Mass-distributed pornography is as old as the printing press. Almost as soon as photography was invented, it was being used to produce pornographic images. Indeed some claim that pornography has been a driving force in the development of technologies from the printing press, through photography (still and motion) to video, satellite TV, DVD, and the Internet.[citation needed] Calls to regulate or prohibit these technologies have often cited pornography as a concern.[citation needed]
Photo manipulation and computer-generated images
Digital manipulation requires the use of source photographs, but some pornography is produced without human actors at all. The idea of completely computer-generated pornography was conceived very early as one of the most obvious areas of application for computer graphics and 3D rendering.
The creation of highly realistic computer-generated images creates new ethical dilemmas. If illusionistic images of torture or rape become widely distributed, law enforcement faces additional difficulties prosecuting authentic images of criminal acts, due to the possibility that they are synthetic. The existence of faked pornographic photos of celebrities shows the possibility of using fake images to blackmail or humiliate any individual who has been photographed or filmed, although as such cases become more common, this effect will likely diminish. Finally, the generation of entirely synthetic images, which do not record actual events, challenges some of the conventional criticism of pornography. It also challenges the traditional notion of evidence, where at present, in the United States it is possible to prosecute producers of child pornography without violating the First Amendment, because the film is evidence that an adult has had sex with a child. However, it may be possible to film things that were imagined but never done: the film would not be evidence of a crime. Perhaps it wouldn't monster cocks pictures be a crime to make such a film.
Until the late 1990s, digitally manipulated pornography could not be produced cost-effectively. In the early 2000s, it became a growing segment, as the modelling and animation software matured and the rendering capabilities of computers improved. As of 2004, computer-generated pornography depicting situations involving children and sex with fictional characters, such as Lara Croft, is already produced on a limited scale. The October 2004 issue of Playboy featured topless pictures of the title character from the BloodRayne video game.[1]
Mainstream movies containing CGI and other realistic special effects show that if a director can imagine something in sufficient detail, combined with sufficient resources, it can be put on a screen. Pasolini created some gruesome images in Salo, without using computers, but some of them are not really seen by the viewer. De Sade described even more gruesome images in 120 Days of Sodom, the book on which Salo is based: perhaps a truly fiendish director with a roomful of up-to-date computers—costing less than $1 million total—could realize de Sade's worst visions without actually torturing a person to death in front of a camera. The recent Lord of the Rings films by director Peter Jackson show what is technically possible in filmmaking: this technology has yet to be applied to pornography. Clearly, more can be done than already has been done.
Internet Distribution
Main article: Internet pornography
Some Internet entrepreneurs operate pornographic Internet sites. As well as conventional photographic or video pornography, some sites offer an "interactive" video game-like entertainment. Due to the international character of the Internet, it provides an easy means whereby consumers residing in countries where pornography is either taboo or entirely illegal can easily acquire such material from sources in another country where it is legal or remains unprosecuted.
The low cost of copying and delivering digital data boosted the formation of private circles of people swapping pornography. With the advent of peer-to-peer file sharing applications such as Kazaa, pornography swapping has reached new heights. Prior to this, the Usenet news service was a popular place for pornography swapping. Free pornography became available en masse from other users and is no longer restricted to private groups. Large amounts of free pornography on the Internet are also distributed for marketing purposes to encourage subscriptions to paid content.
Since the late 1990s, "porn from the masses for the masses"[attribution needed] seems to have become another new trend. Inexpensive digital cameras, increasingly powerful and user-friendly software, and easy access to pornographic source material have made it possible for individuals to monster cocks pictures produce and share home-made or home-altered porn for next to no cost. Such home-made pornographers are able to cater more closely to the desires of the viewers, sometimes actually playing out scenarios suggested by a particular viewer for fulfillment of their fantasy.
Despite adult filters and settings on most Internet search engines, porn sites are easily found on the Internet with Adult industry webmasters being the first and most active to optimize their pages for search engine queries. As a result, many porn-related search returns are overwhelming and often somewhat irrelevant. This has led to development of porn-specific search engines, like Booble, which started as a parody of porn on the web and the business of porn for search engine giants like Google, which quickly sought to shut the parody down.
History
For more details on this topic, see History of erotic depictions.
Oil lamp artifact depicting coitus more ferarum
Oil lamp artifact depicting coitus more ferarum
Pornography is as old as civilization but the concept of pornography as understood today did not exist until the Victorian era. Previous to that time, though some sex acts were regulated or stipulated in laws, looking at objects or images depicting them was not. In some cases, certain books, engravings or image collections were outlawed, but the trend to compose laws that restricted viewing of sexually explicit things in general was a Victorian construct. When large scale excavations of Pompeii were undertaken in the 1860s, much of the erotic art of the Romans came to light, shocking the Victorians who saw themselves as the intellectual heirs of the Roman Empire. They did not know what to do with the frank depictions of sexuality, and endeavored to hide them away from everyone but upper class scholars. The movable objects were locked away in the Secret Museum in Naples, Italy and what couldn't be removed was covered and cordoned off as to not corrupt the sensibilities of women, children and the working class. Soon after, England’s and the world's first law criminalizing pornography was enacted in the Obscene Publications Act of 1857.[2] The Victorian attitude that pornography was for a select few can be seen in the wording of the Hicklin test stemming from a court case in 1868 where it asks, "whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences." Despite their suppression, depictions of erotic imagery are common throughout monster cocks pictures history, and remain so.[3]
Legal status
See List of pornography laws by region for detailed list
The legal status of pornography varies widely from country to country. Most countries allow at least some form of pornography. In some countries, softcore pornography is considered tame enough to be sold in general stores or to be shown on TV. Hardcore pornography, on the other hand, is usually regulated. The production and sale, and to a slightly lesser degree the possession, of Child pornography is illegal in almost all countries, and most countries have restrictions on pornography involving violence or animals.
