Over the last 40 years, pornography has gone from peep shows in dingy alleys to a multi-billion dollar industry which advertises new releases on billboards in Manhattan.
The pornography and erotica industry is growing at a seemingly relentless pace. Its stars have become household names and cultural icons, spawning VH1 specials on their lives and even best-selling books.
Jenna Jameson's "How to Make Love like a Porn Star" debuted in the top 10 of the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list earlier this month.
Porn has even slipped into politics.
When porn star Mary Carey, who has appeared in "New Wave Hookers 7" among other films, ran for California governor in 2003, she received 11,061 votes.
Pornographic film has evolved into a $10 billion a year industry, according to estimates by Adult Video News. Southern California annually churns out thousands of pornographic films.
The porn industry is so strong it is apparently recession-proof, according to a 2002 Associated Press report. The sales and rental of pornographic films increased between 1997 and 2002 while other sectors of the U.S. economy faltered.
The South African newspaper Mail and Guardian reported that while feature film making dropped 13 percent in 1999, porn production rose 25 percent.
Playboy's paid circulation stands at over three million, according to the Playboy Enterprises Web site. Each month, the magazine, which this month features a "Girls of the ACC" pictorial, appears in 17 international editions. Three University women appear in the recently released October issue.
Some argue this pervasiveness of porn is dangerous.
Ann J. Lane, professor of history and studies in women and gender, said pornography reinforces the notion that women are objects.
Exposure to pornography leads men to have a distorted view of women, Lane said. Because of this objectification, a man might be more likely to partake in sexual violence.
Lane said women who enter the porn industry can become consumed with their role as a sexual object.
"It offends me that women achieve some recognition because they have sexy bodies," Lane said.
Girls take on a dangerous persona that "I am my sexy body," she added. Pornography "does not help women achieve equality in human society."
In his 1995 book "The Centerfold Syndrome," Texas A&M psychologist Gary Brooks identified five syndromes in men caused by viewing soft-core pornography.
These included voyeurism, the desire to look at women rather than interact with them; objectification, basing a person's worth on their physical attributes; and a fear of true intimacy.
"I am offended by porn when it assumes that I'm nothing more than eye candy, that I'm not here at U.Va. first and foremost to learn and prepare myself for a fruitful career, and that I'm universally sexually available," said Jill Raney, president of All Women Attaining Knowledge and Enrichment in an e-mail response.
Playboy publicist Mel Gorski distanced Playboy from the label "porn," and instead characterized the legendary magazine as a celebration of women.
"We do consider Playboy erotic, not pornographic," Gorski said. "We don't portray women in a demeaning way."
Nude pictures do not constitute pornography, she asserted.
"The women who pose for Playboy ultimately find it empowering," Gorski said. "There are healthy attitudes toward women that Playboy wants to promote especially in this [the Girls of the ACC] issue. You can work, go to school and be sexy."
Playboy does have its supporters.
"I feel like it's art," said second-year College student Brianna Timmons, who appeared in the issue.
Second-year College student Brittani Osbourne said she believes "Playboy is a positive expression of a woman's body."
But Lauren Russo, president of the University's chapter of the National Organization for Women classified Playboy as pornography.
Russo said, however, that she does not believe there is necessarily a problem with pornography -- only material that degrades women.
Russo said she disagrees with the way Playboy represents women and the unrealistic body ideal it promotes.
English Prof. Susan Fraiman said nudity is not inherently degrading toward women but disagrees with how Playboy chooses to portray women as objectified, static creatures simply for a man's gaze.
The women are "airbrushed into [an] impossible ideal," Fraiman said.
Pornography also cannot be written off as anti-women, she said. There is a difference between healthy depictions of women getting pleasure and not being used for sex, and the ultimately more harmful portrayals of idealized women, Fraiman said.
Pornography also cannot be condemned as the only stage on which women can be degraded.
Often it is mainstream films like "Fatal Attraction" where a sexually aggressive women is punished, she added.
Cavalier Daily staff writer Jessica Halper contributed to this story.
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