Pornography - - Sex or Subordination?

Essay by Anonymous UserUniversity, Master'sA+, January 1996

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In the late Seventies, America became shocked and outraged by the rape,

mutilation, and murder of over a dozen young, beautiful girls. The man who committed

these murders, Ted Bundy, was later apprehended and executed. During his detention in

various penitentiaries, he was mentally probed and prodded by psychologist and

psychoanalysts hoping to discover the root of his violent actions and sexual frustrations.

Many theories arose in attempts to explain the motivational factors behind his murderous

escapades. However, the strongest and most feasible of these theories came not from the

psychologists, but from the man himself, "as a teenager, my buddies and I would all

sneak around and watch porn. As I grew older, I became more and more interested and

involved in it, (pornography) became and obsession. I got so involved in it, I wanted to

incorporate (porn) into my life, but I couldn't behave like that and maintain the success I

had worked so hard for.

I generated an alter-ego to fulfill by fantasies under-cover.

Pornography was a means of unlocking the evil I had buried inside myself" (Leidholdt

47). Is it possible that pornography is acting as the key to unlocking the evil in more

unstable minds?

According to Edward Donnerstein, a leading researcher in the pornography field,

"the relationship between sexually violent images in the media and subsequent

aggression and . . . callous attitudes towards women is mush stronger statistically than the

relationship between smoking and cancer" (Itzin 22). After considering the increase in

rape and molestation, sexual harassment, and other sex crimes over the last few decades,

and also the corresponding increase of business in the pornography industry, the link

between violence and pornography needs considerable study and examination. Once the

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evidence you will encounter in this paper is evaluated and quantified,