Sexual Ethics Essay

Professor’s Comment: This powerful essay contrasts the views of two feminist, Catherine MacKinnon and Sallie Tisdale, each of which perceives pornography in widely divergent ways. While MacKinnon's 'Not A Moral Issue' explains the adverse impacts of pornography to women and society as a whole, Tisdale's 'Talk Dirty to Me: An Intimate Philosophy of Sex' is receptive to pornography despite these adverse impacts, suggesting in fact that the solution to the problems associated with pornography is a greater role of women in production of that pornography.

What is pornography? According to the dictionary pornography means “Obscene writings, drawings, photographs”. Yet, many people disagree with what is consider to be pornography in society today. Susan Brownmiller is a feminist activist who wrote an essay “ Lets Put Pornography Back in the Closet” argues that pornography should be not be protect by the 1st Amendment or be allowed into society. Meanwhile, Susan Jacoby a writer of “ A First Amendment Junkie” disagrees with Brownmiller because she believes that it’s everyone’s right and that society should not be able to censor pornography. Should society let the government censor pornography just because we may not approve this type of act. I agree with both of the writer’s that pornography should

Susan Brownmiller's essay voices her feminist view towards pornographic material. Her claim is that without restriction, the first amendment has allowed women to be publicly perceived as objects.

It today’s society, pornography is a fast-growing epidemic that is evident in families, marriages, and teenage lifestyles. Supporters of pornography claim that it can be used as a tool to teach students about sex education. However, critics claim that pornography is unjust, influential, and dehumanizing. Pornography is unjust because it has the potential to break down intimate relationships and marriages. It can also have negative effects on children in particular young boys. More and more young boy’s minds are being influenced by pornography which is leading to misinterpretations about how to have a healthy sexual relationship. Most importantly, pornography dehumanizes women and it exploits children. Women and children are being victimized for the sheer pleasure of someone viewing pornography.

Anne McClintock’s “Gonad the Barbarian and the Venus Flytrap”, focuses a lot of attention on how from the beginning of history, women have been denied some of the basic rights and freedoms that have been essential to the way that men live. Starting back from the times where they couldn’t vote and when women were basically seen as property when wedded. Women today and even in the earlier days could not express their sexuality and could not show that they were sexual beings. Anne McClintock gives the idea that women should be able to have the things that men have and they should be able to express it in the same way as men. In this essay, I will analyze how Anne McClintock views pornography as a form of pleasure that is mostly consumed by men and how women are incorporated into the employment of the industry and even in the home setting.

The pornification (or alternatively pornographication) of the social world has created lasting effects in the lives of people that they must deal with every day (Dines 1998, p. 164). Pornification is the process by which the social and cultural world is sexualised. This occurs through the expansion of media technology and the pornography industry, as well as changes in media regulations and restrictions which allow pornographic imagery to intrude into public spaces (Tyler 2011, p. 79). This essay will offer explanations for why the pornification of the social world is occurring, how the phenomenon differs from a freedom of expression issue and is instead considered a sociological issue, what consequences and harm arise from these explanations, and will offer social measures that can be adopted in order to deal with the issue. Pornification has occurred in almost every realm of the social world, including in its unaltered form on the Internet, social media, marketing, advertising, music, fashion, sport, and art. However, this expansion of easily accessible pornified content is a stark and confronting challenge for our social world.

1. There are a number of dilemmas in sexual ethics such as homosexuality, marriage and divorce and pornography. For instance homosexuality is a major problem within sexual ethics because homosexual sex cannot lead to reproduction. However sexual ethic it differs between denominations compared to government law. Therefore these issues are a concern to religious belief; different faiths have different view on homosexuality or marriage and divorce.

In the coming paragraphs, I will prove that Ronald Dworkin’s criticisms and critiques of Catherine Mackinnon’s views towards pornography and society are largely unfounded and immaterial, and that government intervention via legislation is required in the protection of women’s interests. I will begin by explaining Catherine Mackinnon’s opinion and support for the Butler decision and thereafter, I will discuss Ronald Dworkin’s critique of it. After outlining their positions, I will proceed to highlight the areas of incommensurability between their arguments. My perspective

From the Utilitarianism view point, pornography is seen as morally right because it provides the greatest benefit of happiness for the greatest good. The Utilitarianism suggest that there is an obvious solution that is fair, and it may be one that appeals to common sense” and that “one should choose to do that which produces a better outcome for the largest number of people.” (Mosser, K. 2013, Ch. 1.6). under Utilitarianism, pornography offers benefits in marriage because couples can revive their marriage by using pornography as a new tool to explore each others intimacy and satisfy their sexual relationship. Some

Ethics Pornography is a social problem and is a commodity brought into existence by certain characteristics of a highly developed civilization. The problem with pornography is that any form of censorship or downplay cannot solve it. It is difficult to draw the line between ones right to express their ideas and or opinions or sexuality

One issue that feminists should bring to the open and question is the definition of pornography. Often times anti-porn feminists argue that we can tell what is and isn’t porn easily. Yet the definition these feminists use to decide what counts as porn and whether it should be censored from the public applies to many things as Lumby points out in paragraphs nine and twelve. She draws up the movie Siren as an example of how Elle Macpherson’s nudity in the movie was widely accepted and went uncontested, but then Lumby points out how Macpherson’s shoot for Playboy was more modest than some of the shots in the film yet the photo shoot receives more flack because it’s categorized as porn (par 9).

MacKinnon believes that pornography maintains male-dominated views of sex and is an extension of the patriarchy and thus, from a feminist standpoint, it should be eliminated. First, it should be established that MacKinnon believes that “male dominance is sexual” (315). From that, it can be established that practices such as rape, sexual assault, prostitution, and pornography “express and actualize the

Catharine MacKinnon, in her book Feminism Unmodified, takes a unique approach to the problem of gender inequality in America. She claims that pornography defines the way in which America’s patriarchal society perpetuates male dominance, and attacks traditional liberal methods that defend pornography on the basis of the first amendment’s right to free speech. According to MacKinnon, pornography is not an example of speech but rather an act. She proposes that this act discriminates against women as a class, and therefore violates their civil rights and should be outlawed. MacKinnon’s critics may think her argument is excessively radical, and contemporary society may not embrace the

In recent years, the term pornography has been primarily associated with that which is accessed and streamed over the internet, rather than the literal definition of, “obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, especially those having little or not artistic merit.” This form of visual pornography is a popular and successful business as it is viewed for fulfilling pent up sexual desires, however it promotes the act of having multiple sex partners without the need of any commitment. Although it is for this reason that this business is permitted, there are many overlooked, long – term affects that have become topics of controversy. Not only does pornography affect those who indulge in it, but it can influence those who divulge

“Never before in history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions” (qtd in “Pornography and Child Sexual Abuse”). The problem addressed in the quote by the U.S. Department of Justice is pornography, a 10 billion dollar industry, has made its way from discreet taboo to something that is today considered acceptable and even common. With the internet being such a common tool, it is no surprise that there is easy access to sexually explicit material. The widespread accessibility and usage of pornography has changed people’s outlook on the normality of watching such sexually explicit material, and