In the article "Why Phyllis Schlafly is Right (But Wrong) About Pornography" by Andrew Koppelman, he speaks on the thoughts of Phyllis Schlafly and how she believes pornography should be suppressed. Schlafly defines pornography as the "degradation of women" and also argues that pornography desensitize men and correlates pornography addiction to violence. I was somewhat baffled by her statement. I do agree that pornography can become degrading and desensitizing to a certain point, but not to the extent in which she claims. She is viewing all pornographic industries as abusive towards their female porn stars, when this usually only occurs in the black market. Not to say it is okay, but it isn't fair to place porn under one label when there are plenty of female porn stars who love what they do and are treated like queens. Another flaw in her argument was that she categorizes porn under strictly man with woman. There were no regards to the many other "choices" or "genres" of pornography that don't even regard women.
Schlafly's argument as to why porn should be suppressed was even more peculiar than her stance alone. She believes that women are dependent on men, so women must suck up to men, this makes the men feel in control, when the women are really controlling the situation. In a nutshell, "it is therefore necessary for a woman to inflame her man's desire by catering to his vanity". I feel like this directly contradicts her take that women should not be made to feel subordinate to men in pornography. Even though her argument as to why is because women need to cater to man's vanity in order to receive his respect.
Her argument makes little sense, but is a substantial topic, nonetheless.
So what does all this have to do with the freedom of speech? The freedom of speech allows pornographic industries to publish what they want. Free speech also allows for Phyllis to publish how she feels about pornographic industries. My question to you is, do you agree with Phyllis or Andrew, the author of the article? Do you believe that pornography should be suppressed? In lieu of my last post, do you think the suppression of pornography would also help with the safety of children?
Source(s):
-Article: Why Phyllis Schlafly is Right (But Wrong) About Pornography
I think what you had to say about this was exactly right. Phyllis did have the right to voice her opinion on how she feels about pornography, and we as readers have the right to argue back about the subject. Pornography is something I believe should be allowed because there are people out there who are doing this because they want to and enjoy what they are doing. With that being said I do think that we need to crack down on men who are taking advantage of children and producing child pornography. The people doing this should be locked up so no more children can be taken advantage of. If you are an adult I believe its your choice to make and as long as you weren't forced into doing it then it is ok.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. Porn only degrades women? What about the men? I don't think pornography should be suppressed, but they do need to filter it. The things that were once done in the dark are now being put out there and that is what should be controlled. The genres like: damn near rape scenes, urinating on someone, and especially pregnant women scenes. The pregnant women is just so disrespectful. So while I don't think it should be completely taken away, I think they need to put some guidelines on it.
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