I have a sociology teacher at the community college promoting porn in the classroom. I believe it is the main way that women are oppressed and degraded in this society. How does one stop it? Also is there a way to get newspapers of sexual content in downtown areas and at public transportation hubs (usually with a women on the cover in a sexual pose)?

Porn is taking over and it is common practice to have women objectified everywhere how can we slow the progression of this phenomenon? Any people who feel like me that can make a difference. It is was disturbing to me as a young girl to see women exposed and men censored.

Please help,

Deanna Rodriguez

Dear Deanna Rodriguez,

Porn, like eating disorders, seems like one of the issues that feels impossible to curb. (Eating disorders, because I think it requires us to change our own attitudes and I don't think we can do that -- but that's an aside.) As for porn -- you can certainly try to file a complaint at the city/county level against whatever visible pornography exists in your town.

However, to do so successfully, you have to have concrete examples of how this has directly hurt the community. For instance, did someone see these images and then rape a woman -- or something that can be directly tied back to that act of porn? The main reason that we haven't been able to do away with porn is because too many people support it -- it's like undocumented workers in this country -- if we really wanted to curb it, we would go after the employers, not the immigrants. But, as with both immigrant labor and porn--as a society we have become addicted to them and thus dependent. The most success people have had in eliminating porn or forcing it underground really is by creating or enforcing town ordinances.

See what might already exist in your area that could apply to this. That could be a great class project. You should also reference the work of Dianne R. Russell, who is a professor at the Univ. of CA @ Berkeley -- her work is entirely devoted to uprooting the porn industry.

Good Luck,

- Amy