Pornography not only harms certain individuals, but also inflicts harm on women as a whole by spreading throughout society and violating their personal rights, equality, and survival rights. We call this the "social harm of pornography."
Social damage
Damage from environmental porn
We are surrounded by pornographic material: the sex section of the sports paper, train hanging ads, pornographic magazines and novels sold at kiosks, sex flyers and posters, and pornographic magazines and comics displayed openly in convenience stores and bookstores.
All of these magazines treat women's naked or semi-nude bodies as sexual spectacles, and manga that sexualize young girls are openly sold in convenience stores with the plot on the table. Many magazine articles contain sexually violent or sexually harassing content, and the headlines alone are enough to be considered sexual harassment.
Even if we don't want to see it, pornographic material inevitably finds its way into our field of vision. In video rental stores, the children's animation section often has pornographic animations that sexually abuse children.
The same is true in the world of the Internet. Pornographic content is commonly found among the advertisements that are displayed unconditionally. We live in an Internet environment where even children can easily access pornography with just a few clicks.
We call this "environmental pornography damage." Like "environmental sexual harassment," this creates a social environment in which women and children (and some men too) cannot live their social lives with peace of mind.
In particular, when the type of pornography is brutal and violent pornography, the shock, fear, and shame experienced by witnessing it unexpectedly without any psychological preparation can be recognized as sufficient damage. Furthermore, if the person who directly views the pornography is a sexual victim, the impact will be even greater.
Social degradation through pornography
Many women avoid pornography, especially pornography depicting brutal sexual violence, and try to avoid looking at it as much as possible. However, no matter how much they may not see it directly, as long as it is widely present in society, disseminated and consumed, they cannot escape the harm it causes: the decline in women's social status, the strengthening of sexual contempt, the sexual objectification of women, and the worsening of sexual inequality.
In various genres of AV, women are treated as mere sexual objects to be consumed and played with, raped, molested, tied up, beaten and kicked, hung from the ceiling, covered in filth, caged, with instruments and rods inserted into their genitals and anus, stabbed with needles, collared, enslaved, treated like dogs, made to have sex with animals, exposed in the street, covered in feces and urine, and made to eat them. Thousands, even tens of thousands, of such videos are distributed in society every year as "entertainment". How can a society that tolerates such conditions guarantee women's personal rights, equality, and the right to live safely and securely?
Of course, there are cases where the subjects are not women or girls but men, gays, transsexuals or boys, and in those cases pornography violates the human rights of these people as well.
This social damage occurs whether the subject is a real woman or a non-realistic manga, anime, or CG. In the case of non-realistic pornography, things can be done to anime or manga characters that would be impossible to do to real women or children (from dismemberment to torture to death), and in some ways it can send a more sexist or sexually violent message than using a living flesh-and-blood human (such as a girl being tortured, but willingly accepting it and feeling strong sexual pleasure from it).
In a non-existent world, any kind of cruel and inhumane expression is possible, and such things are openly bought and sold on the Internet, in convenience stores, bookstores, doujinshi specialty stores, etc. Can such a society be called a gender-equal society? Can we say that women and children are respected as equal human beings in such a society?
Many pornography advocates deny that pornography violates human rights because not everyone who watches pornography becomes a rapist. However, the very existence and circulation of pornography in society is a violation of the human rights of all women (and children) from the start.
If you still cannot imagine the social damage caused by the social circulation of such pornography, try replacing women with a particular race or ethnicity. If works (real or non-real action) that target a particular race or ethnicity treat them as the playthings, slaves, or animals of another race or ethnicity, and are mass-produced and enjoyed for entertainment (not for exposé), can we call such a society racially equal? Can members of such a society live with dignity and security?