Pornography: A Right or a Risk? Rebekah Balick Today’s society has an enormous capacity to ignore—to look the other way. Everyone, it seems, understands that there are certain aspects of adults’ private lives that the rest of society does not ask about or interfere with—after all, what business is it of theirs? Watching pornography, the viewing of material containing sexually explicit content intended for sexual arousal, is one such aspect. It is a subject that people do not discuss in polite company, yet one that invades many people’s lives. While some outright defend it, and even those who do not tend to simply ignore its existence, further research into the topic shows that pornography can be incredibly mentally and even physically harmful both to those who view it and to those involved in its production. In the first case, the harm lies in the strong addiction that affects the mind of the viewer; in the second, there are countless sources detailing the mental and physical abuse that actors and actresses in the industry are subject to. Many deny the harm that it causes, with reasons ranging from defending pornography as free speech or simply urging others to accept its existence and leave it alone. Yet as evidence revealing the harm that pornography causes mounts, indifference no longer remains an option. Once a product becomes harmful to society as a whole, it is no longer “none of our business”: it begins to affect everyone, and society must decide if it will allow the product to persist. As evidence of pornography’s detrimental effects becomes apparent, humanity inherits the responsibility to stop the spread of pornography because of the damage that it causes to those who produce it, those who consume it, and the entire society under which its presence festers. Pornography is a product, and though many will deny it, the process of producing it causes vast amounts of harm for those involved. A popular defense of pornography is that the
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