Running head: PORNOGRAPHY SHOULD BE LEGALIZED 1

University of Economics

Academic English

Pornography should be legalized

Pornography should be legalized 2

Pornography should be legalized

Pornhub, one of the most popular porn sites, claimed that they got 18.3 billion visits, 78.9

billion videos viewed in 2014 (Mike et al., 2016). This significant number shows that

pornography had become people daily need. Pornography, according to Oxford dictionary, is

“Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or

activity, intended to stimulate sexual excitement”. In reality, while most countries allow and

support it, there are many nations where pornography is illegal and believed to bring harmful

effect to people. In order to clarify this thesis, three points, which are advantages, disadvantages,

and solutions, will be delivered in the essay below. It cannot be denied that pornography

provides advantages and should be legalized. In addition, for the purpose of this essay, it has to

be clarified that pornography does not consist of children or women abuse.

Despite the fact that there is a controversy about pornography topic, no one could reject

the advantages that pornography brings to the world. Three aspects that pornography helps are

economic, personal and society. Firstly, in term of economics benefits, the pornography industry

is able to generate considerable revenue by selling its products and services. According to the

Covenanteye, an online statistic website, it shows that the number of searches for pornography

since the start from 2015 on the internet until now is over 3.1 billion ("Porn Stats | Covenant

Eyes | The Leaders in Accountability Software", 2016). Besides, in Phunutoday online

newspaper, it claims that the word is searched in Google the most by Vietnamese people is ‘’

sex’’. Obviously, there is a great demand for pornography over the world, and Vietnam is not an

exception. High demands also create high porn supplies. People who need pornography will buy

them even they are legal or illegal. For that reason, governments, which illegalized pornography,

are bypassing a huge amount of money from selling and purchasing porn product. In Addition,
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according to Economywatch.com, it shows that porn industry’s profits (in 2006) in America is

over 13.3 billion US dollar and the number for Japan is 19.89 billion ("Porn Industry, Porn

Trade, Adult Entertainment Industry | Economy Watch", 2016). There cannot be denied that

pornography can be a huge industry, which gains millions, even billions US dollar profits. When

it is banned, these profits go to the illegal websites or black market, which is wasted. However,

when government legalizes it, they can control and profits through tax directly are added to the

national income to invest more in education or social securities. On the other hand, porn industry

creates some new jobs such as porn actors and pornography seller, great numbers of jobs. For

instance, in California, in 2012, over 12,000 jobs are provided by porn, said by CBs News ("Porn

Statistics - BlazingGrace.org", 2016). In Japan, the average income per day of a porn actor is 600

US dollar, ("Những số liệu gây shock của ngành phim JAV", 2016), which is a high salary for

normal employees nowadays while they do not need to invest a lot of money for it. In the context

of unemployment rate over the world rise, porn industry will help millions of people to overcome

it. Thus, legalizing porn also solves the unemployment problem for many countries and

pornographic jobs are well-paid jobs for labor.

Secondly, talking about personal profits, watching porn can reduces stress, according to a

new research from Carnegie Mellon University, ("Looking at porn can be good for you", 2016).

In some countries, which have stressful working environment or long-hours culture work like

Japan or Australia, people do not have much time to relax or find a partner for their life. It is

necessary to have pornography as an effective way to reduces stress. When stresses are reduced,

numbers of people suicide and die by stress can be significantly reduces. Furthermore, a Danish

study from 2008 pointed out watching porn helps men and women explore some sexual taboos

(Hald & Malamuth, 2007). Sexual topic is not an exception. People have many different points
Pornography should be legalized 4

of views about it. Pornography gives couples opportunities to share their own perceptions and

interests. This leads to free discussion with their partner and their relationship will be more open

in general. On other aspect, pornography also inspires people’s fantasy. There is the fact that,

many people have watched films or some stories content pornographic illustration, which parents

do not like and support. In addition, they seldom have conversation about sexual topics. For that

reason, many people might feel lack of experiences or confidences about sex. In that case,

pornography is a tool to help people with visualizing and gaining experiences. Dr Ethel Person,

clinical psychiatry professor at Columbia University, has stated that ‘’Fantasies are good for us,

and help us understand our relationships and ourselves better’’ (Clavin, 2016). Thus, watching

porn is crucial fantasizing about sexual situations, builds character and skills. Moreover, porn

can satisfy people's physiological needs. A number of research have proven self-pleasuring is

good for ones’ mental and physical health since it can reduce stress, improve sleeping condition

and increase self-esteem. During puberty, the variation in some hormones can lead to the change

in teenager behavior. They are more curious about sex so they choose porn as a method to relieve

their sexual tension. Besides, in many countries prostitution is illegal so watching porn is a way

to help people experience pleasure. For instance, in Japan, even though they have open-minded

conception about sex but prostitution is still being banned. Number of Japanese women, who do

not want to get married, is increasing faster every day. According to a report aggregated by Japan

population center in 2011, 45 percent of women in the age group from 16 to 24 are not interested

in sexual contact and 23 percent of women say they are not interested in any kind of relationship

