CHAPTER 7:
PROSTITUTION, PORNOGRAPHY, AND THE SEX INDUSTRY
By the end of this chapter students will be able to:
- Identify sexual behavior that is classified as deviant.
- Analyze behavior considered as deviant from the three approaches sociologists use to study deviance.
- Understand the difference between civil law and criminal law.
- List and define the four types of heterosexual behavior classified as deviance.
- Evaluate the extent of prostitution as a social problem globally and in the United States.
- Analyze prostitution from the functionalist, symbolic interactionist, and conflict perspectives.
- Summarize the different explanations of prostitution from the conflict perspective including the liberal, radical, and Marxist frameworks.
- Define pornography and develop a framework that qualifies it as a social problem.
- Cite the differences between obscenity and erotica and explain why obscenity may qualify as a social problem but erotica would not.
- Discuss the nature and extent of pornography in the United States.
- Develop a profile of the typical viewer of pornographic material.
- Discuss the difference in popularity of pornography among men and women and how the difference is changing.
- Summarize the differing results on the research addressing the potential link between viewing pornography and sex crimes and other antisocial behavior.
- Discuss the four major views of pornography.
- Forecast the future of the sex industry in the United States and as a global market.
