Should pornography be protected by free speech?

Question

I'm doing a research paper on this topic and I was wondering what people would say. Please also explain why you are/aren't against it. Thanks. =]

Answer 1

Let's begin by calling it what it is - erotica.

Erotica has been around for thousands of years, dating way back to ancient cultures' paintings of couples having sex.

After printing was invented, the Asian cultures produced books showing couples in various positions, and writers began creating poems and short stories.

Both men and women of all ages, single or in a relationship have enjoyed forms of erotica for a long, long time. This is not some phenomenon that began with the invention of the still camera or video camera.

The point is, YES, erotica should be protected by the First Amendment. Obviously, there is quality erotica and cheap erotica. That doesn't mean that it should be banned or made illegal.

The latest estimates are that Americans now spend somewhere around $10 billion a year on adult entertainment, which is as much as they spend attending professional sporting events, buying music or going out to the movies.

The adult industry employs in excess of 12,000 people in California. And in California alone, it accounts for $36 million in taxes every year.

Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, pulled in $50 million from adult programming, and an adult spokesperson estimated that DirecTV pulls in a few
hundred million annually.

Hilton, Marriot, Hyatt, Sheraton and Holiday Inn all offer adult films on in-room pay-per-view television systems. And they are purchased by a whopping 50
percent of their guests, accounting for nearly 70 percent of their in-room profits.

25 years ago, the first thing that a lot of people did when they got their first VCR was rent or purchase an adult movie - "Deep Throat," "Devil in Miss Jones," or
"Behind the Green Door." Most people had never seen an adult movie because they had to go out in public, to a theater, to see it, and now they could watch it in the privacy of their own home.

One of the most recent, most successful anthologies of erotica is the "Herotica" series; short stories written by exclusively FEMALE authors. This alone should demonstrate that erotica is not some male-oriented thing.

One of the reasons that some women are "against" erotica has to do with issues of self-image. They are insecure about themselves and their sexuality, and feel that the only sexual arousal/satisfaction in a relationship should come directly from them.

Have I given you a few things you can work with?

Good luck with your paper.

Answer 2

Yes, unless it violates some other law which is itself not violative of the First Amendment. This is why child pornography is properly illegal, as there are laws protecting children from being sexually exploited. But regular pornography does not harm the adults participating in it or viewing it, so it should not be banned. It can be considered obscene, which would allow it to be banned, but there is no legal standard for what obscenity is, so that determination is left up to community standards. P.S. to todp03: There is no such restriction in the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has limited free speech in certain ways, but not that way.

Answer 3

No. People get it all wrong. Just because it is not protected speech doesn't mean it will be banned.I think it needs more controls than free speech should have. You have the right to get on a corner and yell out. "Your country is trying to kill you. and george Bush is the devil.". Does that mean we should be able to bump uglies on that same corner? Look at NAMBLA (North American Man and Boy Love Association). Man and Boy love? Isn't that called statutory rape? Rape of a minor? The same free speech people that protect porn, protects these people. Freedom of speech does not mean we loose the right to protect children. Freedom of speech does not mean that some speech shouldn't be curbed to not affect society as badly. You tell me a man who looks at porn all the time will not have a lower respect for women. Does that not negatively affect society.

Answer 4

Yes, it should. Why? Because if we start drawing a line between what's free speech and what isn't, who keeps drawing that line? Eventually NO speech will be free. Currently the dividing point, as with all free speech, is, "if it legally hurts another person, it's not permitted." (Hence the "shouting fire in a theater" example so commonly used). That's why child porn and snuff films are illegal. But filming and distributing relationships between consenting adults? Legal, and--even though I don't watch it--rightly so.

Answer 5

VERY well put Vaughn! Bravo
... and what is the difference if any, between pornography and erotic art? I have been to Pompei and seen the murals. Picasso did some marvelous erotic paintings, so did Miro and Aubry Beardsley. And some excellent art on ancient Greek pottery. Is that pornography?

Answer 6

I personally do believe that porn should be protected by free speech, under the one condition that it is produced by consenting adults. So, any porn involving either kids or adults being forced (we had a case in the Netherlands where a few men locked up recently immigrated women and forced them to do really bad stuff),is morally very wrong, and watching it is also very wrong, since watching it constitutes the demand that inspires other people to create it.

But I'd also like to give the argument that those against regulating porn under free speech give, since you've got 2 pro-answers already, and the case for banning porn isn't as bad as many of us liberals make it seem. There;s several arguments from different strands of thought:

1. feminism. Some feminists argue that porn is always inherently misogynist, since it usually depicts women as the submissive side, the 'acted upon-side' as opposed to the more dominant men. Apart from that,and more importantly. porn in and of itself objectifies women and objectifies sex with women. This basically means that via watching porn, men learn not to desire a specific woman because they love her and value her, but just to want to **** her because she looks hot. And thirdly, by setting the standards of what is 'hot' in sex, itsets an unrealistic standard of what women should be like: insatiable, ***-hungry, blonde bombshells. According to some feminists, this is not what women should be like, nor what the standards for womanhood should be.

2. Conservative perspective. Where feminists focus on how women are portrayed in porn, conservatives focus on how sex is portrayed. In essence, they make a similar case:something that should be considered valuable, is devalued by porn. According to conservatives, sex is something very intimate and which brings with it very complex emotions and personal vulnerabilities, both physical, and mentally. Sex therefore should best be enjoyed (mind you, some conservatives say that sex shouldn't even be enjoyed! You just have it to have kids, nothing more) between loving and stable coupled. By showing sex between relatively anonymous persons,who are just there to have sex, this intimate dimension of sex disappears: it becomes a mere physical act, somehting done to satisfy nothing but our animal urges,thereby reducing us to animals.

To be sure: both perspectives don;t want to ban porn simply becuase they don;t like it. They want to ban it because they sincerely believe that porn has some very serious societal consequences - and societal consequences should be regulated on a societal level. So, once again, althoug I personally believe porn should fall under free speech, I do also believe that the case of those opposed is stronger then many of us would want to make it seem.

Answer 7

Yes, it should be legal, while to me it is gross, it is still not right to set myself up as judge as to what you do in your private home. That is the watching part, and as far as making and distributing it, as long as it is kept out of the reach of children, yes it should be kept protected by free speech because it is just dipicting what adults do in private.

Answer 8

im against porn, lets just put it this way what if you had a chid about the age of 11- which the most common age when kids get exposed to porn, would you want you kids to watch it, and some kids would actually do what they see

Answer 9

Yes - it should be protected because I enjoy reading Hustler Magazine.