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Pornography's Affect On Our Culture

Pornography and It's Effect on Our Culture

In the late Seventies, America became shocked and outraged by the rape, mutilation, and murder of over a dozen young, beautiful girls. The man who committed these murders, Ted Bundy, was later apprehended and executed. During his detention in various penitentiaries, he was mentally probed and prodded by psychologist and psychoanalysts hoping to discover the root of his violent actions and sexual frustrations. Many theories arose in attempts to
explain the motivational factors behind his murderous escapades. However, the strongest and most feasible of these theories came not from the psychologists, but from the man himself, "as a teenager, my buddies and I would all sneak around and watch porn. As I grew older, I became more and more interested and involved in it, [pornography] became an obsession. I got so involved in it, I wanted to incorporate [porn] into my life, but I couldn't behave like that and maintain the success I had worked so hard for. I generated an alter-ego to fulfill my fantasies under-cover. Pornography was a means of unlocking the evil I had buried inside myself" (Leidholdt 47). Is it possible that pornography is acting as the key to unlocking the evil in more unstable minds?
According to Edward Donnerstein, a leading researcher in the pornography field, "the relationship between sexually violent images in the media and subsequent aggression and . . . callous attitudes towards women is
much stronger statistically than the relationship between smoking and cancer" (Itzin 22). After considering the increase in rape and molestation, sexual harassment, and other sex crimes over the last few decades, and also the
corresponding increase of business in the pornography industry, the link between violence and pornography needs considerable study and examination.
In order to properly discuss pornography, and be able to link it to violence, we must first come to a basic and agreeable...