Rape is an extremely violent act that is very prevalent in American society. Somewhere in America, a woman is sexually assaulted every 2 minutes. In 1996, 307,000 women were the victim of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault, and between 1995 and 1996, more than 670,000 women were the victim of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault [National Crime Victimization Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, 1997]. In 1996, only 31% of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to law enforcement officials - less than one in every three. By these statistics more then 1 million violent sexual acts are taking place within our society every year. Many causes can be argued for the statistics but I believe that by making certain types of pornographic (erotica) material illegal, it would decrease the amount of victims in our society.
What is the definition of pornography? Pornography stems from the Greek words for porno, meaning prostitutes, and the word graphos, meaning writing. "The Carnegie Mellon Pornography Study" (http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~cudigest/rimm/rimm.html) adopts the definition utilized currently by pornographers. Pornography is defined to include the depiction of actual sexual contact ("hard-core") and depiction of mere nudity or lubricous exhibition ("soft-core"). One notable feminist, scholar and author, Dr. Diana Russell, defines erotica to be, "material that combines sex and/or the exposure of genitals with abuse or degradation in a manner that appears to endorse, condone, or encourage such behavior". By these definitions Erotica is to be considered a type of pornography. .
The topic of pornography is the one that elicited the most emotion from me when we where discussing it in class. I found that this hit home more then other topics because a friend of mine was raped. I feel that any depiction of the same acts for sexual gratification of anyone is wrong.