Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The Impact of the Internet on Pornography and its History-Bhargav Patel




The Impact of the Internet on Pornography and its History

   Pornography is a probably the highest grossing industry globally as it has a revenue of 100 billion dollars, with $3000 being spent on it every second.1 Materials showing sexually explicit themes are known as pornographic materials. William Haynes was known as the father of Modern Pornography.1
   The first picture of a naked woman was taken in 1838. The 1st actress to pose nude was Adah Isaacs Menken.1 The first pornographic video had no sex in it. It was a video of a women stripping. Interestingly, the first video to show any form of sex was released in 1910 by Germans and was called “Am Abend”. It showed 10 minutes of anal sex.
   In the 1950s more and more risqué porn started to surface following WWII. A similar pattern was seen during the Civil War, where pornography became more popular. Playboy (magazine) by Hugh Hefner was a phenomenon that started in 1953 and till date continues to be published.2 And in the 1960s and 1970s XXX theaters and big budget movies started appearing. Then in the 1980s VHS and Beta Max led to amateur home video pornography which resulted in the decline of big budget pornos. 1
   Then in 1990s everything changed with the introduction of the internet and DVDs. Internet further declined the big budget pornos since explicit material was now available online for free. The 2000s was a huge turning point for pornography as internet became efficient and fast and free online porn websites became available. People now had access to free porn videos and any pornographic material.
   Though with the introduction of the internet many problems started arising. People got a little too kinky and started to upload videos that were deemed obscene. Children at a very young age would be exposed to explicit material which they should not be viewing that may unintentionally pop up on websites. People exchanging nude pictures with one another in so called private chat rooms might end making the rounds of social networking sites and cause a big problem for the person involved. There is even cartoon porn thanks to the internet.
   The phenomenon known as “sex sells” became even more popular with the internet. With the internet everyone had been exposed to pornography and therefore it became a viable marketing strategy. Nowadays every other commercial has some explicit material put in for no reason but to make it appeal to the majority of viewers.
   As discussed in class the whole concept of “sex sells” objectified women. It portrayed women as just parts – breasts or butt. The internet played a major role in objectifying women through unrealistic portrayals in pornos or pictures. This all ties in to what we see today in the real world. Pornography is all around us and mostly objectifies women be it in a commercial about food to condoms to clothes. The internet has just taken this concept and multiplied it by 100 as every other site contains some form of explicit material.

Reference
1.     Moore, Crystal . "The Contemporary Crisis in Sexuality." . (accessed April 29, 2014).
2.     Moore, Crystal . "The Sexualized Society." . (accessed April 29, 2014).

Which Utopian Community Would You Choose By: Aaron Roberts

Which Utopian Community Would I Join? By Aaron Roberts

            If I had to choose a Utopian Community to join, it would probably be the Oneida community in New York.  John Humphrey Noyes started the Oneida community in 1948.   A big theme the Oneida community revolved around was pretty much sharing everything.  They practiced complex marriage, which was pretty much the men were married to the women and all the women were married to the men.  The Oneida community did not believe in monogamy, but sex was very important to them[1].  I think the idea of sharing is pretty cool, and I like sex so the Oneida community sounds pretty favorable over other ones like the shakers who were not allowed to have physical contact between sexes.  Having no physical contact between sexes sounds pretty shitty in fact, I wouldn’t wish that upon any heterosexual.  A draw back to being in the Oneida community for me would be the practice of coitus reservatus, which is that women were allowed to orgasm, but men could not orgasm.  They paired older women with young boys to teach them to control their orgasms.  I wouldn’t really want to suppress an orgasm, but suppressing an orgasm sounds much better then not having physical contact with the opposite sex.  Another custom of the Oneida community was stripiculture which was pretty much the board (comprised of 48 departments) selected who would reproduce with who, in order to breed certain traits.  The Oneida community did not last long however and had an array of issues including the deterioration of a main ideology they practiced, which was the complex marriage.  People would get jealous, and this formed monogamous marriages within the community, which ended up sending John Humphrey Noyes into exile[2].  Out of the other Utopian communities, the Oneida community sounded the most tolerable compared to how society is today, so that’s why I would pick that one to join out of the others communities.




[1] The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Oneida Community (utopian religious community)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/429132/Oneida-Community (accessed April 30, 2014).
[2] Moore, Crystal. “Utopian Communities in Victorian America” The History of Sexuality in America, Charlotte, NC, April 28, 2014.