(The Washington Post, 2013). For that reason, it causes many social problems in sex balance as

well as diminishes psychological and physical demands in men. Furthermore, the Maslow's
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hierarchy of needs has stated that sex is one of the most important necessities in human life

(McLeod, 2007). For that reason, watching porn to please oneself is natural and normal.

Not only provides some personal benefits and economics advantages, but pornography

also supplies many utilities for society. First, porn can help reducing crimes. Some researches

have been conducted to prove its gains. Since porn is still a controversial issue, some studies link

pornography to crimes. In contract, others verify the importance of porn in controlling crimes.

As a result, there is no specific evidence that can assume there is a relationship between violence

or sexual crimes and pornography. In addition, it is recently prove that the sexual release of using

pornography products probably decreases crimes more than increase them. A decrease in sexual

assault has been reported according to a research about the influence of pornography on rape and

sexual assault by Ferguson and Hartley, ”victimization rates for rape in the United States

demonstrate an inverse relationship between pornography consumption and rape rates”

(Chistopherjferguson.com, 2009). In addition, Milton Diamond's study also stated that,

“Pornography has increased in availability; sex crimes have either decreased or not increased”

and “No country where this matter has been scientifically studied has yet found to think

pornography ought to be restricted from adults” (International Journal of Law and Psychiatry,

2009). The only thing people did seem to agree on was that young children should be kept away

from porn. Another point of view is that pornography is considered as a form of expression. It

represents the human sexuality as well as describes the sexual desire inside everyone that society

either ignores or proclaims scurrilous in normal life. However, some may disagree and say that

the form of expression of pornography is not desirable because its lack of portraying emotional

connection in those sexual activities. Normally, in porn it just demonstrates sex for the basic

purpose of pleasure rather than the coalescence in souls between two people. However, because
Pornography should be legalized 6

all individuals in the world have the natural capacity for sex for the sole purpose of physical and

mental pleasure, that is why pornography reaches so many people. Nevertheless, the moral

standards of society are what attend as interference to the expression of pornography. Therefore,

going against these norms create a sexual taboo, which cannot be changed immediately in

general thought of society.

Besides some advantages of pornography, there are disadvantages that have been pointed

out throughout daily life. Nowadays, sex toys are more popular than it used to be in the past.

This is a consequence of sexual addiction. Watching or reading many pornographic contents

makes people lose control out of oneself. Sexual addiction is the cause of psychological

disorders. Feminist and anti-pornography activist, Gail Dines, said that young men who become

addicted to pornography “neglect their schoolwork, spend huge amounts of money they don’t

have, become isolated from others, and often suffer depression.” (Stockman, B, 2011). When

people are addicted to sex, they will be easier to get strong emotions, become highly introverted,

narcissistic, more curious and dissociative. It is also easier to get high anxiety, depression, low

self-esteem and distraction. Those psychological disorders make people unable to restrain

oneself. Sex will control all of their heart and mind and they think about nothing but sex. They

will do despite everything to satisfy themselves. Therefore, people can have depraved behavior

and be rapist anytime they do not know. Moreover, sexual addiction could turn sex to

masturbation. When people gradually have sexual addiction, they consider it as self-serving,

their pleasure not self-giving, love making between a couple. Another reason related to the

perception, pornography demeans and objectifies women. For women, self-esteem is very

important. All women always want to be perfect in the eyes of husband. How they will be if they

know their husband watches pornography. Because of being highly sensitive, they will torment
Pornography should be legalized 7

and blame on oneself that they are not good comparing to the “perfect” image showed in

pornographic contents. This will lead to the possibility of creating a serious hassle in their

marriage. Little by little, pornography gives men the false perception about sex and pleasure are

not entirely related to romance relationships. In other words, pornography is considered as a kind

of service and women are seen as “toys” to be served. Men view women as objects rather than to

be in loved relationships with them as human beings. It explains why there is more trafficking of

women in the world. Last, pornography warps one's attitudes and values. There is a dramatic

influence on how people recognize sex abuse or sex in general. According to website

expressng.com, “It also makes you develop appetite for more deviant and bizarre type of

pornography which has the tendency to make you lack confidence in your marriage.”

