of male fantasies involving rape. What comes as a surprise to many is that in male fantasies, the woman rapes the man and conversely, in female fantasies, the man rapes (“Sweet Savagery”), the woman! (Howitt, 66) Friday’s reports also provided some interesting reasoning for the female fantasies. Her reports find that females fantasize about rape to show that they are not acting in accordance with such “sinful” actions to show that sex is being “forced” upon them. Any other feelings towards the fantasized rape would prove to be “undesirable social behavior” and amazingly, the media is not even involved! Actual laboratory experiments (Hawkins, 103) have shown that when groups of women were shown erotic scenes involving rape, their reactions to the scenes were as or even more stimulating than less violent consensual lovemaking scenes. This is not to say that all women want to be raped. This is to say that if women can fantasize about rape but not wish to experience it, then men, too, can fantasize about rape and not wish to commit it.On a brighter side, pornography can be socially beneficial. The liberal position also considers that pornography may be beneficial in allowing the individual to create a fantasy world built around sexual interests. There is the suggestion that pornographic materials provide a way of releasing strong sexual urges without causing harm to others.Public opinion surveys conducted by the 1970 commission indicated that many people agreed with this assessment. The panel funded public opinion survey of American adults (aged 21 and up) and of young persons (aged 15 – 20) to determine whether Americans through the availability of erotic materials was a social problem. When asked about the effect of exposure to erotic materials on themselves, individuals were more likely to list effects the commission termed socially desirable than socially undesirable...
