Should we exercise censorship of pornography?

Due to the advent of the Internet, there is undoubtedly much more pornography available nowadays as compared to, say, 20 or 30 years ago. What is pornography? Pornography, as one might be surprised to know, covers many types of media, not just restricted to obscene pictures or videos to arouse sexual feelings. Pornography refers to the use of media, such as words, pictures, videos, even dances, which are about or arouse sexuality which is traditionally taboo in many cultures. The question now is: should we exercise censorship of pornography?

Pornography has many ill effects, including addiction, which may even lead to sexual abusal of people of the opposite sex. This can translate into many societal problems, including a rising rate of rape, to fulfil sexual fantasies depicted, and encouraged by, pornography. With pornography, especially violent forms of pornography, this can lead to a depreciation of the opposite gender, from full, human beings, to mere, shallow objects of sexual desire. Being humans, we have a quality, called morality, which seperates us from animals. Morality is what allows us to designate rights for ourselves, and it is why we have to ability to assign rights to animals. We are not animals, and reproduction is not our only goal in life, and this is what we must recognize. Furthermore, people also have dignity, and this dignity must be recognized and respected, not violated through sexual abuse, which pornographic materials can suggest. This is definitely a convoluted view of uour society, which cannot be tolerated, in order to maintain peace, stability, and the protection of basic human rights and virtues. Hence, pornographic materials can, at worst, may be the root cause of violent crimes of rape and sexual abuse, while at best, would probably contort a person's view of people of the opposite gender, and of society as a whole, and definitely deserve some form of censorship.

In addition, pornography also can create religious problems. This is probably most visible in places where the major religion is extremely conservative. Such a religion would be Islam, which is known for the rather conservative role that women play in an Islamic society. Also, Islam is an extremely sensitive religion as well, which further complicates matters. Just last year, Malaysian Islam implemented a rather well-publicised anti-pornography law, banning all forms of pornography, not just restricted to things like paedophilic videos or images which tend to be revolting to mostly any person, but also dances or artistic performances with sexual elements as well. Several dance troupes were even told to cut down on hip swaying, as it had sexual connotations. Different religions have different beliefs, and we have to be mindful of them, and respect them. Pornography violates these religious beliefs, and thus, proper (and prompt) censorship should be enforced.

However, this censorship of pornography must be carefully applied; things like literature, which involves sexuality, or a discussion of it, as one of its main features, could be lost if they were censored. Literature is meant for free expression, and free expression is valuable. Milder forms of pornography should be tolerated, such as sexuality in literature. In good literature, sexuality is more often than not means to an end, rather than being an end in itself. Simply put, few books involving sexuality are written for the sake of sexual arousal itself. Good literature often employs sexuality to prove a point, or as an example instead. Take the example of Brave New World, which employs sexuality to show the moral corruption of a society where the people have all that they want, and never want more than they can have. Censorship should be properly managed, in order to preserve valuable ideas.

All in all, pornography, in all it forms, appear in many different places; and censorship should be present, though properly managed to prevent the loss of valuable ideas.