As Biologist I think that also the pornography must have biological basis. Every aspect of our culture have biological basis (far away or near). The religion, the art, the music, but also the economy, the social organization, all of these aspects have a biological basis. The "antropological distorting lens" makes us think that all these behaviors are purely "cultural".

In the specific I think that the pornography could represent also positive aspects for our society for several reasons: consists in a safety valve to relieve pressure in some personalities who would otherwise may need to strong emotions in real life, and through pornography are able to keep under control their instincts.

In addition, from a philosophical point of view, the pornography itself has an element of rebellion, due to the fact of peek into the forbidden, which offers man the opportunity to surpass the prohibition around the sex, to drop the veil "cultural" about the nudity (as one symbol of the forbidden). And then the transgression becomes "on overcoming" of the psychological barriers.

In fact, the pornography is mainly a "scam" that the human animal uses to bring down the tensions that a society always more rigid imposes. And the man is, of course, an animal, and as such has also flesh pulse, physical and emotional beats, that a corset too tight can leave breathless.

Maybe the real problem about the pornography are the collateral effects: exploitation of children, prostitution, abuse, etc. And the money that the affair could generate: where there is money, there's trouble!

Pornography has helped everything from technology to relationships but is similar to the opening of Pandora’s Box. Advancements that have driven progress through the sublimation of sexual energy there is more than enough negative associations. The darkness within a person having a stage to meet their own desires can be a slippery slope.

Michael Vitovich, negative associations can be found in most of the human enterprises. Such "slippery slope" we encounter in just about any aspects of our life, activity. Please be more precised. Examples may help. Please explain also the "help" part. Thank you.

Sorry this is the first time I have used researchgate. Pornography has help to progress technology for entertainment such as VHS, CD’s and Blu-ray to the internet. In cases couples who watch pornography together have a happy and health sex life. Out of this growth of industry the supply and demand has taken pornography into any and many marketable areas. The psychology of pornography is male driven and it has been known to objectify women. The slippery slope is here, with a demand healthy and not socially accepted areas are traveled into. The demand affects everything from human sex slaves, child pornography and “snuff” films. The internet is a faceless and sometimes names society where people can freely state what they like and think even if it is not popular or accepted.

One of the "reactions" I expect regarding a subject like this is members may be reluctant to get involved on such dialog. It is a meter of fact, it is not good or bad. Pornography is a product / service or job, life style for many.

It has an impact upon all of us as society, that is good or bad, directly and indirectly, it is an issue that can be examined and we may understand humanity better by doing so.

It takes a certain degree of personal freedom to discuss such subject.

As Biologist I think that also the pornography must have biological basis. Every aspect of our culture have biological basis (far away or near). The religion, the art, the music, but also the economy, the social organization, all of these aspects have a biological basis. The "antropological distorting lens" makes us think that all these behaviors are purely "cultural".

In the specific I think that the pornography could represent also positive aspects for our society for several reasons: consists in a safety valve to relieve pressure in some personalities who would otherwise may need to strong emotions in real life, and through pornography are able to keep under control their instincts.

In addition, from a philosophical point of view, the pornography itself has an element of rebellion, due to the fact of peek into the forbidden, which offers man the opportunity to surpass the prohibition around the sex, to drop the veil "cultural" about the nudity (as one symbol of the forbidden). And then the transgression becomes "on overcoming" of the psychological barriers.

In fact, the pornography is mainly a "scam" that the human animal uses to bring down the tensions that a society always more rigid imposes. And the man is, of course, an animal, and as such has also flesh pulse, physical and emotional beats, that a corset too tight can leave breathless.

Maybe the real problem about the pornography are the collateral effects: exploitation of children, prostitution, abuse, etc. And the money that the affair could generate: where there is money, there's trouble!

I consider it a difficult topic to be publicly discussed. While I would expect that pornography is present (available) in most countries in the world, it is not a subject to talk about it. Whereas I would not say the reason is, that it is slippery. Let me give examples on some different cultural contexts (I must confess, even I tried not to stereotype, it somehow is stereotyped):

In Germany, within the cities, between shoes and outdoor shops (or take any other kind of shops), you can find (let's call it) porn-shops, which contain private video rooms and smaller or huge supermarkets selling any sexuality-related stuff, you can imagine (or not). However, a carpet hangs in the doors so that you cannot be recognized, once you are inside the shop. Befriended people openly talk about sexuality but little about masturbation. Couples usually can speak about phantasies and/or desires. Latter is more or less a dark zone, something completely private and somehow, it seems to be a shame that guys do this by themselves. I cannot say how far women speak about masturbation but already heard them talking about their vibrators (even knowing that I am apart). So far, (legal) pornography, even containing very particular phantasies is absolutely accepted as long as no animals or children play a role. Prostitution is legal and prostitutes pay taxes. Infidelity is banned (it officially is a reason for divorce).

