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November 13, 2017
Porn, Free Speech, Sexual Inequality, and Violence
Engaging in sexual activity is a natural part of human nature, which people partake in daily. On page 308 of Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics, Andrew Altman states “Pornography is sexually explicit material, in words or images, which is intended by its creators to excite sexually those who are willing viewers of the material.” As citizens of the United States, there is a right to watch, and participate in any legal sex act that is of personal interest. This is known as sexual autonomy, or the right to have control over your own sexual interests. The government does not have a right to restrict your sexual autonomy unless it harms a protected category, such as children. Pornography should continue to be legal and protected under the First Amendment because it doesn’t promote inequality between the sexes, and doesn’t lead to an increase in violent sexual crimes.
The first amendment is arguably one of the most important amendments in the Bill of Rights. The first amendment protects five basic freedoms known as the freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and the freedom to petition the government. Part of this amendment protects American citizens from having the government put a limit on their expression. Since the first amendment allows such a vast range of expression, there are many acts considered distasteful by society that are deemed legal; this includes burning the flag, and being a member in the KKK. Pornography falls under protected expression because it does not harm the viewers nor the people participating the act in any way. Therefore the only restrictions that can be made on it are against categories that fall under the obscenity rule, these include child pornography, and bestiality. If porn were to become illegal it would negatively affect a great number of people. According to a headline written by the Huffington Post in 2013 “Porn Sites Get More Visitors Each Month than Netflix, Amazon and Twitter Combined.” Those are three of the most popular websites in today’s age, so the fact that porn websites are getting more traffic shows just how many citizens are participating in watching these videos. “Porn takes up a huge percentage of Internet bandwidth. In fact, 30 percent of all data transferred across the Internet is porn” (Huffington Post in 2013). If pornography were to be outlawed there would be an extreme amount of backlash because the Bill of Rights was written to protect the government from having too much power over its citizens, and outlawing pornography deliberately infringes on the rights guaranteed under the first amendment.
In the United States there is indeed an economic, and social inequality when it comes to how woman are treated, but porn doesn’t play a role in this. There are many different categories of pornography that depict men in the same positions of sexually deviancy that women are typically in. There are dominatrix and gay porn categories that use men in the same way as “sexual objects” that receives so much backlash when its women being portrayed that way. “… empirical studies show that a significant percentage of willing viewers or pornography are women” (pg 309 Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics). This is an interesting statistic because if pornography played such a big role in the oppression of women you would think that the same women wouldn’t be participating in watching it. According to the United Nations Development Program, “The United States and other Western countries where pornography circulates widely are the nations with the highest levels of equality, while Saudi Arabia and other sexually repressive regimes have among the highest levels of inequality” (pg 314 Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics). It could be said that free sexual expression such as porn could help equality of the sexes because it depicts women in relation to men on a similar level.
Do people who watch scary movies commit more violent crimes than people who don’t watch them? The answer to this is no, people who watch scary movies don’t commit more crimes than people who do. According to research done by economists Gordon Dahl and Stephano Della Vigna, watching scary movies actually has the opposite effect on crime, it decreases. Based off their analysis, for every million people who view a violent film on a given day, violent crime decreases across the nation by 1.2 percent (Kearney and Levine). The same goes for people watching porn categories that display violent sexual acts. Just simply watching sexually deviant acts isn’t going to make someone go out and commit a sexually deviant crime. If they do go out and commit this crime, it’s because they had already considered committing a crime in the first place. Whether or not they watched a porn video isn’t going to be the deciding factor of someone’s criminal activity. Instead of leading someone towards criminal activity it could potentially lead a person away from it. The majority of the time when people are watching porn they are also participating in masturbation which can lower the individual's stress levels. When participating in sexual activity endorphins and dopamine are released which gives the person a sense of pleasure and well-being (Best Health). These are not the characteristics of someone who is going to go commit a sexually deviant crime.
The government does not have a right to restrict an individual’s sexual autonomy unless it harms a protected category. Many people are against pornography because they believe that it isn’t protected under free speech. Nevertheless porn falls under the first amendment because it is a form of expression such as burning an American flag. Although, there is backlash against porn being oppressive towards women in our society; if that were true, women wouldn’t watch it because it would be considered detrimental to their well-being. Lastly, there is conflicting research that pornography may lead to more violent crimes. However, porn helps to lower violent crime rates due to the safe outlet for an individual’s pent up stress. There are people who have sexually deviant ideas but don’t act on them; porn gives these people a healthy outlet to “explore” their interests without putting anyone in danger. Pornography should continue to be legal and protected under the First Amendment because it doesn’t promote inequality between the sexes and doesn’t lead to an increase in violent sexual crimes therefore giving no reason to outlaw it.
Sources
6 Healthy Reasons to Masturbate. (2016, September 19). Retrieved October 31, 2017, from http://www.besthealthmag.ca/best-you/girlfriends-guide/6-healthy-reasons-to-masturbate
Kearney, M. S., & Levine, P. B. (2014, September). Media Influences on Social: Outcomes[Scholarly project]. Retrieved October 30, 2017, from http://economics.mit.edu/files/10502
Kleinman, A. (2013, May 03). Porn Sites Get More Visitors Each Month Than Netflix, Amazon And Twitter Combined. Retrieved October 31, 2017, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/03/internet-porn-stats_n_3187682.html
Staff, L. (2007, August 06). First Amendment. Retrieved October 31, 2017, from https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment
