Pornography and Obscenity
In ancient Greek, the term “pornography” means “writes about prostitutes,” emphasizing the link between pornography and prostitution. Although both involve the selling of sex for money, the two are often treated as (legally) distinct practices. The thread of the Greek root that is preserved in most modern considerations of pornography is the part about “writing” or words, and hence, particularly in the United States legal and social context, speech and expression (see Speech, Freedom of). 
 
 
Keywords: 
 
feminist philosophy; 
law; 
legal and political
John Stuart Mill and the Harm of Pornography
Many feminists argue that pornography should be censored because it harms women.1 While there is growing opposition to this procensorship position within feminism,2 it is liberals who resist censorship as a matter of principle. In this essay, I suggest that liberals should not adopt a stance of principled opposition to censoring pornography. This liberal stance is made up of three main ingredients.3 First, liberals argue that the state is entitled to intervene coercively in individuals' lives on the basis of a narrow harm principle which permits governments so to act only in order to protect the physical integrity of individuals. Since the evidence that pornography causes attacks on physical integrity is nowhere near conclusive, liberals suppose that pornography generally satisfies harmless male preferences. The harm principle cannot justify coercion in this case.4
Testing hypotheses regarding rape: Exposure to sexual violence, sex differences, and the “normality” of rapists
Abstract Three hypotheses on the subject of rape were addressed empirically. The first concerns the effects of exposure to sexual violence on reactions to rape. Males and females were first exposed to either a sadomasochistic or a nonviolent version of the same sexual passage and then to a portrayal of rape. Responses to the rape showed interactions between gender and previous exposure: In comparison to males who had read the nonviolent version, males exposed to the sadomasochistic story were more sexually aroused to the rape depiction and more punitive toward the rapist whereas females evidenced differences in the opposite direction. Simple effects analyses for each gender, however, yielded significant differences for the punitiveness measure only and for males only. In addressing the second hypothesis, gender differences were found in the perception of rape. Third, the assertion that rape may be an extension of normal sexual patterns was explored. Subjects were found to believe that a high percentage of men would rape if assured of not being punished and that a substantial percentage of women would enjoy being victimized. While both genders shared these beliefs, very few women believed that they personally would derive pleasure from victimization. Surprisingly, more than half of the males indicated some likelihood that they themselves would rape if assured of not being punished. The association between this self-report and general attitudes toward rape revealed a pattern that bears striking similarity to the callous attitudes often held by convicted rapists.