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,
A real disappointment
I'm afraid I just can't stand this sort of essay... it resembles more propaganda to me than anything else.
it is quite clear that on embarking on the subject you have decided which side you would defend and then show it to be unanimously accepted.
How you got 98% on this essay is a mystery by all means.
How you can say that counter arguments are disproved by single case-studies is unbelievable... I don't thinK I can truly express my anger at reading your essay in this comment... that it should be presented as an academic work is beyond me.
Have you not considered that men with violent and sexual tendencies or even imaginations may just be more likely to watch pornography quite simply? This seems by no means beyond me...
Furthermore, is it not possible that sexual violence, a social taboo, can be associated with pornography, simply because ridiculous social conservatism, religious fundamentalism, and antiquated moral grounds have turned pornography into a social taboo...
I live in Britain, a state where one is encouraged at all levels to go out on a regular basis and drink to excess... this regularly leads to all manners of violence and social deviance... and yet it is an accepted social practice...
how then... would the horny teen masturbating quietly at home in front of some porn more dangerous to our society? I'd rather he take it out on a fictitious film or magazine than out at a bar on some naive classmate. Or do you disagree?
Sexual violence has always existed... it always will... whether pornography exists and is enjoyed or not.
I'd like to direct you now to recent events within the Catholic Church. How in recent years hundreds of cases of child abuse within the Church... a Church in which priests must live a life of celibacy... in which any form of sex is unacceptable... once again... what would you rather have... some lonely masturbation... or say a sexual partner? or perhaps a poor kid traumatized for life by a lonely (and arguably as a result) perverted man?
Another counter-argument. Japanese culture. Extreme violence and sexual openness in film, art, pornography etc... usually in art form.... why aren't they going around murdering and raping (though not necessarily in that order) each other as a result?
Anyway... though I could continue all night... I expect many have got the idea....
I'd genuinely be interested in a response here... and I mean a response that goes beyond "well this one study says". Psychology has said a lot of things... so many in fact that you can make it say anything you want it to... cheerio... two O'clock in the morning... gotta go to sleep...
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