In Netherlands, it is the same but they even are more open (you can look into the sex shops and see who is inside) and also masturbation is no tabu topic for conversation. Also between foreign people there is no problem to raise the topic on pornography and sex (I experienced this more than a single time in holidays and at conference dinners), and masturbation is the most normal thing in the world. Everyone may do what he/she wants. I have no idea how infidelity is treated.

In Italy and France, infidelity is accepted (as long as it is the man who turns to many women ... if it is the woman, the other women clap but the man feels ashamed). A very prominent example for Italy is Berlusconi and his famous Bunga-Bunga parties. Those never would have become so public, if Berlusconi (let's say accidentally) would not have had hired a teenage prostitute. Sexuality is openly discussed between friends in Italy; in France it si more open but also more complicated to determine (it's a level of depth which is accepted but talking must not go too much into detail).

In South Korea, everyone does what he/she wants but never exchanges a word to others. This goes so far that the usual couple never would talk about the own sexual life with each others (they are training this in the past years) what makes a lot of women being more or less victims in their relationships (accept it or leave, but do not talk about it in order to change something). There are tons of so-called love motels, which are a mixture between "hour-hotel" and cheap pension. The background are family houses in which no privacy exists as long as you are not married (then you get your own apartment). Those hotels are clean and suitable accommodations, however, and each one makes advertisement with their private video channels. Anyways, no one ever would publicly talk about sexuality and you do not find sex-shops in the cities. A friend of mine, visiting me in Germany, bought a whole set of vibrators for herself and friends (as she said), because you cannot buy them in Seoul (I guess you can but it could be difficult ... in one year of staying I did not see any sex shop). Prostitution officially is forbidden but however, it is available (it is a politicum).

In US, in some states even oral sex is forbidden by law and brought on the same level with sodomy (sex with animals). I dare not imagining about further sexual restrictions and/or habits in those regions. However, in other states it is different. Here, I would be very interested in knowing if there is a direct effect of the restrictions regarding the sex-life, fidelity between couples, and their actual happiness. Another interesting question would be if there are less rapes (within or without marriages) in countries where sexuality is openly treated and pornography is more accepted and what women would prefer.

For me, this really is an exciting topic and I look forward reading the answers of other members ... thanks Adrian (I never would have dared to raise such a topic)!

Dear Thomas, you are welcome, all members are welcome and invited to openly participate.

I study / research in the Life sciences area, bioeconomics, natural economics, ecology and sustainability. Sexuality is Life :-). Sexuality is a driven motor of many aspects of human life, social phenomena , interaction, media / press, economics, law, politics, the entire social metabolism.

The SUBJECT is a MUST.

I wish, more people will decide to participate with detailed posts like you just did. We will all conclude as the time goes buy the real importance of the open dialog on the subject presented here.

Dear Federico, I see the bio-economic approach in your post :-). Thanks, great. We need a biologist here that has deep economic feeling into what Life is all about.

Pornograpy affects morality. It has impact on moral maturity of young generation. It exposes issues that have to be dealt in privacy

Sería importante incidir en los diferentes tipos de pornografía existentes. Hasta ahora, la pornografía se limitaba al terreno de la imagen, de la grafía, fundamentalmente concebida para el consumo masculino. Están floreciendo nuevos campos como los chats o foros, básicamente en Internet, en que se ponen de manifiesto otros elementos como pueden ser la necesidad de comunicación verbal por parte el ser humano y la cada vez mayor participación femenina en actividades de este tipo. Podemos estar en la antesala de profundos cambios de formato en cuanto a la pornografía, la prostitución, e incluso los hábitos sexuales típicos en las sociedades occidentales.

It would be important to affect the different types of existing pornography. So far, pornography was limited to the field of the image, the script, designed primarily for male consumption. New fields are blooming like chats or forums, basically Internet, which show other elements such as the need for verbal communication by humans and the increasing participation of women in such activities. We may be on the verge of profound change in format to pornography, prostitution, and even sexual habits typical in Western societies.

