Pornography in America: How Bad Is It?

Pornography, the dark side of America and the world. The kind of thing that is regulated to hushed talked in bars and strip clubs. Nothing creates more disgust or debate in America than porn. Mothers and lawmakers say that it is demeaning to women and a threat to a stable families. The porn industry and its viewers claim that it is a harmless activity not much different than other more main stream activities. So is porn truly that bad or is it simply a harmless American pastime unfairly discriminated against? That can only be decided by people on an individual basis.

Porn is not anything new, it did not start with Playboy and Hugh Hefner. The Original porn book was the Kama Sutra. Created in India during the 1st century BC, popular in India until it was translated by English and American explorers. The book is still popular today and is said to improve sexual relations.

Person washing his hands

Men and hetairai in sexual intercourse.

English: Houseflies Musca domestica mating. Pictur...

The first modern porn images started to appear around the 1840s when images circulated at doctors and instrument makers shops. They continued to evolve with "nudie" postcards appearing in France and finally becoming the pin-up girls of WWII. At the end of WWII the pin-up girls grew in popularity and soon Hugh Hefner created the next step, in 1953 he created Playboy, the first adult magazine that featured fully-nude women. The 1960s brought Bob Guiccone with Penthouse and AL Goldstein with Screw. Private was the first magazine to legally publish penetration pictures. 1969 also brought the first movie to document the popular swinger lifestyle when Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice was released. Up until the mid 1970s porn was something seen in seedy downtown theaters late at night or in magazines shoved under beds, but in 1975 and 1976, Betamax and VCR...