

I
t started by way of messengers and scribes, evolved through the presentation of 
newspapers and radio, brought us together with television, and now serves us 
world-wide via the ever-popular Internet.  It is the mass media, and even from the 
earliest days of its existence, it has contributed greatly in ways that both enlighten 
and enrich society, and ways that deteriorate and perplex it.  It is not a surprise to 
learn, then, that the mass media is the most powerful source of information we 
have, and nothing else in today’s world influences public perception quite as 
heavily.  

Unfortunately, however, most of what is broadcast or transmitted in the news 
today is with reference to the chaotic condition of our planet, or something else 
that society as a whole sees as detrimental or damaging.  But the news on 
television is not the only type of media taking the criticism of society.  Other forms 
of mass media, specifically movies and television programs containing 
pornography and violence have been heavily criticized.  The underlining concept 
to be debated here is that society is negatively influenced, specifically, by these 
images of pornography and the result is increased violence against women.  This 
assumption, and it is indeed only an assumption, is completely fallacious, however, 
as no concrete and completely conclusive evidence has ever been formulated in 
support of the theory.  The key premise here is that the mass media does not 
cause undesirable social behaviour and in actuality, the media people should not 
be dubbed as the “bad guys”.  They simply use their power in the most 
constructive ways possible in order to promote their ratings and popularity.  One 
way to do that is to concentrate on what sells: sex, violence and disaster.  

Having said this, why is it then, that many in society still believe otherwise; why do 
they continue to believe that pornography is “evil” and is a major cause for 
violence against women, specifically rape?  There are many reasons for this 
misinterpretation and through the following few points, an attempt will be made to 
show that pornography has very little to almost no correlation with violence 
against women (of course nothing is “absolute” in society).  In order to 
demonstrate this, it must be made evident that pornography is not “evil” and does 
not cause undesirable social behaviour by displaying nude women in sexually 
explicit circumstances.  Thus, it is important to indicate that women are not treated 
only as sexual objects through the media.  This is done in an attempt to quash any 
traces of “evil” in pornography.  Subsequently, a second point, that some may 
consider to be completely bizarre, can be addressed; that pornography actually 
reduces the amount of violence against women.

For thousands of years, sex itself has been considered “evil” and revolting.  This is 
exactly why the concealment of the sex organs and teaching feelings of shame 
toward human sexuality is so common worldwide (Christensen 1990:4).  These 
same feelings of shame are the chief reasons that sex is considered a personal 
and private matter.  Contrary to the beliefs of many, the mass media did not 
create these settings; society creates this image.  In some societies, women have 
no reservations with regard to living their entire lives completely naked, while in 
other societies, females cover themselves from head to toe, only revealing their 
eyes.   The media has been bombarded with criticism, overwhelmingly from the 
female community, relative to the amount of sexually explicit material that is 
published in magazines and that appears on television and in the cinemas.  A 
common argument against pornography is that the media portrays women as 
being nothing more than sexual playthings and objects to satisfy male sexual 
desires.  As before, the media once again, is not to be held responsible for 
creating this image; these views are products of society.  

It would be downright absurd to assume that women in this society are treated as 
sexual objects only because the media releases or broadcasts pornographic 
material.  A magazine associated with make-up and skin care, for example, will 
quite obviously not be concentrating on much else.  Such a magazine would not 
display pictures of women who mountain-climb or women who water-ski; only 
images of make-up and text referring to skin care would be relevant.  Clearly, 
society does not consider women to be beings who’s only purpose in life is to worry 
about make-up and skin care; but why are the complaints only directed towards 
pornographic media then?  The answer to this question may be more 
complicated, however, what remains obvious is that the media does not portray 
women as only being able to fill male sexual desires.  To say that pictures featuring 
nudity, etc, are making objects out of women is foolish.  One should consider 
females who pin-up posters of male rock stars or children who collect hockey or 
baseball cards.  Society, however, does not say that objects are being made out 
of these rock stars and sports heroes; pictures of clothed people are no less 
objects than pictures of naked people.

Many complaints are also made to the effect that pornography only offers a one-
dimensional view to life; that women are seen as nymphomaniacs who are 
hysterically addicted to sex.  It should be pointed out that events such as hockey 
games, boxing matches, horse races and operas all offer a one-dimensional view 
of life.  One does not attend an opera hoping to see a horse race.  The underling 
problem here is that the above mentioned events are socially acceptable; media 
displaying pornography is not.  It is also said that the media reduces women to a 
collection of body parts through pornography (Christensen 1990:74).  But why then 
are their no complaints of advertisements in magazines displaying only ears, for 
example, or a nose, or feet?  The reason is a simple one; society considers certain 
body parts to be “shameful” or disgusting and once again, the media can be “let 
off the hook”.

