The Importance Of Censornography

The majority of modern pornography is not art, and by using a selective definition of Leo Tolstoy’s version of art, and John Dewey’s theory of art as experience, we can determine that pornography is nothing more than shallow entertainment that exacerbates social inequalities of society’s gender roles. Despite this, pornography has the potential to become art, and should therefore not be censored.

It is important to define pornography, as well as Tolstoy and Dewey’s definitions of art, in order to set the groundwork for my argument. To begin, in this paper, the term “pornography” refers to anything that, “is sexually explicit material that is primarily designed to produce sexual arousal in viewers.” Furthermore, pornography comes in a variety of media, be that literary, photography or video. For this work, I will be analyzing pornography that comes in video and photographic format, as well as former workers of the pornography industry.

For Leo Tolstoy, in order for something to be considered art, it must evoke some form of emotion that acts as a means of unification and communication for humanity. As long as the intent of the artist hopes to unify, it is a positive necessity for the human experience, “art begins when one person, with the object of joining another or others to himself in one and the same feeling, expresses that feeling by certain indications.” For Tolstoy’s theory, the idea of intent is paramount to the execution of art. If something is not made with the intent of evoking a pure emotion, then it is not art. Tolstoy believes that art is “a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-beings of individuals and of humanity.” When m...

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...ing pornographic in nature was perhaps created with the intent of arousing love and intimacy, or celebrating a non-commodified sexuality, then it most certainly could be art.

Stewart Homes, a British author and pro-pornography critic once said that “art is nothing more than sanctioned pornography.” I strongly disagree, because today’s modern pornography is vastly different from art. Not only does it degrade human minorities, but it prevents humanity from moving towards perfection. When we analyze pornography through the artistic definitions of Leo Tolstoy and John Dewey, we can come to understand that most porn is nothing more than entertainment that is designed to arouse physical sensation, and not emotion. Even when this is true (as it almost always is), pornography cannot be censored, because it will always have a potential to become aesthetical in nature.