"The term anti-pornography movement is used to describe those who
argue that pornography has a variety of harmful effects, such as
encouragement of human trafficking, desensitization, pedophilia,
dehumanization, exploitation, sexual dysfunction, and inability to
maintain healthy sexual relationships. Many of those involved in the
anti-pornography movement come from religious groups opposed to it,
feminists, and individuals who feel that pornography played a major
role in the breakdown of their marriages and relationships."

Dolf Zillmann asserts that extensive viewing of pornographic material
produces many sociological effects which he characterizes as
unfavorable, including a decreased respect for long-term, monogamous
relationships, and an attenuated desire for procreation.[1] He
describes the theoretical basis of these experimental findings:

The values expressed in pornography clash so obviously with the family
concept, and they potentially undermine the traditional values that
favor marriage, family, and children... Pornographic scripts dwell on
sexual engagements of parties who have just met, who are in no way
attached or committed to each other, and who will part shortly, never
to meet again... Sexual gratification in pornography is not a function
of emotional attachment, of kindness, of caring, and especially not of
continuance of the relationship, as such continuance would translate
into responsibilities, curtailments, and costs...[2]

Additionally, some researchers claim that pornography causes
unequivocal harm to society by increasing rates of sexual assault[3]
[4], a line of research which has been critiqued in "The effects of
Pornography: An International Perspective" on external validity
grounds[5], whilst others claim there is a correlation between
pornography and a decrease of sex crimes[6][7][8], an issue discussed
further in public health effects of pornography.

[edit] Religious objections

A protest against an adult bookstore in Uniontown, Indiana, USASome
religious conservatives, such as the late Jerry Falwell, criticize
pornography on religious-moral grounds. They say sex is reserved for
married couples, to be used only in accordance with God's loving will,
and assert that use of pornography involves indulgence in lust (which
in Roman Catholicism is a sin) and leads to an overall increase in
sexually immoral behavior.[citation needed]

Many are opposed to pornography because of religious convictions and
morals, as exemplified by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which
states:

"Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from
the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to
third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the
conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does
grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the
public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit
profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of
a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. Civil authorities should
prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials."
Section 2354[6]

[edit] Feminist objections
Feminist positions on pornography are diverse. Some feminists, such as
Diana Russell, Andrea Dworkin, Catharine MacKinnon, Susan Brownmiller,
Dorchen Leidholdt, and Robin Morgan, argue that pornography is
degrading to women, and complicit in violence against women both in
its production (where, they charge, abuse and exploitation of women
performing in pornography is rampant) and in its consumption (where,
they charge, pornography eroticizes the domination, humiliation, and
coercion of women, and reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes that
are complicit in rape and sexual harassment). Many feminists
differentiate between different sorts of porn and may see some as
fairly harmless.

Beginning in the late 1970s, anti-pornography radical feminists formed
organizations such as Women Against Pornography that provided
educational events, including slide-shows, speeches, and guided tours
of the sex industry in Times Square, in order to raise awareness of
the content of pornography and the sexual subculture in pornography
shops and live sex shows.

The feminist anti-pornography movement was galvanized by the
publication of Ordeal, in which Linda Boreman (who under the name of
"Linda Lovelace" had starred in Deep Throat) stated that she had been
beaten, raped, and pimped by her husband Chuck Traynor, and that
Traynor had forced her at gunpoint to make scenes in Deep Throat, as
well as forcing her, by use of both physical violence against Boreman
as well as emotional abuse and outright threats of violence (some made
against members of her family), to make other pornographic films.
However, in the documentary "Inside Deep Throat", directors Fenton
Bailey and Randy Barbato interviewed several people connected with the
filming of "Deep Throat", including director Gerard Damiano and co-
star Harry Reems, and all stated that Lovelace was not forced in any
way to participate in the film, and specifically that they never saw a
gun on the set. Dworkin, MacKinnon, and Women Against Pornography
issued public statements of support for Boreman, and worked with her
in public appearances and speeches. Boreman's criticism focused
feminist attention not only on the effects of the consumption of
pornography (which had dominated feminist discussions of pornography
in the 1970s), but also the effects of the production of pornography,
which they claim is rife with abuse, harassment, economic
exploitation, and physical and sexual violence. They point to the
testimony of other well known participants in pornography such as
Traci Lords, and expressed in recent feminist works such as Susan
Cole's Power Surge: Sex, Violence and Pornography. MacKinnon applies
the critical test to determine whether the production of pornography
is exploitative: would women choose to work in the pornography
industry if it were not for the money? Critics note that this test
fails to distinguish pornography from any other industry.

