Literally, “pornography” means “the writing of whores.” The term is generally taken to mean “sexually explicit words and images whose sole purpose is sexual arousal.” However, in the last quarter of the twentieth century in America, pornography was at the center of a cultural, religious and political struggle. As such, pornography has been defined variously, depending on the group discussing it.

Pornography (if we understand it as sexually explicit words and images), comes in many forms in America. Justice Department figures from 1994 indicate that pornography is a 110 billion per year industry. This business includes: pornographic magazines; movies and videos (both professionally and amateur-produced, which became widely available for home rental with the advent of the VCR); and the ever-growing number of Internet sites devoted to pornographic images.

Pornographic magazines featuring nude and/or sexually explicit photographs became a recogniz able feature of the American culture when Hugh Hefner began publishing Playboy magazine in 1953. Playboy, with its nude but not sexually explicit photographs of young women, was the groundbreaking pornographic magazine and today is still America’s premiere magazine offering “entertainment for men” (Playboy’s description of its role). Other major magazines in this genre include Penthouse and Hustler, as well as Playgirl, which features nude photos of men.

Pornography, in the myriad forms in which it has made its way into American culture, has elicited not only sexual response from those who purchase and view it, but political and religious interest as well. In 1973 the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, based on the fact that no scientific data have conclusively demonstrated a link between criminal activity and exposure to obscene material, suggested legalization of sexually oriented expression between consenting adults. However, just months later, the United States Supreme Court, in the case of Miller v. California, wrote that any sexually oriented work could be banned unless it had “serious literary artistic, political or scientific value.” Although the Supreme Court ruling spoke of obscenity not pornography the two terms have frequently been linked by anti-pornography activists, and Miller v.

California has been used in many cases as a pretext to demand censorship of sexually explicit material.

Since obscenity has come to be equated in many cases with pornography, the term “pornography” has come to be used since 1973 to describe whatever sexually oriented expression a certain group dislikes or whatever sexual representation a dominant class or group wishes to keep out of the hands of other, less dominant, classes or groups. For this reason, pornography has acquired a social and political significance in America today that goes far beyond the pages of a pornographic magazine or a scene in a pornographic movie.

The most vehement opposition to pornography in America has come from the political right wing (particularly the Religious Right and the Christian Coalition) and from the pro-censorship/anti-pornography feminist movement, the latter led by Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin. MacKinnon and Dworkin define pornography as “sexually explicit subordination of women through pictures and/or words” (Dworkin, 1985:8). Beginning in the early 1990s, supporters of MacKinnon and Dworkin have unsuccessfully attempted to introduce legislation in several US cities, which would ban pornographic materials that they deem degrading or dehumanizing to women.

While attempts to censor pornography continue to be launched by political conservatives and radical feminists alike, pornography as a form of expression continues to be protected under the 1st Amendment. However, the question of child pornography and what constitutes it is something of a gray area. In 1982 and 1990, the Supreme Court upheld two state statutes prohibiting showing children engaging in sexual activity or in a state of nudity. The issue of child pornography became a real focal point for antipornography activists in the early 1990s. In one of the most visible battles, a series of print advertisements for Calvin Klein underwear was attacked by anti-pornography activists because the models, who were clad only in underwear, and not engaged in any sexual activity appeared to be adolescents and thus below the legal age of consent. No charges were filed against Calvin Klein, but, in a similar, high-profile case in 1990, the FBI investigated photographer Jock Sturges. The investigation was begun after Sturges’ nude photographs of adolescents aroused the suspicions of a photography laboratory employee. (At no point did the FBI claim the photos depicted sexual activity of any kind, and, in 1991, a federal grand jury failed to indict Sturges.) Thus, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, with Playboy entering its second half-century, the battle continues to be fought between those defending Americans’ right to look at dirty pictures and those who wish to protect those same Americans from sexually explicit images they find disturbing, demeaning or dangerous.