ABSTRACT
Legal and moral battles have been fought over content, production, and distribution. Popes have condemned the distribution of sexually explicit materials starting in the mid-1500s, politicians have legislated to make such materials illegal, and social scientists have questioned the effects of pornographic imagery. Pornography has long been and remains a controversial issue. Researchers and activists have weighed in with arguments about how porn is linked to the degradation of women, violence against women, and the perpetuation of inequalities. This chapter focuses on men, women, and what pornography shows us about how culture sees, sells, and uses sex. More men reported that at least some of their knowledge on certain topics came from pornography: foreplay, homosexuality, masturbation, mechanics of sex, oral or anal sex, and women's anatomy. In this way porn and other sexual representations hinge on the existing discrepancies between all men's and women's desires, fantasies, and socialization.