Realistically, the only way to prevent women from being seen as sex objects is for 
them to be seen as other things as well; but to say that women are not sexual 
beings would be misleading because both men and women are very much sexual 
(Christensen 1990:42).  Similarly, to say that women are singled out in the media is 
fallacious due to the many examples of media where men are seen catering to 
the needs of women; something known as chivralic sexism (Christensen 1990:42).  
Take, for instance, a recent television ad portraying young men groveling at the 
feet of supermodel Cindy Crawford, almost begging to be the “one” to cater to 
her needs.  There were no lineups of men aching to announce their displeasure 
with the sexist ad; and this is precisely why male stereotyping in the media often 
goes unnoticed.  Similarly, it is pornography in the media that is noticed and 
shunned by anti-pornographic and censorship organizations because it seemingly 
singles out females for their bodies.  It should be well noted, however, that 
paperback romance novels, which make up an incredible 40% of total 
paperback sales (Gerbner 1988:15), depicts males as sexual objects, performing 
what is called “Sweet Savagery” (rape), just as pornography depicts females as 
sexual objects.  But once again, this goes unnoticed.  

It is fundamentally important to realize that the media does not deliberately 
create images of hate or disagreement (Howitt, Cumberbatch 1975:80).  They just 
influence the more appealing things in society (thus directly increasing their 
ratings).  Although it is obvious that pornography is largely a male interest, a noted 
increase in female interest would certainly cause an increase in the amount of 
pornographic material geared for women; this relates to the laws of the business 
world (Christensen 1990:50).

Having discussed the untruthfulness of the claims against pornography and 
showing that pornography is not “evil”, it is now possible to consider the violence 
issue.  Are men who are exposed to pornography likely to commit violent acts, 
such as rape against women, more so than men who are not exposed to 
pornography?  It is tempting to believe that media influences males and 
overstimulates them through pornography to the point that they become 
aggressive towards females.  But this is completely baseless; just as pornography 
arouses or stimulates, it also satisfies.  The American Commission on Obscenity and 
Pornography performed a study in which several college students were asked to 
spend one and a half hours in an isolated room with a large volume of 
pornographic media, as well as a large volume of non-explicit media such as 
Reader’s Digest (Howitt, Cumberbatch 1975:80).  The study was conducted over a 
three week period over which time it was discovered that the males involved in 
the experiment began to lose interest, or become desensitized to the erotic media 
nearing the end of the experiment, even if new material was added.  To address 
the argument that males are pushed over the “brink” into committing rape 
because of pornography, one may point to the evidence above; to cover the 
female body would theoretically only increase male sexual desires.  Four more 
separate experiments were conducted of which the above was one.  Three other 
experiments came to the conclusions that pornography does not cause violence 
against women and reported that the number of sex offenders that had been 
exposed to pornographic material were smaller in number than the amount of 
sex-offenders that had not been exposed to pornography (Christensen 1990:130; 
Harmon, Check 1988:28-30).  These results can be offered as evidence against the 
claim that males become overstimulated and thus dangerous when exposed to 
pornography.  Other experiments conducted in the early 1980s by the Williams 
Committee in England, reported that as the availability and abundance of 
sexually explicit material increased, the number of violent sex crimes such as rape 
did not increase, but in fact decreased in many areas (Christensen 1990:128-129).

So what is it about pornography that women and anti-pornography organizations 
do not like?  Violence!  One of the greatest myths about pornography is that it 
contains an excess of violence against women inevitably resulting in real-life 
violence against women.  Anti-pornography groups release propaganda that the 
media approves of violence against women through pornography.  In actuality, 
however, the total amount of violence in sex-related movies was found to be 
approximately 6% in a study by T. Palys in the early 1980s in Vancouver, Canada.  
Even this material was almost entirely composed of verbal threats and spanking 
(Christensen 1990:59).  In addition to the above, studies in Ohio also found that the 
amount of violence in “G”-Rated movies was a staggering two times more than in 
“X”-Rated movies.  In fact, major films such as Die Hard: With A Vengeance and 
Terminator 2, contain extreme violence 85-90% of which is directed solely at men.  
There are, however, exceptions; the slasher genre of movies contain much more 
violence towards women, possibly due to the desensitization to violence in other 
genres of films.  Because women are involved, violence against them could 
create a true sense of horror.  However, this does not suggest that men should go 
into society and rape a woman any more than it suggests that men should go out 
and kill other men.  Horror movie fans choose to watch these movies because 
they enjoy portrayed violence.  Needless to say, no sane individual would wish for 
this violence to become a real-life conception.  Similarly, sex also excites people 
and because these two elements offer the most thrills in movies, they are often 
combined.

