Nadine Strossen's Why Censoring Pornography

The idea proposed by Nadine Strossen in Why Censoring Pornography Would not Reduce Discrimination or Violence against Women is that “censoring pornography would do women more harm than good.” She states this because Strossen believes that the assumption that censorship of pornography would result in the reduction of violence and sexism against women must be in agreeance with the three following points directly from Strossen’s Free Speech, Sex, and the Fight for Women’s Rights: (i) exposure to sexist, violent imagery leads to sexist, violent behavior, (ii) the effective suppression of pornography would reduce exposure to sexist, violent behavior, and (iii) censorship would effectively suppress pornography. However, there is no trustworthy evidence to justify these three points. Therefore, I agree with this statement and will argue against the censorship of pornography.
For the purposes of my paper, I will use Brian McNair’s …show more content…
However, Strossen points out that even according to The National Research Council’s Panel on Understanding and Preventing Violence, “demonstrated empirical links between pornography and sex crimes in general are weak or absent.” This is just one example of many academic and governmental surveysWendy McElroy, a Canadian individualist feminist and individualist anarchist, writes that “a cause-and-effect relationship is drawn between men viewing pornography and men attacking women, especially in the form of rape. But studies and experts disagree as to whether any relationship exists between pornography and violence, between images and behavior. Even the pro-censorship Meese Commission Report admitted that the data connecting pornography to violence was unreliable… Feminist Thelma McCormick (1983) for the Metropolitan Toronto Task Force on Violence Against Women, find no pattern to connect porn and sex