Pornography Essays (1396 words) - Human Sexuality, Feminism

Pornography Sexual morality has declined in America today. The immoral life can be seen all around us. We see it in drugs, alcohol, movies, magazines, gangs, teenage pregnancy, pre-marital sex, and society as a whole. A person can walk into almost any convenience store and purchase a magazine depicting naked women. Videos and movies with graphic sex scenes can be rented or watched in any movie theater. They have become more common than ever before. Almost every movie with an R rating will have at least one sex scene. Even Forrest Gump, a highly acclaimed movie, had a sexual act and nudity involved. Also public television has been known to show nudity and sex. Allusions are made to sex in every part of our life. Work, school, sports, and recreation are all forums through which unhealthy sexual views are expressed. One of the more predominant and obvious forums for the proliferation of unhealthy sexual desires is pornography. Pornography is displaying the human body in a perverse, sexual way. It can be found in film, magazine, television, on CD-ROM, and even the internet, and can range from soft-core, depicting natural poses and action, to hard-core, or depicting sex combined with violence, that any reasonable, decent, well- adjusted human being would recognize as horrible and disgusting. Much pornography is socially acceptable, with few people actively speaking out against it. Pornography can be bought at many adult or adult novelty shops. One only has to listen to any popular local radio station after 8 P.M. to hear strings of advertisements for local pornographic outlets. Television advertisements are shown also, but not as often as on the radio. Pornography is so socially acceptable in today's society, that it is protected by the same amendment to the constitution that allows Pro-Life groups to protest abortion, the first amendment to the constitution. For years, the first amendment has been quoted to support pornography, as well as everything from freedom to protest abortion, to freedom of holding Nazi views. The first amendment was drafted, not to protect boring, popular, or inoffensive views, however, but to protect the right of people to hold and express controversial ideas. There is a line, though. A television network cannot show images of children having sex, but it can show a naked woman, if the perspective is such that certain parts of her body are not seen. In Germany, access is blocked to certain chat rooms which contain pedophile pornography. In Denmark, the government has dropped all legal barriers against pornography for adults. Explicit magazines cannot be sold to anyone under the age of eighteen, showing some morality is still intact in America today, if not entirely. The Church's stand on pornography is clear and obvious. The Catholic Church is adamantly against all pornography. Pornography ...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. The church's view is that ...civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials. God has willed that the expression of sexual ideas be within the confines of marriage. No man has the right to violate the will of God, and pornography is a violation of this will. It is an unnatural act, a immoral human act. The responsibility of the church over the matter of pornography is to be a clear, constant teacher of the faith, especially objective moral truth. We live in a time of permissiveness of moral violation and confusion. It is a time that demands that the church be a clear voice of morality and its role in society. Pornography and wanton violence in the media can blind people to the divine images, the very likeness of God, in the human being. We are made in the image of God, and to portray that image in a perverse and corrupt way for the enjoyment of others is not only immoral, but goes against our human nature and purpose, to know, love, and serve God in this life, as well as through to the next. To willingly disobey God and pervert one of