To view or not to view?

Pornography has long been a contentious issue among academics, feminists, politicians, and religious leaders. Although not all Tufts students are regular viewers of pornography, most have come across it at some point in their lives. The fundamental question still remains: is there a consensus on porn?

Fewer women than men admit to using porn. "I have never really watched porn on my own," a female sophomore said. "Sometimes with friends we look at it and laugh, but I've never used it for my own pleasure."

The advent of the internet has had a huge impact on the accessibility of pornography, moving it from the adult section of the video and book store to the home computer. Now porn is a click away, reducing any fear of running into a professor at West Coast video.

"[My use of porn was] infrequent earlier on, because there was less of it and it was less readily available," an anonymous senior male said. "As the Internet made stuff more easily available and easier [to access] the frequency of use went up."

Many Tufts students -- both those who watch porn and those who do not -- accept porn as a normal part of sexuality. "I don't think that it's indecent for a boyfriend to use porn," sophomore Alison Isaacs said. "You can't always be together when the mood hits him, so there's nothing wrong with him finding ways to satiate his desires himself."

"I think that it's a perfectly acceptable outlet for natural sexual impulses, curiosity, and entertainment," sophomore Claire Freierman said.

Students' opinions vary widely from general acceptance to repulsion of pornography. Some students were concerned that porn could change people's expectations or attitudes about sex.

"A lot of times guys or girls expect certain things from a hookup or casual relationship that they see in porn," sophomore Margot Rapoport said. "However, I think in real relationships porn is not a real factor because there is usually more communication."

Part of people's disgust with pornography is that it's viewed as derogatory towards women. "I do think that porn portrays woman as sexual objects which exist only to fulfill men's carnal desires," an anonymous sophomore said. "In this way I think that porn is detrimental to relationships between men and women and perpetuates misconceptions about womanhood and sexuality."

Some students worry that porn influences people's perceptions and interactions with the opposite sex. "I believe that occasionally watching pornography won't completely transform people, but over time the images stay with us and can do damage," sophomore Marion Phillips said. "Sometimes guys try to imitate what they see in porn, not realizing that it's acting, and sometimes women don't respond the way they do in porn."

Others disagree. "I don't see how it would objectify women's bodies anymore that it would men's," Freierman said.

Porn-watchers generally do not think that porn has altered their concept of sex. "I don't feel porn has affected my perception of sex, men or women in any significant way," a male senior said. "Porn shows a variety of kinds and ways of sex and a variety of men and women. I view porn as a neutral, neither good nor bad, expression or display of certain sides of the sexual spectrum."

Pornography is an issue that has divided feminists. Professor Nancy Bauer, who teaches feminist philosophy, said that there are anti-pornography and pro-pornography feminists. Anti-pornography feminists believe that porn should not be protected by the First Amendment, because "it doesn't just cause harm, it is harm."

Other feminists find pornography liberating for women. "I think that feminism seems to get associated with the anti-pornography movement, but there are lots of feminists who are pro-porn and who think that its proliferation is potentially helpful to women," said Bauer.

Bauer thinks that publications like Penthouse and Playboy are "more worrisome" than hardcore magazines. "Hardcore magazines are not trying to sell you anything...in Playboy, they have an airbrushed woman next to a car ad. It commodifies women's bodies."

Bauer added that some kinds of pornography are more harmful than others. "There's so much junk culture that deadens people's minds. Some porn is part of that, and some isn't," she said.

Bauer believes that pornography can influence expectations and attitudes. "Students are increasingly reporting that they are experiencing in their potential partners a kind of screwed-up understanding of what sexuality is about from just being saturated with it on the internet," she said.

Professor Joseph DeBold, psychology department chair, said that there is no evidence suggesting that porn impacts behavior or views in any long-term way, although it can produce some short-term effects.

"Exposure to pornography can alter the way that men view women as assessed in a lab situation," DeBold said. "We have to keep in mind, however, that these are very temporary phenomena. In a month, those altered views are gone."

The societal concern, he says, is whether or not adult pornography is harmful. There is no demonstrated causative link between pornography and sexual violence, according to DeBold. He said that interviews with convicts have revealed that people who are aggressive toward adults are actually less likely to have been exposed to porn.