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Pornography Issues

Radical feminism is a branch of feminism that views women’s oppression, patriarchy, as the basic evil upon which human relationships in society are arranged. Pornography raises issues not only about buying and selling women, but about sex in general, about the way in which men and women in this culture are commonly trained to be sexual and intimate. It is about men and women; sex and power.
The radical feminist rejects pornography; and believes it is a major tool of male domination. For them, pornography is any use of the women’s body meant to attract a man’s gaze. According to Catharine A. MacKinnon, “all pornography is made under conditions of inequality based on sex… and the pictures and words are sex. As sex becomes speech, speech becomes sex.”
Pornography has two effects: it tells women how they “ought” to be, and tells men “that’s how women are”. Thus confirming that men have been always right/superior. Therefore porn is a form of legitimizing male prejudice as well as dominance.
In Only Words, MacKinnon propounds the idea that pornography is a form of rape and should be punished as such. “To say it is to do it, and to do it is to say it.” As a result, “Rapes and violent crimes directed at women occur, in part, because of the dehumanization of women and desensitization of men promulgated by the consumption of pornographic materials” (Krafka). Pornography sexualizes rape, battery, sexual harassment, prostitution, and child sexual abuse; and thereby celebrates, promotes, authorizes, and legitimizes them. Based on MacKinnon’s viewpoint, as well as all radical feminists, pornography sexualizes inequality and the hatred of women so that men get sexual pleasure from hurting women and putting women down. It creates prejudice and aggression. It desensitizes men to rape and other forms of sexual violence against women so that they do not recognize the violence as violence, or they believe the women provoked and enjoyed it.
Overall according to the...