Pornography comes from the Greek words graphos meaning depiction and pornos meaning the lowest of female sexual slaves. Significantly, Susan Cole observes that the use of the word pornos reminds us that pornography was never intended for use with the relationship denoted by playful or loving couplings but rather to denote the active subordination of the most degraded female slaves. Thus, Cole establishes the definition of pornography as "the presentation of sexual subordination for sexual pleasure." This definition establishes pornography "as a practice of subordination [and] embodies the harm [and] the negative, in the very definition." It necessarily connotes the inequality and oppression whereby women are depicted as commodities to be bought and sold and as so sexually submissive that they fall happily into the role of sexual servant.
Cole, who advocates the censorship of pornography, believes that the pornographic message is becoming the cultural norm. She argues that while people have been complaining for years that advertisers use sex to sell commodities, the actual argument should be that advertisers exploit women, who equal sex, to sell commodities. Thus, they are not advertising just the product but the sexual value of exploitation. Sexual stereotypes are often presented for entertainment, but the sexual harassment that went into the making of the product is not presented as the entertainment itself.
Sara Diamond agrees that pornography relies on the subordination of women. She argues further that pornography stands as "the only visible, publicly accessible information about men's attitudes toward sexuality in general and women within sex in particular." She would be in agreement with Susan Cole when she argues that for many women pornography's distorted images are a symbol of men's hostility toward women and the violence in society against women.
However, Diamond is fervently against the censo...