New Media and Pornography

While times are changing new media has assisted in the proliferation of pornography, with strong social consequences. Nonetheless, many people claim that pornography should be protected by the First Amendment. Other people argue that since women are willing to participate in pornography, then it's automatically their choice. But what if women didn't have a choice? What if she started prostituting at a young age and couldn't change their career path? Even though were in an economic crisis the pornography has not suffered. If people are willing to pay  to watch other people to have sex with one another why should we object? It's not like their sitting on a park bench jerking off in public, most people do it in the privacy of their own bedrooms.
A court case that deals with the issue that pornography should be protected under the first amendment is ABA v. Hudnut. The 1985 court case challenged the Anti-pornography Civil Right Ordinance, which was enacted in Indianapolis, Indiana. Indianapolis enacted an ordinance defining "pornography," as material that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement. Pornography" under the ordinance can be defined as a graphic sexually and explicit subordination of women, whether in pictures or in words, also can include one or more of the following:

1. Women are presented as sexual objects who experience sexual pleasure in being raped;
2. Women are presented as sexual objects who can be tied up, cut up, mutilated, bruised, physically hurt, or as dismembered/truncated/fragmented/severed into body parts
3. Women are presented in scenarios of degradation, injury abasement, torture or they can be displayed as filthy, inferior, bleeding, bruised, or hurt in a context that makes any these conditions sexual;
4. Women presented as sexual objects who enjoy pain or humiliation
5. Women are presented as being penetrated by objects or animals
6. Women are presented as sexual objects for domination, conquest, violation, exploitation, possession. However women can also be presented through postures, positions of servility, submission or display

Nonetheless this statute provides that the use of children, men, transsexuals, can substitute women in This case was first heard by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. However petitioners appealed the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Nonetheless one person involved in the case, Judge Easterbrook held that the ordinance's definition and prohibition of pornography was unconstitutional. The ordinance didn't refer to the prurient interest, which is required in the obscenity statutes by the Supreme Court's ruling in the case Miller v. California.  Which states that the state law must clear and specific in describing the sexual conduct covered by the obscenity legislation. In the end the court ruled that the ordinance that defined pornography through the reference of portraying women and for that the court held it unconstitutional because the first amendment means that government has no power to restrict the freedom of expression due to the messages or ideas.  
In my opinion we should not judge people because what they do for a living is wrong. In a bad economy people will do anything to make a buck, so they can put food on the table and a roof over their heads. It's similar to the expression, "Don't judge a book by its cover because you never know what's inside." While what they may be doing is against your morals and beliefs, a good amount of it is acting, which many people forget to realize. And while other people are struggling to make a living the porn industry is one of the few industries during this economic rough patch that has not been effected. Maybe we should be applauding them because these people are able to make a living during this economic rough patch. But the truth is some people don't like porn and other people love porn.