Friday, April 3, 2009

Topic 5 :: Obscenity, pornography and indecency

Hello again, for another blog entry in this Media Culture blog of mine.
My stomach is like a tumble dryer now for some reason and its full with things going round and round including subway biscuits.

Anyways:

Obscenity, pornography and indecency: What are the differences between these terms?

ob·scen·i·ty
n. pl. ob·scen·i·ties
1. The state or quality of being obscene.
2. Indecency, lewdness, or offensiveness in behavior, expression, or appearance.
3. Something, such as a word, act, or expression, that is indecent or lewd.
4. Something that is offensive or repulsive to the senses

por·nog·ra·phy
1. Sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal.
2. The presentation or production of this material.
3. Lurid or sensational material

in·de·cen·cy
n. pl. in·de·cen·cies
1. The state or quality of being unseemly or immodest.
2. Something indecent(Offensive to public moral values; immodest).

In which, all definitions taken from here.

In regards to this, i shall try to explain the differences between these two terms in my own basic understanding.
First of all, let's start off in stages so i'll begin with indecency which derived from the word 'indecent'. Indecent is, something that is offensive to public moral values. Like, for example, someone who is wearing a short mini skirt going to a formal event, that is called indecent. Stuffing 10 types of cake in your mouth while everyone is eating only one is indecent. Kissing someone in public is an indecent act so from that, you can say that 'indecency' is something that is not usually subjected to the proper rules of us humans, something that you don't do in public.
Easier said, Improper or wicked or immoral behaviour.

Which leads to the second one, Obscenity on the other hand is when something indecent is done improperly which acts as something disgusting or just over the boundaries of indecency. Something that is disturbing in such a way like for example, watching a movie that deals with the dissection of human body, disturbing enough to make certain individuals cringe.
Or maybe something that relates to acts that are not to be seen public or just disturbing to an individual's senses.
Basically, obscenity is something that disturbs you. That deals with your senses and maybe even make you puke in a way. Depends on how you interpret it.

While Pornography on the other hand deals with both obscenity and indecency but more of towards the sexual part of it. Pictures that deals with nudity and even obscene/indecent images connecting to sexual ideas used to arouse individuals to provoke them into the world of sexually explicit content. For example, magazines that deals with naked women in it, movies that portray sexual activities or images, Visuals that depict any part of the human mind and body done in a sexual aspect.
Or maybe cow on cow action.

Somehow, in a way, all three of them connects together to form one big idea which pornography.
But at the same time, the three of them maintain a different sort of idea depending on the situation and how you view it altogether.





As for class this week;
There was no proper class, except for Mr.Radzi coming in and telling us we have this assignment on 800 word essay of some sort.
So i guess there's not much to say, ya?








Refrain yourself from watching obscene things.

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