In today's world, the virtue of saving your virginity for when you get married and sharing that first night of passion with someone we truly love has fallen by the way-side. Now, sex has become, to many people, no more than a casual meeting; just another notch on someone's belt. They are in it solely for the pleasure received. There is no love, no compassion, no emotion, just raw pleasure. Gloria Steinem tries to show this difference between true love-making (erotica) and an act of sex for entertainment or mere pleasure (pornography, in which the female is the victim) by clearly defining the two terms in her essay. She says, "The first is erotica: A mutually pleasurable, sexual expression between people who have enough power to be there by positive choice . It is truly sensuous, and may give us a contagion of pleasure . The second is pornographic: Its message is violence, dominance, and conquest- (140). Sex has become an object of entertainment. It is seen everywhere; on television, on radio and in movies presenting explicit images to impressionable young kids. It shapes the child's view and may alter their view of sex forever.
The increase in popularity of adult videos, adult books, adult clubs, etc. has only helped to perpetuate the notion of woman being the weaker sex. In pornography the woman is always portrayed as the weak one, the victim. This is either done subtly by placing the woman in compromising positions or deliberately with the use of weapons, torture or some other form of humiliation. "[Sex] can be as constructive or destructive, moral or immoral, as any other [human activity]. Sex as communication can send messages as different as life and death; even the origins of 'erotica' and 'pornography' reflect that fact. After all, 'erotica' is rooted in 'Eros' or passionate love, and thus in the idea of positive choice, free will, the yearning for a particular person. 'Pornography' begins with a root 'porno,' meaning 'prostitution' or 'female captives,' thus letting us know that the subject is not mutual love or love at all, but domination and violence against women" (Steinem 139).
