Pornography has been likened to a mirror reflecting the lens through which men perceive women. I propose this reflection, often distorted and disconcerting, is broader, encompassing how we interact morally, politically, and epistemically. In this paper, I argue that anti-pornography proponents who assert that pornography oppresses the class of women through sexual objectification crucially overlook how stereotypes function as a conduit for sexual objectification that extends beyond the oppression of women to affect various highly essentialized social groups. Analyzing stereotypes as a vehicle for sexual objectification, this paper presents three paradigmatic cases to illustrate how pornography perpetuates oppression through racial and sexually objectifying stereotypes. Using an intersectional framework, I argue that certain highly essentialized social groups may find themselves objectified on multiple axes, facing distinct challenges that exacerbate the oppression they experience. By extending antipornography arguments through an analysis of racial and sexually objectifying stereotypes, I advocate for a broader understanding of the impacts of pornography, and the need for a more inclusive and nuanced approach to its critique.

Consent has the power to make otherwise impermissible conduct admissible. It has the function to permit Facebook access to user generated data, and in contrast, to prohibit access in its absence. Consent to this exchange will often be in conflict with the end user’s own digital privacy, raising the question of whether consent is sufficient for respecting users. Some contend exchanging user generated data for ‘cost free’ services is unproblematic because they’ve nothing to hide. While this argument is deeply distressing, a nuanced  philosophical discussion concerns not what users have to hide, but what they stand to lose as encroachments upon their digital privacy become ubiquitous. The prevalence of digital privacy encroachment in our daily lives raises two concerns. The first is how service agreements use unclear and obfuscating language that challenge the user’s ability to make an informed decision; the second concern is just that privacy, and what is valuable about privacy, is lost. The first concern has been widely addressed within information computer technology research and as a result, self-regulatory codes have emerged to provide suggestions for improving the transparency of these contracts. The second, concerning what is lost as a result of this exchange, is scantily examined, and as such, motivates the focus of this paper.

I propose one untapped resource for discovering new insights on digital privacy can be explicated from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and Doctrine of Virtue by Immanuel Kant. It is on Kant’s framework, which I shall focus, that will alert us to what has been missing from the digital privacy debate and why the forfeiture of digital privacy constitutes great harm. This paper argues the forfeiture of digital privacy results in the objectification of rational beings on Kant’s account and further identifies how waiving the right to digital privacy constitutes a certain dereliction of duties to oneself and to others.