So that an adult who enjoys masturbating while watching a video of two other adults having sex and sees this activity as an acceptable and in fact healthy and joyous celebration of her or his sexuality will in most cases be horrified to see a video in which a child is being forced to have sex or anyone is being raped (Lauer & Lauer, 2007, p. 44). Because an individual's reactions to pornography are directly and fundamentally related to that person's understanding of the meaning of sexuality, the symbolic interactionist approach seems to be the best fit of all of the major sociological perspectives. One of the additional strengths of this perspective is that it easily accommodates a range of different understanding of any phenomenon. It can explain why one individual sees pornography as one entirely acceptable aspect of sexuality while it can just as easily explain why others see it either as a sign of perversion (for those who hold conservative attitudes toward sexuality) or exploitative (as many feminists do).

Individuals who see pornography (at least pornography involving consenting adults) do not generally consider it to be a problem to be addressed and so do not see the need for any "solution" to the use of pornography, except that they may see the need for more regulation to protect children or to protect sex workers from contracting STDs. Such individuals see the conditions that produce pornography as simply being the expression of human sexuality and the consequences as either benign or healthy (Lauer & Lauer, 2007, p. 4).

This in turn can be linked to a range of other factors: Some people think that those of a different religion or race are more likely to have immoral or abnormal sexual desires and practices. The conditions associated with pornography thus tend to be lack of adherence to a proper set of religious beliefs and practices and generally to an immoral life that might include drug use. For individuals in this group, the solution to the social problem of pornography is to ban it (Lauer & Lauer, 2007, p. 45).
Those who believe that the business of pornography exploits women generally also support a ban, although for quite different reasons (Lauer & Lauer, 2007, p. 45). The fact that a symbolic interactionist approach permits the untangling of such different motivations and meanings around the same goal is a demonstration of its strength.

One of the major limitations of the functionalism, which was the first major theoretical approach in sociology, is that it does not allow for the presence of a high degree of conflict in society around certain issues nor does it allow for individuals to draw different meanings from the same objects or sets of experiences. Given how diverse societies are and how complicated individuals are, such flexibility in a theoretical model is essential.

References

Lauer, R. & Lauer, J. (2007). Social problems and the quality of life (11th ed.) New…