Why Pornography Shouldn't Be Banned
Why Pornography Should Not Be Banned
It seems to me there are two ways of defending pornography. The first is pornography does not harm anyone, and so it should not be banned. The second is pornography can't accurately be identified between what pornography is and what it's not. With these two main points I will prove pornography should not be banned.
Pornography does not harm anyone. In mainstream pornography, all parties are willing participants. The women who grace the pages of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, Swank, etc. are paid to do so. They have entered into a contract in which they sell their services. Their services in this case are the displaying of their naked bodies for the "masturbatory delight" of millions of readers and viewers. The pornography critic will point out that these women are harming themselves by volunteering to be an object like this. They will argue that a world in which these women's best possible source of income is to be used as a simple object. I respond that all work-for-wages jobs are an example of simplified human behavior. For example when I apply to flip hamburgers on the grill at my local Burger King, the manager does not hire Donald Hamilton. He hires a body to serve a purpose. As soon as I put a Burger King Paper hat on my head, I become not a person, but a tool. I exist, as far as Burger King is concerned, as a hamburger flipper and nothing more. Pornography does reduce the men and women who star in it down to a mere tool for hire. But so does every single situation in which a person is paid wages for their work. Furthermore, I suggest that this simplification in pornography brings with it a level of individuality unheard of in most other work-for-wage jobs. The popularity surrounding a particular "porn star" (Jenna Jameson, for example, a star of pornography in whose honor entire festivals are thrown) is something that could never be found in my local Burger King, no matter how
It seems to me there are two ways of defending pornography. The first is pornography does not harm anyone, and so it should not be banned. The second is pornography can't accurately be identified between what pornography is and what it's not. With these two main points I will prove pornography should not be banned.
Pornography does not harm anyone. In mainstream pornography, all parties are willing participants. The women who grace the pages of Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, Swank, etc. are paid to do so. They have entered into a contract in which they sell their services. Their services in this case are the displaying of their naked bodies for the "masturbatory delight" of millions of readers and viewers. The pornography critic will point out that these women are harming themselves by volunteering to be an object like this. They will argue that a world in which these women's best possible source of income is to be used as a simple object. I respond that all work-for-wages jobs are an example of simplified human behavior. For example when I apply to flip hamburgers on the grill at my local Burger King, the manager does not hire Donald Hamilton. He hires a body to serve a purpose. As soon as I put a Burger King Paper hat on my head, I become not a person, but a tool. I exist, as far as Burger King is concerned, as a hamburger flipper and nothing more. Pornography does reduce the men and women who star in it down to a mere tool for hire. But so does every single situation in which a person is paid wages for their work. Furthermore, I suggest that this simplification in pornography brings with it a level of individuality unheard of in most other work-for-wage jobs. The popularity surrounding a particular "porn star" (Jenna Jameson, for example, a star of pornography in whose honor entire festivals are thrown) is something that could never be found in my local Burger King, no matter how