2015
Understanding Today’s Pornography
Pornography could be defined broadly as almost any image or writing that was specifically designed in order to sexually arouse someone. However, the picture becomes much more complicated when people consider the fact that people can become aroused unintentionally and something can become pornography in context when that wasn’t intentional from the beginning.
There’s also going to be some disagreement about what constitutes pornography. Some people would say that pornography must actually depict a sex act of some sort, and it can’t just involve nudity. Other people would consider explicit depictions of nudity to be pornographic in nature, particularly in certain contexts. Erotic scenes in books that were largely intended to be just read as works of fiction aren’t tiny pieces of porn, although they are in practice, and the same thing could be said of the brief sex scenes in mainstream films. Essentially, the line between sex in art and pornography is very narrow in some cases, and depends largely on interpretation.
Pornographic videos are among the most common and popular types of porn in the modern era. These kinds of explicit presentations are going to have the broadest appeal. Erotic novels, stories, and even very brief blurbs are all popular forms of written pornography. People can find this sort of written pornography in pornographic magazines that also contain explicit photography, which is another popular form of pornography in its own right. Some drawings, comics, and cartoons can also be pornographic in nature, and these are becoming more and more common with the rise of the Internet. Even purely audio clips can be pornographic, especially in an age in which phone sex and cybersex is so much more common.
Adult materials will often be subject to different types of labeling. There has been a great deal of discussion about the difference between porn and erotica. Some people consider them synonyms, although erotica has a more positive connotation. Other people believe that erotica is more emotional and less physical in nature, and goes into more detail about the sensual experiences of the participants in question. Written pornography is more likely to be labeled as erotica. At any rate, sex toys are distinct from both porn and erotica in the sense that they are tools, while pornography and erotica are technically pieces of information. They work on a theoretical level, at least technically, as physical as they seem to be for people.