Pornography - Erotic to Exotic
Essay by review • April 5, 2011 • Research Paper • 2,556 Words (11 Pages) • 1,222 Views
Erotica is something that has been associated with material culture since the beginnings of mans ability to communicate through pictures. Recently though the line has been blurred and pornography has begun to take its place at the forefront of the sexual culture and in doing so has begun to spiral out on control in the social world. Erotica was always considered to be tasteful and was associated with rejuvenation and fertility whereas pornography is considered to be of the writing of prostitutes. Ancient ways in which to help make yourself a better person as a whole has been stripped down and used only for the sexual commonplace that is shown in the readings, the best example of this is the Kama Sutra. This book was supposed to show how an ideal man would live his life and love making was a small part of the overall whole outlook toward a better life. Pornography as a whole is making a mockery on a larger scale of what has already been done to the Kama Sutra, inadequacies and played on, beautiful people are unattainable and negative social and religious standpoints come hand in hand to deal with the product. The only positives are the economic gains that are made, but these are all at the cost of possibly creating people who are overly aggressive in their sexual behaviour, lose control of their reality because of an addiction to pornography and with that in mind begin to feel inferior because of the polished models that are on display every time they view pornography.
Erotica, as mentioned, was the true birthplace for what is modern pornography. Dating back to Pompeii there has been pictures of erotica, but this trend was a common through history on nearly every front of society. The rebirth was necessary in order to help promote the growth of society and everything contained within. From the 16th to 19th century with writing becoming more abundant among the people there began the spread of erotic writing, there was no longer simple basic use for pictures of eroticism, but the writing was the first indication that there was a lead change happening in practical use, to pleasurable use. The first film that was truly designated pornographic was a German film in 1910 called Am Abend but this was still very low scale during the time period. What is modernly called pornography began in large scale print during the 1950's with the beginnings of Playboy and Penthouse magazine, and on film began on a large scale level during the 1970's. Both of these items were modern twists but most importantly is that they were both new innovations in American culture as well. What was once predominantly an old world tradition began taking shape in a completely new and modern way in the new world. Pornography as we know it today, was born in America and continues to thrive thanks to multimedia within the country that allows it to be spread all over the world.
The multimedia which is used to help promote the spread of pornography throughout the world is another important factor that is often overlooked but now with the increased usage of the internet and the readily available product all over the world wide web it is hard to ignore the impact that pornography truly does have throughout the world. There are some people who believe that Sony's Betamax eventually lost to the VHS format because people who were making pornography films chose to use the VHS. There may have been other factors involved in the final decision with regard to movie storage but with this being a billion-dollar industry anything is possible to help sway the tide of technology. The latest developments that are helping to make the product more accessible to the public though is the use of the internet which can now allow people from Amsterdam to communicate in real time with those in Australia. This is bringing the world together but is also allowing the spread of pornography to happen virtually instantaneously and with that comes the moral dilemmas that involve safeguarding people from internet usage because this taboo material is so readily available. Peer to peer software is making any type of pornography available to anyone around the world and it is estimated that nearly 68 million searches on Google every day involve some essence of the word "porn."
One way that is now being used in order to help protect children from using pornography online deliberately is the use of filter technology that is able to be set up by parents through encoding or even on the adult sites themselves with age verification technology. In reality though this plays a small part is being able to stop the use of pornography if children did want to see it, parents are sometimes very unfamiliar with computers because it could be something that is new to their generation and they've simply never taken an interest in getting to know the computer beyond checking e-mail. This idea is very commonly known and there is a growing emphasis on using the computer with your child and getting to know what they do and where they go in order to help safeguard any concerns they may come up with while surfing. By familiarizing yourself with the internet you'll be able to readily check the internet history in your browser and act accordingly should you need to set up any filters. With regard to age verification there is the requirement of having a credit card in order to verify you are at least 18 years in age so you can legally view the sites. This could work very well in theory but there is always the possibility of using a parent's credit card and not thinking twice about it because it's "only $3.95" and they would never notice. This can lead to far larger problems with regard to negative behaviour escalating.
Another concern that comes with children using the internet unsupervised in the possibility of being drawn into the world of child pornography, something that has been gathering quite a bit of attention lately as it is completely unthinkable to use children in this fashion in our modern ethical world. Simple chat rooms can lead into encounters of "friends" that children have made online but are simply stalkers looking for prey to either use for themselves or for the profit of child pornography. These people take advantage of the innocence of children and exploit it for their own personal enjoyment and for all the world to see thanks to the internet and the wide regard that seems to have developed for an interest in child pornography. This is forcing parents to take measures to help a child grow up quickly and develop a keen sense of awareness so that they are able to determine the difference in peoples character. In reality we're forcing children to grow up at an accelerated rate, taking away their childlike innocence and pushing them into adult situations which could, in reality, lead to an interest in adult behaviour
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