Term Paper on "Sensitive Topic of Pornography"

Term Paper 8 pages (2205 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

sensitive topic of pornography. In this research, four questions are answered. 1. How extensive is pornography in society? 2. Who are the primary people who are involved in pornography? 3. What types of punishments are given for this type of conduct? 4. Why is pornography considered criminal or deviant?

How extensive is pornography in society?

Sex is the number one search term on the Internet; therefore, it shouldn't be surprising that pornography is pervasive around the globe. In America, pornography is a $12 billion a year industry and $57 billion worldwide. Pornography in America earns revenues in excess of the combined revenues of television mega-corporations, ABC, CBS and NBC ("Pornography statistics," 2005). Americans spend just as much, if not more, money on pornography each year as they do for sporting events, movies or music ("The pervasiveness," 2004).

The industry is made up of several segments. In America, the videotape and DVD rental industry alone accounts for 800 million rentals each year ("The pervasiveness," 2004).

Worldwide, the sale of adult videos equates to $20 billion each year. Escort services rake in an estimated $11 billion each year worldwide. Pornographic magazines earn approximately 7.5 billion annually. Sex clubs take in $5 billion each year. Phone sex chat lines report revenues of $4.5 billion annually. Pornographic cable and pay-per-view programming report sales of $2.5 billion. While CD-ROMs, novelty pornographic items and others items gross $4 billion dollars every year ("Pornography statistics," 2005).

Child pornography is one genre of pornography, and is illegal to create everywhere in the world. However, disturbingly, this has not slowed its growth. The Federal Bureau of Investigations investigated 700 cases of child pornography in 1998. Sadly, by 2001, it was investigating 2,800 cases ("The pervasiveness," 2004). One search engine, Gnutella, received 116 thousand requests for the term "child pornography" every day. and, there are more than 100 thousand web sites that offer illegal child pornography ("Pornography statistics," 2005).

The Internet has been a boon to the pornography (both legal and illegal) industry. There are approximately 4.2 million pornographic websites. That's approximately 12% of the total websites on the Internet. There are approximately 372 million pages of web content with pornographic material. 25% of all total search engine requests are pornography related, which equates to 68 million requests every day. There are, on average, 4 1/2 pornographic e-mails sent out, per user, every single day ("Pornography statistics," 2005).

Approximately 35% of all peer-to-peer downloads are pornographic related. This equals 1.5 billion downloads of pornography every month. There are 72 million worldwide visitors to pornographic web sites each year, and this number is growing ("Pornography statistics," 2005).

Nearly 900 theaters show pornographic films and more than 15,000 'adult' bookstores and video stores offer pornographic material. Adult bookstores outnumber McDonald's restaurants in the United States by a margin of at least three to one. In 1985, nearly 100 full-length pornographic films were distributed to 'adult' theaters providing estimated annual box office sales of $50 million (Anderson, 2002).

2. Who are the primary people that use pornography?

With the pornography industry being big business, one can only wonder who are these people that utilize such vast quantities of pornographic material? In 2002, Traeen, Spitnogle and Beverfjord (2004) performed a study regarding the use and attitudes of the Norwegian population and pornography. Their data was quite enlightening.

The researchers utilized a standardized questionnaire that was given during personal telephone interviews. 90% of the respondents indicated that they had, at one point in time, examined pornography. 76% of the participants in the survey indicated that they had seen a pornographic magazine; while 67% of the respondents noted that they had watched a pornographic film. Only 24% of the survey participant claimed to have viewed pornography on the Internet (Traeen, Spitznogle & Beverfjord, 2004).

Although it became evident that a large majority of the population had viewed pornography at some point in time, there were significant gender differences. In addition, "the percentage of men and women who reported frequent use of pornography was small" (Traeen, Spitznogle & Beverfjord, 2004).

