Akademik

The definition is controversial: roughly an obscene representation or display, especially of human sexuality, produced to provide an occasion for fantasy. The condition that the representation should be obscene distinguishes pornography in principle from erotic art. The legal problems arise because although some human fantasies may be innocent and pleasurable, others are pleasurable to some without being innocent, and ministering to them involves representing different sections of the community (especially women and children) in degrading and humiliating lights, as victims of violence, etc. When this is so there is an argument for censorship, from the right of such groups to equal concern and respect. This argument is distinct from a general moralistic distaste for the material in question, and distinct from the contested consequentialist argument that the existence of such material helps to promote violence. The extent to which other values are infringed by such censorship is controversial.