Pornography and Erotica in Israel

The Legal SituationUntil recently, Israel had at least nominal censorship on the theater and cinema. Written and audio materials were regulated only on grounds of security and not moral ones, and only public pressure created some restrictions. Abolishing censorship on the theater and cinema in 1990, part of an ongoing process of increasing the boundaries of freedom of expression as a basic human right, allows the production and dissemination of explicit sexual acts, and of violent ones, in print, film, and video formats.
Currently, despite the fact that there are less restrictions on moral grounds, there is a relatively recent law about displaying offensive materials in public that allows people to sue for damages if their feelings are hurt by specific items. Until now, the attempts to use this law have been restricted to religious issues. It seems that this does not include films or otherwise displayed for a fee, especially if the public is warned about the presence of sexual materials. This is still vague, since different aspects of the law have to be tried through a full cycle of litigation before its extent and effectiveness are established.
Restrictions on importing pornographic materials in commercial quantities by customs control are inefficient, and developments in satellite television and videotaping make them obsolete. This, combined with the rise in VCRs during the 1980s and cable television in the early 1990s, expose much wider segments of the population to both soft and hard pornography. Another prominent development concerning the public treatment of sexual issues is the increased commercialization of sex that started in the mid-1980s and intensified in the early 1990s.
Response of the Religious SectorThere is opposition to the increase of explicit materials aired in public from the religious sector. The more orthodox do not allow TV sets in homes and would shun those who do. Their reactions toward the treatment of sexual issues in public range from the economic boycotting of products promoted by what they consider offensive depictions in their advertisements (including dinosaurs!) to the defacing of commercial display windows and the burning down of bus stops. Because the glass/plastic walls of bus stops in Israel are used for displaying advertisements, conservative religious youths mounted a campaign of destroying bus stops displaying "offensive" ads. They later managed to persuade both advertisers and advertising firms, through boycotting, to change their policy and display different ads in areas where there is a large population of ultra orthodox.
The Response of the Secular PublicSecular Jews are mainly concerned with two other aspects of pornography: sexual depictions that are demeaning or threatening to segments of the population and the effects of pornography on children and adolescents.
The influence of pornography on children and early adolescents is a source of concern to some parents, psychologists, and educators. Because sex is a very private matter, children and adolescents who are exposed to pornography have no objective criteria to compare it to and may believe that many or most of the things shown are part of normative behavior of adults. This may cause some difficulties in their emotional reactions to adult and parental sexuality. They are also unaware of the manipulations that are done in making these films, and that can create problems of self-image or fear regarding the sexual organs. There has been speculation that several cases of sexual violence among adolescents, especially those involved with group sex, are related to pornography. Despite the fact that there is no hard evidence to support this assertion, it cannot be ignored and should be researched appropriately.
Two issues are at the core of the secular political discourse. First, which of the following is the most prominent feature of pornography: the commercialized and dehumanized treatment of the human body, the linking of sex and violence, or its use by heterosexual males to dominate women and to perpetuate a sexist and heterosexist society? The second issue focuses on how to counteract the pernicious effects of pornography and whether censorship or social control are a remedy, or a worse disease.
Sex Education and PornographySeveral efforts are being made to incorporate units dealing more effectively with pornography and its impact within the sex education programs in schools. The basic approach is that since there is very little hope of lowering the exposure of children and early adolescents to pornography unless there is a major social change, it is important to give them the skills to deal with its potential effects. The concern is focused on the explicitness of such units and on the claim that they may raise the interest in pornography or lower the barrier to exposure.