(Entertainment Express, 2015). People will have misunderstanding that sex is unrelated to

marriage. Many people will end up does not want to get marriage and only looking for women

when having sex requirement. The true meaning of sex is a combination of sublimation for

profound love, the marvelous crystallization to create an invisible connection between a couple;

and the ending of true love is marriage. In the context where love between people does not exist,

humanity that connects the world together will disappear and the globe will be destroyed

apparently. When someone gets into pornography for too long, they tend to begin to see women

as valueless, ordinary tool to be used anytime in order to satisfy ones’ lust and not to be

respected (Entertainment Express, 2015). Pornography deflects one’s perception of beauty of sex

and love. It also gives false evaluation about standards of women and marriage. In addition,

pornography can create a young generation of perversion. If children see their father watching

pornography, how those child will be. Children are curious, they may find out and imitate

immediately. Nevertheless, parents will not know and control children’s activity because when
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children know it is not good they will try to hide this. It will tend to a sexual addiction and

cannot stop. Parents not only just satisfy with themselves but also are a mirror for their children;

so watching or reading pornography should be taboo. Those disadvantages of pornography can

cause serious consequences for many generations and social perception of human.

Although there are disadvantages, both government and citizen can solve by two

solutions. First, government has to provide effective regulations. Ineffective law creating

negative attitude toward it since it concentrating on preventing citizen from all age groups to

approach pornography instead of the main target, which are children under 18. For example,

Vietnamese policy on it includes forbid producing, importing, selling and spreading

pornography. They had cut twenty minutes from the movie “Fifty shade of grey” because it is

contents “sensitive scenes” and Vietnamese viewers are offended (Sean, 2015). Government has

to determine the main target on which pornography will cause harmful effect and prevent them

from it. Children under 18 are people who need to be control and prevent from approaching

pornography. Government has to promulgate regulation about checking for ID where people can

get access to porn. This will include Movie Theater, stores where pornography is being sold and

internet. In order to promote this policy, stricter law enforcers are needed. In addition to that,

fining is important because people will follow if they can see their consequences. However,

regulation is a short-term solution. People naturally do not want to be forced to do anything so

that regulation will always lead to negative attitude and people will find others way to approach

pornography. In contract, education can guide people to follow rules dedicatedly. In order to

prevent addiction, government must set up classes to instructs citizen watch porn in moderation

and avoid intemperance. Furthermore, people who responsible for checking ID should be educate

to perform the regulations strictly. Children should also be taught to understand the good and bad
Pornography should be legalized 9

of pornography so that they can choose to follow the rules. Parents are the main target since their

can teach and influence their children more effective than anyone else. For that reason,

government has to concentrating to develop education system about getting the right value of

pornography and not to misleading its meaning.

“We all watch porn; we don't acknowledge it. Porn exists in a parallel universe, a

shadowy otherworld. When you force anything into the shadows and underground, you make it a

lot easier for bad things to happen and a lot harder for good things to happen” (Cindy, 2013). By

listing out all the advantages, disadvantages, and solutions, this essay has provided evidences to

prove that pornography should be legalized. Advantages that porn brings to the whole world are

remarkable. Economics, personal and society benefits from pornography will help human to

develop and satisfy people. Moreover, disadvantage has been pointed out, addiction, feminism

violated and ones’ attitudes bad influences are obstacles that pornography has to face. However,

it can be overcome easily by advantages and solutions. For these reason, it cannot be denied that

pornography should be legalized.

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Christopher J.Ferguson & Richard D.Hartley (April,2009). The influence of rape and

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Cindy, G. (2016). David Cameron, don't block porn, disrupt it. WIRED UK. Retrieved 4 June

2016, from http://www.wired.co.uk/article/cindy-gallop-open-letter

Clavin, T. (2016). The Good and Bad of Indulging in Fantasy and Daydreaming. Nytimes.com.

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and-bad-of-indulging-in-fantasy-and-daydreaming.html

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Hald, G. & Malamuth, N. (2007). Self-Perceived Effects of Pornography Consumption. Arch

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McLeod, S. (2007). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Simply Psychology. Retrieved 5 June 2016,

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