It should be pointed out that women, and not just men, also enjoy these thrills 
based on numerous studies.  When discussing pornography, it is scarcely noted 
that men are not the only ones who enjoy fantasizing about sex.  Women also 
enjoy pondering sex; just not through pornography.  In fact, most of these fantasies 
involve some degree of violence or force and are largely driven by the romance 
novels discussed earlier (once again supporting the evidence that romance novels 
prove to be the female equivalent to male-geared pornography).  Recent reports 
published by Nancy Friday, show that the number of female fantasies involving 
rape far outweigh the number of male fantasies involving rape.  What comes as a 
surprise to many is that in male fantasies, the woman rapes the man and  
conversely, in female fantasies, the man rapes (“Sweet Savagery”), the woman!  
(Christensen 1990:66).  Friday’s reports also provided some interesting reasoning for 
the female fantasies.  Her reports find that females fantasize about rape to show 
that they are not acting in accordance with such “sinful” actions; to show that sex 
is being “forced” upon them.  Any other feelings towards the fantasized rape 
would prove to be “undesirable social behaviour” and amazingly, the media is not 
even involved!  Actual laboratory experiments (Hawkins, Zimring 1988:103) have 
shown that when groups of women were shown erotic scenes involving rape, their 
reactions to the scenes were as or even more stimulating than less violent 
consensual lovemaking scenes.  This is not to say that all women want to be 
raped; far from it.  This is to say that if women can fantasize about rape but not 
wish to experience it, then men, too, can fantasize about rape and not wish to 
commit it.
In addition to the many other accusations against pornography, many in society 
believe that there is definite connection between organized crime and 
pornography.  Although this may be true, the idea is largely over-exaggerated.  
The reasoning behind this theory is very simple, yet very shallow.  Consider, that 
pornography is created by organizations and contains sexually explicit material 
that may be thought to be legally obscene in some areas.  To make the 
connection, these anti-pornography organizations assume that the organizations 
(hence organized) that produce the legally obscene (hence crime) material, are 
operating illegally.  It is obvious why pornography is attractive to criminals; just as 
anything that is banned or is made illegal, there is always someone who will pay 
the high black-market price for it.

Having considered the issues at hand, it can be said that since there is no 
concrete evidence to support otherwise, pornography in the media does not 
cause undesirable social behaviour.  As mentioned before, sexually explicit movies 
and magazines do not just arouse, but also satisfy.  It is an undisputed fact that 
feelings of love and happiness cancel out violent feelings (Zillman, Connections 
Between Sex and Aggression) and to say that pornography endorse violent 
feelings fails to make sense; if it did, why would men want to be exposed to it.  To 
suggest that pornography causes men to “go over the edge” and commit rape is 
as ludicrous as suggesting that pictures of food cause the hungry to steal more 
food.  It has even been said by some women that rape is the fault of women who 
dress provocatively; “they ask for it”.  According to this logic, in the event that 
pornography is banned, then an attempt should be made to force women to 
cover their skin and wear clothing that completely hides the shapes of their bodies 
so as not to provoke rape.  Absurd.  

As members of society, we recognize the power of the mass media.  We 
understand that public perception can be easily persuaded.  But it should be 
clearly understood that pornography in the media alone cannot persuade men to 
cause harm to women; it cannot cause men to do things that are socially 
unacceptable.  As was mentioned earlier, pornography only causes feelings of 
excitement and satisfaction and these feelings overpower those feelings of 
violence.  For these reasons, it can be said that until a positive link can be found 
between pornography in the media and violence against women, it will remain 
that sexual violence such as rape is the result of sexual frustration, and not of 
sexual arousal.


Reference Cited
Christensen F.M.
1990		Pornography. New York: Praeger.

Howitt, Cumberpatch
1975		Mass Media, Violence and Society. London: Elek Science

Harmon, Check
1988		Role of Pornography in Woman Abuse. (City unknown).American 
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.

Hawkins, Zimring
1988		Pornography in a Free Society. (City unknown). (Publisher uknown).


























Bibliography


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3.  Role of Pornography in Woman Abuse, Harmon, Check, ă1988, American 
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.
4.  Pornography in a Free Society, Hawkins, Zimring, ă1988.
5.  Advertising, World Book Encyclopedia 1990, New York, Nault.
6.  Pornography, Encarta Encyclopedia 1995, New York, Microsoft.
7.  The Question of Pornography, Donnerstein, Linz, Penrod, ă1987, pp.152-153.
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