In another survey, 20% of men admitted to accessing pornography at work, while only 13% of men had accessed pornography at work. Perhaps not surprisingly, men's use of pornography Internet sites far outweighed that of women. Of users who said they visited pornography websites, 72% were male and only 28% were female ("Pornography statistics," 2005). Interestingly, it is the "persons with the strongest ties to conventional society will be less likely than others to use cyberporn" (Stack, Wasserman, & Kern, 2004).

Despite these unsurprising statistics, other statistics of pornography users are more startling. 47% of Christian respondents to a survey indicated that pornography was a major problem in their homes ("Pornography statistics," 2005). More disturbing is the number of children that end up being end users of pornography.

According to Henry Boatwright (Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Board for Social Concerns), approximately 70% of the pornographic magazines sold end up in the hands of minors. Women Against Pornography estimate that about 1.2 million children are annually exploited in commercial sex (child pornography and prostitution) (Anderson, 2002).

In the end, it can be determined that men are the primary users of pornography. Although most people, men and women alike, have seen pornography at one point in time in their lives, it is men that truly support the industry at almost a ratio of 3 to 1. Although some would think that those who stereotypical live a wholesome lifestyle, such as Christians, would be immune to pornography use, nearly half of Christians not only use pornography, but also find that it's a problem in their relationship. Most disturbing, however, is the number of minors that become the end users of pornography.

3. What types of punishments are given for pornography use?

The types of punishments given for pornography use vary. Two primary factors come into consideration. First, is the type of pornography being used and second is the geographic region its being used in. "Most countries allow at least some form of pornography and soft core pornography is usually tame enough to be sold in general stores and (in some countries) to be shown on TV" ("Pornography," 2005).

Hardcore pornography, however, is typically regulated. The most common regulation is the attempt that most countries use to restrict minors' access to this type of material. For this reason, hard core material is often only available in adult bookstores, by mail order, in certain gas stations where children aren't frequent customers, or over special television stations. To further strengthen restrictions, there may be an age limit for entrance into these facilities, or the material may be displayed partly covered. In areas where age is not restricted, browsing of material is typically not allowed. Many of these efforts of failed with the advent of the Internet ("Pornography," 2005).

Child pornography is illegal almost globally. This includes disseminating pornography to a minor. Most countries also have restrictions that ban violent pornography and pornography involving animals ("Pornography," 2005). In all of these cases, punishments range from fines to imprisonment.

As mentioned, geographic region also has a lot to do with the punishment and regulation of the pornography industry. The Howard government, in Australia, has increased the restrictions on legal pornography, although it remains widely available. In France, hard core pornography and those containing extreme violence are restricted from minors, and as such are shown only in specific theaters. In addition to this restriction, pornography is heavily taxed, 33% tax rate for X-rated movies, and 50% for pornographic Internet services. In Ireland, it wasn't until the mid-1990s that pornography was legal at all ("Pornography," 2005).

Japan was also very strict, until the mid-1990s. No genitals could be shown until then. In fact, Japanese law prohibited even the depiction of pubic in any depictions of nudity, pornographic or not, until recently. For this reason, pornographic magazines were found to have any visible signs of pubic hair airbrushed out of their pictures ("Pornography," 2005).

Norway may be one of the most confusing geographical regions regarding pornography and what is illegal. Hard core pornography is illegal, yet tolerated. It is illegal to sell hard core material, but one can buy it on the Internet and take it abroad, if they wish. "Additionally, it is illegal to show hard pornography on cable TV but legal on satellite TV" ("Pornography," 2005). Singapore is one of the strictest areas. All pornography is illegal. Even Playboy is banned.

Recent legal advents in America have actually widened acceptable pornography definitions, thereby reducing punishable offenses. This is due, in part to, a "general coarsening of the culture" (Taranto, 1995). In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a six-year-old federal law that had been put into place to punish those creating and utilizing computerized child pornography. The Supreme Court turned to the common argument against restricting pornography, limiting a citizen's right to free speech (Mintz, 2002).

The Supreme Court found that the First Amendment offered protection to 'virtual' child pornography, which includes… READ MORE

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