Pornography, also known as sexually explicit material intended to cause sexual arousal, has been hailed by many as a growing public health crisis. Multiple states have now passed resolutions declaring pornography a harm to individual and collective health for inciting epidemics of sexual assault, human trafficking, and compulsive use. But research on the impact of pornography reveals a complicated story behind the straightforward narrative of abuse, including the repression of sex positive materials in the pursuit of pornographic containment. Pornography and Public Health uses a rigorous evidence-based approach to explore the positive and negative effects of pornography on public health, revealing how pornography came to be considered a public health crisis despite the lack of US governmental support. While pornographic content varies widely, this book provides a holistic overview of the people who view pornography, what they are most likely to see, how content has changed over time, and how these changes appear to influence some users. Each chapter explores controversies related to important subtopics in pornography scholarship including aggression, body image, and problematic use, as well as acknowledging the benefits that porn and porn literacy can provide in some contexts. Drawing on meticulous research and close readings of the available data, Emily F. Rothman explores the implications of existing evidence for practice and policy and offers meaningful guidance for public health scholars interested in understanding, and resolving, one of the most complicated issues in health and human behavior of our time. With unique academic insights, Pornography and Public Health avoids moralizing to argue that we can take steps to minimize possible harms from pornography while simultaneously protecting sexual liberty and promoting respect for pornography performers.

Explores the history and social aspects of pornography, discussing how it is made and distributed, its popularity and effect on modern culture, its influence on attitudes and crime, and current laws legislating the industry.

Does porn make the man?

For readers of Peggy Orenstein and Rebecca Traister, an authoritative, big think look at pornography in all its facets - historical, religious, and cultural. In the 1960s, sex researchers Masters and Johnson declared the end of the fake orgasm. Nearly two decades later, in 1982, evangelical activist Tim LaHaye foretold that the entire pornography industry would soon be driven out of business. Neither prediction proved true. Instead, with the rise of the internet, pornography saturates the American conscience more than ever and has reshaped our understanding of sexuality, relationships, media, and even the nature of addiction. Dr. Kelsy Burke has spent the last five years researching and interviewing internet pornography's opponents and its sympathizers. In The Pornography Wars, Burke does a deep dive into the long history of pornography in America and then turns her gaze on our present society to examine the ways this industry touches on the most intimate parts of American lives. She offers a complete understanding of the major players in the debates around porn's place in society: everyone from sex workers, activists, therapists, religious leaders, and consumers. In doing so, she addresses and debunks the myths that surround porn and porn usage while showing how everything from the way we teach children about sex to the legal protections for what can be published is tied up in the deeply complicated battles over pornography. Sweeping, savvy, and deeply researched, The Pornography Wars is a necessary and comprehensive new look at pornography and American life.

In Nancy Bauer’s view, most feminist philosophers are content to work within theoretical frameworks that are false to human beings’ everyday experiences. Here she models a new way to write about pornography, women’s self-objectification, hook-up culture, and other contemporary phenomena, and in doing so she raises basic questions about philosophy.

Mighty Lewd Books describes the emergence of a new home-grown English pornography. Through the examination of over 500 pieces of British erotica, this book looks at sex as seen in erotic culture, religion and medicine throughout the long eighteenth-century, and provides a radical new approach to the study of sexuality.

Pornography catapulted to the forefront of the American women's movement in the 1980s. In Battling Pornography, Carolyn Bronstein locates the origins of anti-pornography sentiment in the turbulent social and cultural history of the late 1960s and 1970s. Based on extensive original archival research, the book reveals that the seeds of the movement were planted by groups who protested the proliferation of advertisements, Hollywood films and other mainstream media that glorified sexual violence. Over time, feminist leaders redirected the emphasis from violence to pornography to leverage rhetorical power. Battling Pornography presents a fascinating account of the rise and fall of this significant American social movement and documents the contributions of influential activists on both sides of the pornography debate, including some of the best-known American feminists.