Letters From A War Zone Essay, Research Paper
"Letters from a War Zone" deals with the controversy
between men and women banning pornography. In this
essay there are many strong personal views on pornography
and the brutality of women in porn. Men and women have
been at war for many years because of this. I agree with
banning pornography because pornography lures men into
disrespecting women. This essay makes me angry because it
shows another part of life that is really not acknowledged. It
seems realistic to me because many women in life are
confronted with sex at an early age and become vulnerable.
The unique thing that reaches me is how women do not have
a choice, especially when it comes down to sex.
Vulnerability is one of a woman’s weaknesses. Pornography
is degrading to women when it is forced upon them. If sex
were done for pleasure or because the women wanted to, it
would not be as bad. That is how many women are raped,
killed or lose their confidence. Women in pornography were
typically prostitutes at one-point. Due to statistics, more than
half the women in a sex-related professions have been
sexually abused, molested or raped at one time during their
lies. The quote stated in this essay that really hits home is
"Made in South America where life is cheap." I, as a
Hispanic, am terribly offended by this statement. This
statement basically says that South America has many
lowlives’, and that anything can happen to them because life
there is worth very little. For example the women of South
America are used in Snuff films and in explicit photographs.
Snuff is a film that consists of a woman being sexually
harassed, raped, and killed. In many of these films/photos
the women are brutalized to the point where their breasts are
dismantled and their bodies are urinated on after they are
raped and killed. There are photographs in which women’s
breasts are slammed in rat traps, their vaginas are stuffed
with knives, guns, and even glass, and then they are
gang-banged, beaten, and tortured. Snuff films are usually
made in South America because, as said in the statement
above, life is not worth much there. "If you are going to hurt
a women in the United States be sure to photograph it" is a
controversial statement used in this essay. Its means that if
you have slain, hurt, or abused a woman it is all right, as long
you have taken a picture. The photograph expresses a point
of view, sacrosanct in a free society. When these
picture/films are being taken the woman is forced to smile.
This will make the picture/films protected by the constitution,
which makes it legal speech, or free speech. In the essay it is
argued that men are pigs and love seeing women in
pornography. Some women enjoy it too but men love to see
picture/films even if it is a disrespectful film of women. This
becomes a greater issue because almost all of the politicians
are men, which means that it would be even harder to
convict a man for maltreating a woman in porn, or even to
ban pornography. The reason that pornography has not
been banned is because the men refuse to ban it. It is unjust
to see a woman being brutalized while a man sits and
actually enjoys every part of the picture/films. "The war is
against men and women," this quote is true because in this
society men are dominant over women. Women have been
trying for many years to go beyond the men in this
chauvinistic society. Men have always been considered as
superior while women are considered powerless and
inferior. It is unacceptable to know that a man is able to get
away with many things such as the snuff films/photography of
women being tortured and killed. Women are treated as sex
objects. Women are brutalized every hour, every minute.
Women in the sex industry are treated like meat. "I can
almost say categorically never have I had a client who has
not been exposed to prostitution through pornography.For
some young women that means that they are shown
pornography, either films, video-tapes, or pictures as this is
how you do it, almost as a training manual in how to perform
acts of prostitution.In addition, out on the street when a
young woman is [working], many of her tricks or customers
will come up to her with little pieces of paper, pictures that
were torn from magazines and say, I want this.it is like a mail
order catalogue of sex acts, and that is what she is expected
to perform.Another aspect that plays a bit part in my work.is
that on many occasions my clients are multi, many rape
victims. These rapes are often either taped or photographed.
The young woman when she tries to escape [is
blackmailed]," this is a testimony from a social worker who
works exclusively with adolescent female prostitutes. In
almost every case of adolescent prostitution a girl has been
introduced to it through pornography. Everything done to a
woman in pornography has been done to a woman in
prostitution. There are not only films or pictures that
introduce sex, but there are even games where a women of
a particular race is being dealt with in an inappropriate
manner. For example, the pornographic video game
"Custer’s Revenge" generated many gang rapes of Native
American women. In the game, the "squaw" is captured by
an American boy and are tied to a tree and raped. The game
is sexually explicit, for example, the penis goes in and out, in
and out. The feminist, Andrea Dworkin, wrote this essay to
send an urgent dispatch from the frontlines of a national
battle over pornography. Andrea Dworkin raised in New
Jersey attended Bennington College. She was a free-lance
writer and began her career in activism against pornography.
Her first feminist book was Women Hating. Dworkin
participated in the first "Take Back the Night" march to
protest urban districts that harbor prostitution and
pornography. It was a march held by feminists who believe
pornography should be banned and that prostitution should
be stopped. Dworkin says "feminism is magnificent and
militant here because the most powerless women are putting
their lives on the line to confront the most powerful men for
the sake of all women." Men and women have been at war
for many years, especially when it comes to sex.
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