ABSTRACT
Pornography is verbal or pictorial material which represents or describes sexual behavior that is degrading or abusive to one or more of the participants in such a way as to endorse the degradation. To the extent that women’s sexual pleasure is represented at all, it is subordinated to that of men and is never an end in itself as is the sexual pleasure of men. What pleases women is the use of their bodies to satisfy male desires. The participants so treated in virtually all heterosexual pornography are women or children, so heterosexual pornography is, as a matter of fact, material which endorses sexual behavior that is degrading and/or abusive to women and children. Control of pornography diminishes freedom—directly the freedom of pornographers, indirectly that of all of us. The entrenchment of pornography in our culture gives it significance quite beyond its explicit sexual messages.
