HYDERABAD: With a few clicks on her keyboard, Priyanka Radhakrishnan, a college student visits a place she wishes did not exist: a pornographic website. “I fail to understand how we can allow women to be served up as masturbation fantasies for men,” says Priyanka adding, “Despite the fact that women continue to get raped and sexually exploited everywhere.” That easy access to pornography is heavily influencing the development of adoloscents’ sexuality is a given. But does porn ignite violence against women? It is a million dollar question with no easy answers. “We get influenced by everything that we encounter. It (pornography) does affect a person but to what extent it all depends, it is very complicated,” says psychaitrist Dr AM Touseef.
Pramod Vijay Krishna, an IT employee agrees. “In a conservative society like ours, porn is the only form of sex education,” he says pausing to add, “but I do feel it needs to be channelised properly.” Channelisation and regulation is another matter altogether. Porn is ubiquitous what with four million pornographic websites worldwide with 420 million pages and 68 million search requests in a day, according to a recent study.
Arguments like this invariably draw the accusation of favouring censorship and being labelled an anti-sex prude as part of the problem also lies in the definition of ‘pornography’ with many equating it with only sex. “If we ask people to stop eating junk food, are we against food per se?” asks Kirti Balantrapu, a housewife, “Pornography is not just about sex or even lust, it is about power,” she adds. A healthy sexual appetite cannot be equated to an increasing dependence on porn either. Even if the argument has some semblance of truth, is it reason enough to put up with the fact that the majority of pornography portrays violence and may, therefore, give a fillip to aggression againgst women?
There is a also a view that certain alarming myths about women’s sexual behaviour not only gain ground but also endorsed by porn. For instance, the gonzo, body-punishing variety of pornography that show women’s bodies being humiliated and degraded.
What’s more, one inevitably veers into another territory that is more often than not intertwined with the porn industry - prostitution. Customers use chat rooms to share information about where to buy women, post pornographic videos and pictures, and also broadcast sexual escapades in real time. At a time when boys increasingly porn about the age of 11 or 12, one has to recognize porn for what it really is: a potent force that is moulding the sexual attitudes of an entire generation. And the sad truth is we still do not know if we are putting in distorted notions on young impressionable minds.
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