Both sides of the pornography debate produce reams of studies that support their side; the Meese Report and antiporn feminists such as MacKinnon and Dworkin produce papers showing that pornography is tied to rape, assault, and negative attitudes toward women, and others produce studies showing that pornography has no effects or is secondary to more powerful forces (W. A. Fisher & Barak, 1991). More recent experts ar
gue that pornography is linked to failed relationships and negative attitudes about women (Paul, 2005). Who is right?
Question: I agree that in many cases pornography is degrading to women, but I still find it turns me on. How can I find something to be disgusting intellectually and yet still find it sexually arousing?
Sexuality, as we have emphasized, is a complicated, often confusing part of life. Sexual arousal has physiological, psychological, and social aspects to it that combine in different ways in different people, which is what makes studying sexuality so interesting. Pornography often tries to bypass the brain and shoot right for the groin, in the sense that it shows sexuality in its most obvious, raw, and uncreative forms. There is no reason to feel guilty that pictures of sexual situations are arousing to you. However, if you want to avoid looking at pictures that are demeaning to women, you may want to search out erotic materials that treat the sexes with greater equality. Erotic videos, pictures, and magazines that treat both sexes with respect, often produced by women, are now widely available, and you may find them just as stimulating.