraph: http://www.culture-of-life.org/content/view/737/1