Most countries attempt to restrict minors' access to hardcore materials, limiting availability to adult bookstores, mail-order, via television channels that parents can restrict, among other means. There is usually an age minimum for entrance to pornographic stores, or the materials are displayed partly covered or not displayed at all. More generally, disseminating pornography to a minor is often illegal. Many of these efforts have been rendered irrelevant by widely available Internet pornography.
In the United States, a person receiving unwanted commercial mail he or she deems pornographic (or otherwise offensive) may obtain a Prohibitory Order, either against all mail from a particular sender, or against all sexually explicit mail, by applying to the United States Postal Service.
There are recurring urban legends of snuff movies, in which murders are filmed for pornographic purposes. Despite extensive work to ascertain the truth of these rumors, law enforcement officials have been unable to find any such works.
The Internet has also caused problems with the enforcement of age limits regarding performers. In most countries, males and females under the age of 18 are not allowed to appear in porn films, but in several European countries the age limit is 16, and in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland) and Denmark it is legal for women as young as 16 to appear topless in mainstream newspapers and magazines. This material often ends up on the Internet and can be viewed by people in countries where it constitutes child pornography, creating challenges for lawmakers wishing to restrict access to such material.
Some people, including pornography producer Larry Flynt and the writer Salman Rushdie, have argued that pornography is vital to freedom and that a free and civilized society should be monster cocks pictures judged by its willingness to accept pornography.[4]
Anti-pornography movement
Main article: Anti-pornography movement
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Opposition to pornography comes generally, though not exclusively, from several sources: law, religion and feminism. Some critics from the latter two camps have expressed belief in the existence of "pornography addiction."
Legal objections
Distribution of obscenity is a Federal crime in the United States, and also under most laws of the 50 states. There is no right to distribute obscene materials. Child pornography is illegal. The determination of what is obscene is up to a jury in a trial, which must apply the Miller test.
In explaining its decision to reject claims that obscenity should be treated as speech protected by the First Amendment, in MILLER v. CALIFORNIA, 413 U.S. 15 (1973)the US Supreme Court found that
The dissenting Justices sound the alarm of repression. But, in our view, to equate the free and robust exchange of ideas and political debate with commercial exploitation of obscene material demeans the grand conception of the First Amendment and its high purposes in the historic struggle for freedom. It is a "misuse of the great guarantees of free speech and free press . . . ." Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U.S., at 645 .
and in PARIS ADULT THEATRE I v. SLATON, 413 U.S. 49 (1973) that
In particular, we hold that there are legitimate state interests at stake in stemming the tide of commercialized obscenity, even assuming it is feasible to enforce effective safeguards against exposure to juveniles and to passersby. 7 [413 U.S. 49, 58] Rights and interests "other than those of the advocates are involved." Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622, 642 (1951). These include the interest of the public in the quality of life and the total community environment, the tone of commerce in the great city centers, and, possibly, the public safety itself... As Mr. Chief Justice Warren stated, there is a "right of the Nation and of the States to maintain a decent society . . .," [413 U.S. 49, 60] Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 199 (1964) (dissenting opinion)... The sum of experience, including that of the past two decades, affords an ample basis for legislatures to conclude that a sensitive, key relationship of human existence, central to family life, community welfare, and the development of human personality, monster cocks pictures can be debased and distorted by crass commercial exploitation of sex.
Attorney General for Ronald Reagan, Edwin Meese, also courted controversy when he appointed the "Meese Commission" to investigate pornography in the United States; their report, released in July 1986, was highly critical of pornography and itself became a target of widespread criticism. That year, Meese Commission officials contacted convenience store chains and succeeded in demanding that widespread men's magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse be removed from shelves,[5]a ban which spread nationally[6] until being quashed with a First Amendment admonishment against prior restraint by the D.C. Federal Court in Meese v. Playboy (639 F.Supp. 581).
In the United States in 2005, Attorney General Gonzales made obscenity and pornography a top prosecutorial priority of the Department of Justice.[7]
Religious objections
Some religious groups often discourage their members from viewing or reading pornography, and support legislation restricting its publication. These positions derive from broader religious views about sexuality. In some religious traditions, for example, sexual intercourse is limited to the express function of procreation. Thus, sexual pleasure or sex-oriented entertainment, as well as lack of modesty, are considered immoral. Other religions do not find sexual pleasure immoral, but see sex as a sacred, godly, highly-pleasurable activity that is only to be enjoyed with one's spouse. These traditions do not condemn sexual pleasure in and of itself, but they impose limitations on the circumstances under which sexual pleasure may be properly experienced. Pornography in this view is seen as the secularization of something sacred, and a violation of spouses' intimate relationship.
In addition to expressing concerns about violating sexual morality, some religions take an anti-pornography stance claiming that viewing pornography is addictive, leading to self-destructive behavior. Proponents of this view compare pornography addiction to alcoholism, both in monster cocks pictures asserting the seriousness of the problem and in developing treatment methods.
Feminist objections
Feminist critics of pornography, such as Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, generally consider it demeaning to women. They believe that most pornography eroticizes the domination, humiliation, and coercion of women, reinforces sexual and cultural attitudes that are complicit in rape and sexual harassment, and contributes to the male-centered objectification of women. Some feminists distinguish between pornography and erotica, which they say does not have the same negative effects of pornography. However, many Third-wave feminists and postmodern feminists disagree with this critique of porn, claiming that appearing in or using pornography can be explained as each individual woman's choice, and is not guided by socialization in a capitalist patriarchy monster cocks pictures.
Effect on sex crimes