Some anti-pornography feminists -- Dworkin and MacKinnon in particular
-- advocated laws which would allow women who were sexually abused and
otherwise hurt by pornography to sue pornographers in civil court. The
Antipornography Civil Rights Ordinance that they drafted was passed
twice by the Minneapolis city council in 1983, but vetoed by Mayor
Donald Fraser, on the grounds that the city could not afford the
litigation over the law's constitutionality. The ordinance was
successfully passed in 1984 by the Indianapolis city council and
signed by Mayor William Hudnut, and passed by a voter initiative in
Bellingham, Washington in 1988, but struck down both times as
unconstitutional by the state and federal courts. In 1986, the Supreme
Court affirmed the lower courts' rulings in the Indianapolis case
without comment.

Many anti-pornography feminists supported the legislative efforts, but
others -- including Susan Brownmiller, Janet Gornick, and Wendy
Kaminer -- objected that legislative campaigns would be rendered
ineffectual by the courts, would violate principles of free speech, or
would harm the anti-pornography movement by taking organizing energy
away from education and direct action and entangling it in political
squabbles (Brownmiller 318-321)

Many anti-pornography feminists describing themselves as "sex-radical"
such as Ann Simonton and Nikki Craft and other members of Media Watch
have advocated working against pornography and been arrested for
public nudity and apply civil disobedience against corporations by
ripping up single copies of magazines that contained violent
pornography that they insist glorify rape as sexual entertainment.
They advocate rejecting corporate control of sexuality as exemplified
in publications like Hustler and Penthouse, protesting particularly
what they see as the dangerous conditioning practice of intermixing
violence and sexuality for titillation and entertainment as in
pornography and other mainstream media for the purpose of achieving
orgasm.

The Supreme Court of Canada's 1992 ruling in R. v. Butler (the "Butler
decision") fueled further controversy, when the court decided to
incorporate some elements of Dworkin and MacKinnon's legal work on
pornography into the existing Canadian obscenity law. In Butler the
Court held that Canadian obscenity law violated Canadian citizens'
rights to free speech under the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms if enforced on grounds of morality or community standards of
decency; but that obscenity law could be enforced constitutionally
against some pornography on the basis of the Charter's guarantees of
sex equality. The Court's decision cited extensively from briefs
prepared by the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), with
the support and participation of Catharine MacKinnon. Andrea Dworkin
opposed LEAF's position, arguing that feminists should not support or
attempt to reform criminal obscenity law.

Controversy between anti-pornography feminists and their critics grew
when the Canadian government raided and prosecuted Glad Day Bookshop,
a gay bookstore in Ontario, in its first obscenity prosecution under
the Butler criteria. The bookstore was prosecuted for selling copies
of the lesbian sado-masochist magazine, Bad Attitude. In 1993, copies
of Andrea Dworkin's book Pornography: Men Possessing Women were held
for inspection by Canadian customs agents [7], fostering an urban
legend that Dworkin's own books had also been banned from Canada under
a law that she herself had promoted. However, the Butler decision did
not adopt the whole of Dworkin and MacKinnon's ordinance; Dworkin did
not support the decision; and the impoundment of her books (which were
released shortly after they were inspected) was a standard procedural
measure, unrelated to the Butler decision.

In Britain, the late 1970s saw a wave of radical feminism. Groups such
as Women Against Violence Against Women and Angry Women protested
against the use of sexual imagery in advertising and in cinema. Some
members committed arson against sex shops. However, this movement was
short-lived. Its demise was prompted by counter-demonstrations by
black women and disabled women. Pornography was seen by the latter as
a very minor issue that had been prioritised by White middle-class
women above the discrimination that black women and/or disabled women
were facing.

