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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