I apologize for my rudimentary english: I hope to be able to express me. Concern is often express about sexualization (pornografication) of culture and the risk-factors are underlined (media-consumption, female objectification, sexualization of youn girls... We can also consider the economic aspect: the pornography is an industry). Above all, alarms are expressed by the feminist galaxy: concerns that meet those of right-wing. It is interesting that the greatest worries come from the psychologists (while cultural anthropologists are more possibilistis): the source on the concerns of sexualization is the American Psychologist Association Task Force on The Sexualization of Girls report (2007). From the cultural point of view, it is important to notice that the sexualization-pornographication can exist only inside the western culture (we cannot imagine the pornography in the Melanesia of Malinowski or in the Aghanistan of the Talebans) and I think it has a relationship with the process of secularization. The pornography constitutes an aspect of the sexual revolution: this revolution has had freedom effects. Today it is difficult to say if the alienation aspects will prevail on aspects of freedom: pornography can help to destroy the chains of old moral schemes but it can constitute a new chain too.

I would like to mention something from history (which is my speciality):

First there have been quite interesting arguments for the beginning of "pornography" in the Palaeolithic period, i.e. the first modern humans (R. Dale Guthrie, Ethological observations from Palaeolithic art. In: La Contribution de la Zoologie et de l´Éthologie à l´Interprétation de l´Art des Peuples Chasseurs Préhistoriques. 3e Colloque de la Société suisse des sciences humaines, Sigriswil, 5.-9. 6. 1979 (Fribourg 1984), pp. 35-74.)

Guthrie argues, in my view quite convincingly, by comparing the Old Stone Age images of women (or their "essential" sexual parts) with pictures from Playboy magazine - anyone reading the article can observe directly that the poses (and presumably meaning) are the same. If we accept this, then Federico Morelli is most probably right about a biological background. To my knowledge, unfortunately, there are as yet no studies on how animals might react to similar images for their respective species - that could be an interesting research topic...

Secondly: Marco Menicocci is certainly not right in presuming that "pornography" or sexualisation of images is a phenomenon of purely western culture. please take a look at ancient Chinese and Japanese art, where sexuality (pornography?) was quite openly shown, and the sculptures of many of the south-east Asian and Indian temples speak their own very clear language.

The topic certainly merits much more attention and is not at all as simple as appears at first glance.

In Kantian terms of its long-term impact, it militates against the second formulation of the Categorical Imperative. One cannot treat humanity in one's self and in others as an ends only, and never as a means only whilst at the same time reducing human beings down to their gentialia. Pornography turns living, breathing human beings who are someone's son or daughter into penises, breasts, and vaginas with faces attached. Pornography takes humans and makes objects or things out of them. Pornography is not about drama or acting. It is about genitalia. When watching others copulate we are not concerned with them as people. We are not concerned with the narratives of their lives. We are not concerned with anything about them other than that we be aroused by their performing for us. Such a reductionism is dehumanizing. It cannot help but be so. Except a so-called "porn star be so active as to be almost ubiquitous, no one knows their name nor desires to know it. They are that particular body and face and no more.

Pornography largely funded the development of eCommerce for the Internet

Some great answers which really open the discussion. I think we are concerned about, or interested in, pornography because we perceive a recent explosion of porn availability and institutionalisation and because we fear it permeating society uncontrollably. And we conduct our thinking as if there were a possibility of porn not existing, as if fantasy and objectification is not an essential part of the human psyche. I think it is interesting to begin from the obverse assumption (as Niklaus points out) that porn has a history so long that it is irreducible from the human experience.

What do we get from this view? If we are concerned that porn will somehow change the human experience, alter who we are as a society, we need to admit that sexual fantasy is more real than the 'individual' ego we perceive ourselves to be. Porn -- as a physical manifestation of sexual fantasy -- comes before society, is a precondition of society. Hence Lacan's infamous statement that "there is no sexual relationship" (only fantasy). Sexuality is most 'honest' and 'natural' in masturbation, because there is no imposition of fantasy on the other (the sexual partner). We have to rethink the Kantian position: is porn more truthful because it acknowledges the lie on which it functions? As uncomfortable as it seems, in this view, porn exposes the lie of the physical sexual relationship.

Nonetheless, I have to agree with my Kantian colleague Bill Johnston, above, because the human mind is not predisposed to truth, the 'objectification' in pornography will unlikely reveal neither the reality of fantasy nor the fantasy of reality, but will be taken on as a new reality -- i.e. that the paradoxical truth revealed in porn will lose its paradox and therefor its value.

If truely we love our earth and self,we should not encourage it at any cost, pornography should be banned at all costs. It is destroying our culture, mind,health,society and individual people very badly. I request all my science loving friends not to entertain it and keep away from this cancer.