COLLEGE STATION, Texas — Pornography is as hard to find at Texas A&M University as beer and pizza. It is everywhere: in dorm rooms, at Barnes & Noble Booksellers, on computers and at Blockbuster. Many people maintain a “”boys will be boys”” attitude toward pornography. They think it is natural for guys to look at “”dirty magazines”” and that no one is hurt in the process. These people are wrong.
Pornography devalues human life and it is a direct contributor to violence against women.
Of 36 serial murderers interviewed by the FBI in 1985, 81 percent admitted to extensively using pornography.
Pornography plays a major role in many violent offenses, particularly those that are sex-related.
In a laboratory study, sociologist Diana Russell showed the desensitizing effect pornography had on Bundy is common. Russell found that male college students “”were more prone to accept commonly held conceptions like ‘a woman really wants to be raped,’ and ‘yes means no,'”” after being exposed to pornography in which women were depicted as enjoying rape. After repeated exposure for only two weeks, the college males “”found the violent pornography to be less and less violent,”” and some subjects became increasingly aroused by the images.
Pornography often leads to violence because it devalues human life. It strips women of their human characteristics and leaves only two-dimensional objects whose sole purposes are gratifying their users. The fantasies in which users indulge center around themselves and their desires. Men who use pornography eventually stop seeing the women in pornographic images as human. In this way, pornography works as a catalyst in propelling sexual and violent fantasies into reality. As women become less human, they become easier to use, leading, in some cases, to murder.
There is the danger that those who use relatively mild porn, like Playboy, will move on to more explicit pornography. This progression is common because of pornography’s addictive nature.
The Internet has made it possible to view limitless numbers of sexually and violently explicit images at any time, in any place, at no cost and with total anonymity.
The United States needs to recognize the dangers that pornography poses to our country. Drunk on our own freedoms, we are more concerned with our perceived right to look at what we choose than with the men rotting in addiction and the women suffering violence because of porn. If we do not take steps to remove it from our communities, we will all pay the price together.
— Charlton Wimberly
The Battalion
