pornography

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pornography

(application)

Still or moving images, usually of women, in varying states of nudity, posing or performing erotic acts with men, women, animals, machines, or other props. Some say it degrades women, some say it corrupts young boys (who down-load it from the World-Wide Web or exchange it on floppy disks). Most of it is in the form of JPEG images. There are many sites on the World-Wide Web offering porn of all sorts, almost always for a subscription. It is said that these are a driving force in the evolution of new technology and techniques for the web. Advertisments for them certainly constitute a significant proportion of all spam. There are even pornographic computer games, an early example being Mac Playmate.

Beware - many institutions, particularly universities, have strict rules against their computers and networks being used to transfer or store such things, and you might get corrupted.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

pornography

erotic, sometimes violent or brutal, sexual representations (in e.g. literature or film) that meet social opposition on the grounds that they offend and degrade or exploit women or young people. A lack of literary or artistic merit is sometimes a further criterion. One view of pornography is that is provides opportunities for sexual outlet in which the male gaze, and male conceptions of desire, can still prevail (sec also QUEER THEORY). Attitudes to pornography are complex, however, especially given that pornography for women also exists.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Pornography

 

vulgarly naturalistic and indecent depictions of sex in literature, art, theater, films, and so forth. Pornographic books, magazines, drawings, photographs, and films are produced in enormous quantities in the capitalist countries. In the USSR, the dissemination of pornographic writings and pictures is punishable by law (see, for example, the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, art. 228).

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.