Research Papers

Regulating Pornography

Atulya Thorat & Joseph Phillips

HIST 1700 | University of Utah

Regulating Pornography

Our era is often referred to as the Information Age because of the constant free-flow of information on mediums such as the internet. The internet is a marvelous creation that connects us all and includes any and every kind of service ranging from food delivery to filing tax information. However, there exists a side of the internet that is used for other, more personal purposes. That purpose which we'll discuss here is porn and its regulation. People watch porn for many reasons, but mostly for pleasure and entertainment. A lot of people see it as a bane of society and think that the world would be better off without it. Here we will see just how big pornography is, whether or not it should be regulated or even banned and if so how. We will then take a look at how big the industry is and what effect regulation might have on it. We will then take a closer look at the positives of regulation and how it can be achieved. We will finally end it all by hopefully coming to a mutual agreement.

Why Porn Cannot and Should not be Regulated

Widespread Availability and Accessibility

Virtually anything we need nowadays can be found after one Google search, including adult content. So, let's start by addressing the elephant in the room, pornography. Pornography can be found virtually anywhere. It can be accessed on your desktop, laptop, smartphone, console, anything that can use the internet. This is worrisome for parents around the world as a majority of children nowadays own a smartphone. On average, boys are around 13, and girls are around 14, when they first see pornography, says Bryant Paul, an associate professor at Indiana University's Media School and the author of studies on porn content and adolescent and adult viewing habits. In a 2008 University of New Hampshire survey, 93 percent of male college students and 62 percent of female students said they saw online porn before they were 18. Thirty-five percent of males said they had watched it 10 or more times during adolescence (Jones, February 2018).

According to statistics gathered from Pornhub in Fight The New Drugs article, a non profit organization against pornography, "In 2016, 91,980,225,000 videos were watched on Pornhub. That's 12.5 videos for every person on the planet" (Fight The New Drug [FTND], 2018). It is obvious that porn is an enormous industry, and that it has made its way into our society. With 12.5 video views for every person on the planet that makes up a large amount of content, and with that much content it would be next to impossible to regulate it all. Pornography has become so widespread that, according to FTND, "You're "weird" or "crazy" if you don't have a porn habit" (2018). With pornography making its way deeper into our culture, let's take a look at some countries that tried to get rid of pornography.

With a population of 1,350,444,825 and growing, according to worldometers.com, India is a country that has to constantly adapt and conform to their growing population. In contrast, Iceland is a country that has a very modest population of 337,141 as of April fourth 2018 according to WorldOMeters.com. Interestingly, when the governments of both these countries tried to regulate porn in some way: 857 websites discreetly blocked (A.R., 2015) or even introduction of plans to ban internet porn (Associated Press [AP], 2013) were met by outrage and backlash. In India, within a week of the ban government officials started to back down from their decision and make public announcements on the decision. According to an article written by A.R., an author for the economist, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the telecom minister at the time, stated, "The sites should not be blocked after all, other than any proven to be showing child pornography" (2015). The government's reason for banning porn was for a number of causes but they were mostly worried about the youth. According to the AP, Halla Gunnarsdottir, political adviser to the interior minister was cited saying, "When a 12 year old types 'porn' into Google, he or she is not going to find photos of naked women out on a country field, but very hardcore and brutal violence" (2013). However, according to lawmaker and ex-Wikileaks spokeswoman Birgitta Jonsdottir stating, "Restricting people's access to information online in order to shape their views is as much censorship as the repression of free speech" (Spark, 2016).