Internet Pornography and Society

Introduction

Considering the availability of pornography online, and the negative representation of women in porn and the detrimental effect this has, the time has arrived for the Internet to experience tighter regulations and statutory control

You used to have to go looking for pornography. Now it comes looking for you. Porn has gone public - it seems to have pervaded our whole society, wrapped its legs around the neck of our culture, jumping literally out the screen whenever you log onto the net. Taboo images, at one time the sole preserve of 'gentleman with appropriate demeanour,' are now common landmarks across our TV screens, computer monitors and advertising billboards.

"Advertisers mess with sex like a naughty boy pokes at a beehive: excited by the buzz but poised to flee the consequences." (Bob Carlos Clarke)

The biggest vehicle for pornography is the Internet. So sex-saturated is the internet that it's impossible to gather any kind of empirical data to suggest how much is out there. What is known is its availability and popularity. "An estimated 40 per cent of users regularly surf the net for hardcore material, almost all of them who find it subscribe to it and receive anything they want without the fear of prosecution." (Porn to be Wired, The Scotsman).

The simple press of a button, whether deliberately or inadvertently, and the user is downloaded with images and scenes of the most gratuitous nature. Despite having some of the most extreme anti-porn laws in Europe, Britain is the second highest consumer of porn, and there is little in the way of control concerning the restriction of access, availability or content on the Internet. The effect of this 'sea of porn' is far reaching. Internet porn has many victims including animals, women and children. So far it has washed across our screens relatively unchecked, free of censor and legislation. This needs to change.

Impact over Society

In one form or another pornography and sexually explicit material has been around since the dawn of society. Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt all had their own forms of pornography. In the nineteenth century, due to increased urbanisation, the adoption of the printing press, and the increased levels of literacy, pornography went through a renaissance. In the 1970s, video pornography appeared, resulting in the 'golden' era of the industry, with huge amounts of time, money and creativity being poured into the production of films.

However, although always hugely successful and popular, porn remained a subversive and select interest, with material being secretly handed under the counter or passed furtively amongst friends. It wasn't until the middle of the 1990s and the arrival of the unique function of the Internet that pornography took the opportunity to explode into the mainstream.

British pornography has always been less explicit than that available in European countries. When loopholes in the law are discovered they have always been closed off. An example of this is in 1990 when the opportunity became available for people to receive hardcore television pornography produced by the Red Hot Dutch ...