[edit] Feminist Criticism of the Anti-Pornography Position
Other feminists support unregulated access to pornography; some
describe themselves as sex-positive feminists and criticize anti-
pornography activism. They take a wide range of views towards existing
pornography: some view the growth of pornography as a crucial part of
the sexual revolution and they say has contributed to women's
liberation; others view the existing pornography industry as
misogynist and rife with exploitation, but hold that pornography could
be and sometimes is feminist, and propose to reform or radically alter
the pornography industry rather than opposing it wholesale. They
typically oppose the theory of anti-pornography feminism -- which they
accuse of selective handling of evidence, and sometimes of being
prudish or as intolerant of sexual difference -- and also the
political practice of anti-pornography feminism -- which is
characterized as censorship and accuse of complicity with conservative
defenses of the oppressive sexual status quo.

Additionally, many point to the hypocrisy of advocating a ban on some
forms of communication which may often be sexist (namely sexually
arousing/explicit ones) while not advocating a ban of other, equally
or more sexist communications (albeit not sexually arousing/explicit)
"It's a far different criticism to note that porn is sexist. So are
all commercial media. That's like tasting several glasses of salt
water and insisting only one of them is salty. The [only] difference
with porn is that it is people making love, and we live in a world
that cannot tolerate that image.." notes Susie Bright in her book
Sexwise. Notable advocates of these and similar positions include
sociologist Laura Kipnis, columnist and editor Susie Bright, essayist
and therapist Patrick Califia and porn actress and writer Nina
Hartley.

[edit] By country

[edit] United States

[edit] U.S. Government Commissions on pornography

Meese report coverIn the United States, a 1969 Supreme Court decision
which held that people could view whatever they wished in the privacy
of their own homes, STANLEY v. GEORGIA, 394 U.S. 557 (1969), caused
Congress to fund and President Lyndon B. Johnson to appoint a
commission to study pornography.

In 1970, the Presidential Commission on Obscenity and Pornography
concluded that "there was insufficient evidence that exposure to
explicit sexual materials played a significant role in the causation
of delinquent or criminal behavior." In general, with regard to
adults, the Commission recommended that legislation "should not seek
to interfere with the right of adults who wish to do so to read,
obtain, or view explicit sexual materials." Regarding the view that
these materials should be restricted for adults in order to protect
young people from exposure to them, the Commission found that it is
"inappropriate to adjust the level of adult communication to that
considered suitable for children." The Supreme Court supported this
view.[9]

A large portion of the Commission's budget was applied to funding
original research on the effects of sexually explicit materials. One
experiment is described in which repeated exposure of male college
students to pornography "caused decreased interest in it, less
response to it and no lasting effect," although it appears that the
satiation effect does wear off eventually ("Once more"). William B.
Lockhart, Dean of the University of Minnesota Law School and chairman
of the commission, said that before his work with the commission he
had favored control of obscenity for both children and adults, but had
changed his mind as a result of scientific studies done by commission
researchers. In reference to dissenting commission members Keating and
Rev. Morton Hill, Lockhart said, "When these men have been forgotten,
the research developed by the commission will provide a factual basis
for informed, intelligent policymaking by the legislators of
tomorrow" [8]

President Ronald Reagan announced his intention to set up a commission
to study pornography.[9] The result was the appointment by Attorney
General Edwin Meese in the spring of 1985 of a panel comprised of 11
members, the majority of whom had established records as anti-
pornography crusaders.[10]

In 1986, the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography, often
called the Meese Commission, reached the opposite conclusion, advising
that pornography was in varying degrees harmful. A workshop headed by
Surgeon General C. Everett Koop provided essentially the only original
research done by the Meese Commission. Given very little time and
money to "develop something of substance" to include in the Meese
Commission's report, it was decided to conduct a closed, weekend
workshop of "recognized authorities" in the field. All but one of the
invited participants attended. At the end of the workshop, the
participants expressed consensus in five areas:

(1) "Children and adolescents who participate in the production of
pornography experience adverse, enduring effects,"
(2) "Prolonged use of pornography increases beliefs that less common
sexual practices are more common,"
(3) "Pornography that portrays sexual aggression as pleasurable for
the victim increases the acceptance of the use of coercion in sexual
relations,"
(4) "Acceptance of coercive sexuality appears to be related to sexual
aggression,"
(5) "In laboratory studies measuring short-term effects, exposure to
violent pornography increases punitive behavior toward women"
According to Surgeon General Koop, "Although the evidence may be slim,
we nevertheless know enough to conclude that pornography does present
a clear and present danger to American public health"[11]
In 1983, prosecutors in California tried to use pandering and
prostitution state statutes against a producer of and actors in a
pornographic movie; the California Supreme Court ruled in 1988 that
these statutes do not apply to the production of nonobscene
pornography (People v. Freeman (1988) 46 Cal.3d 41). Some speculate
that this decision implictly condones pornography and was one of the
reasons most modern American porn is produced in California.

