In the book "Smut, Erotic Reality/ Obscene Ideology", by Murray Davis (1983),
the author expresses the idea that the best source for studying human sexuality objectively
is "soft core", rather than "hard core" pornography. (Davis p. xix). The purpose of this
paper is to critique Davis's claim and to study what understanding of human sexuality
someone might have if they used some other resource that is available today, in this case
the Internet.
Davis argues that , "hard core pornography is usually more abstract and less
explicit than soft-core pornography". (Davis, p. xix, 1983). Davis doesn't go on to
explain how hard-core pornography can be less explicit than soft-core. However he does
explain that hard-core pornography is more abstract in that, it depicts the sex act only and
not the emotional or personal characteristics of the people involved in the act. (Davis,
p. xx) He believes soft-core pornography is describing "a sexual experience", which
conveys characteristics of the participants that are not described by hard-core
pornography. Hard-core pornography describes "sexual behaviour" which involves more
of the act of sex rather than the characteristics and feelings involved with sex. (Davis, p.
xix) Although Davis admits that the vocabulary of sex is changing (Davis, p. xxv), he also
states that hard-core pornography uses considerably more vulgar terms that are associated
with lower-class activity, such as, "prick, fuck, and suck" (Davis, p. xxiii). Davis believes
that hard-core pornography, induces imaginative behaviours by using these lower-class,
four-letter words. The stories use phrases such as "First we sucked, then we
fucked."(Davis p. xix, 1983), to allow the reader the tools to imagine the scene actually
taking place. The reader is lead by the author through the story by using words that may
be more understood or common in the readers' everyday life. He also...