[edit] United States Supreme Court Jurisprudence
In a line of cases beginning with Roth vs. United States 354 U.S. 476
(1957), the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly held that
obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, or by any other
provisions of the United States Constitution. In explaining its
position, in MILLER v. CALIFORNIA, 413 U.S. 15 (1973)the US Supreme
Court found that

The dissenting Justices sound the alarm of repression. But, in our
view, to equate the free and robust exchange of ideas and political
debate with commercial exploitation of obscene material demeans the
grand conception of the First Amendment and its high purposes in the
historic struggle for freedom. It is a "misuse of the great guarantees
of free speech and free press . . . ." Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U.S.,
at 645 .
and in PARIS ADULT THEATRE I v. SLATON, 413 U.S. 49 (1973) that

In particular, we hold that there are legitimate state interests at
stake in stemming the tide of commercialized obscenity, even assuming
it is feasible to enforce effective safeguards against exposure to
juveniles and to passersby. 7 [413 U.S. 49, 58] Rights and interests
"other than those of the advocates are involved." Breard v.
Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622, 642 (1951). These include the interest of
the public in the quality of life and the total community environment,
the tone of commerce in the great city centers, and, possibly, the
public safety itself... As Mr. Chief Justice Warren stated, there is a
"right of the Nation and of the States to maintain a decent
society . . .," [413 U.S. 49, 60] Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184,
199 (1964) (dissenting opinion)... The sum of experience, including
that of the past two decades, affords an ample basis for legislatures
to conclude that a sensitive, key relationship of human existence,
central to family life, community welfare, and the development of
human personality, can be debased and distorted by crass commercial
exploitation of sex.
The Supreme Court defined obscenity in MILLER v. CALIFORNIA, 413 U.S.
15 (1973) with the Miller test.

[edit] United Kingdom
The most concerted opposition in the United Kingdom comes from the
Mediawatch group. This group wishes to criminalise possession of
pornography.

Possession of pornography has never been an offence in the UK (except
for child pornography) but in 2006 the UK Government announced plans
to criminalise possession of "extreme pornography" punishable by 3
years in jail. The ban is proposed because of the campaign by Liz
Longhurst after the death of her daughter, Jane Longhurst. Graham
Coutts was convicted of her murder (although the conviction was
overturned in July 2006 [10]). The campaign blamed his actions on an
addiction to extreme pornography. Coutts had viewed extreme, violent
internet pornography, particularly strangulation fetish sites. Liz
Longhurst's campaign was backed by some MPs. A 50,000-signature
petition was collected against sites "promoting violence against women
in the name of sexual gratification". [11] The move is supported by
anti-pornography groups Mediawatch and Mediamarch but resisted by
umbrella group Backlash, who are supported by organizations
representing the BDSM, civil rights and anti-censorship feminist
communities. Many of those responding to the Government consultation,
especially police organizations, felt that the proposal should go much
further, and that tighter restriction on all pornography should be
imposed. However, the majority of responses to the consultation said
there should be no changes in the law. [12]

The British government exerts a much greater degree of control over
pornography than is common in other countries. Hardcore material was
not legalised until 2000, almost 30 years after the United States and
the rest of Europe. Filmed material still has to be certified by the
British Board of Film Classification in order to be legally supplied.
This makes the UK's media one of the most regulated liberal
democracies.[12]

[edit] South African Parliamentary Commission on pornography
The South African government is reviewing the Films and Publications
Act, which prohibits both virtual and real child pornography. Real
child pornography involves the use of real children involved in sexual
conduct while virtual child pornography is made up of a number of
different types of erotic material that do not involve the use of
actual children (including paintings, cartoons, sketches, digitally-
created images and written descriptions as well as depictions of
adults represented as under the age of 18). A recent submissionto the
South Parliament argued that real child pornography ought to be
prohibited while virtual child pornography ought not to be prohibited.
The submission process, which involved discussion between members of
the public, non-governmental organizations and members of parliament,
was recorded by the Parliamentary Monitoring Group.