Waiting on Florida’s death row to be executed, convicted serial killer Ted Bundy told an interviewer that violence- laced pornography had incited him to murder twelve-year-old Kimberly Leach and some thirty other young women.

People who believe that pornography is harmful point to criminals such as Ted Bundy as proof that pornography causes violence against women. In an interview with James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Bundy admitted that he saw pornography as “an indispensable link in the chain of behavior, the chain of events that led to the behavior, to the assaults, to the murders.” Psychologist Edward Donnerstein contends that violent pornography causes ordinary men—not just sexual deviants—to become desensitized to rape. In a more general sense, many critics claim that pornography demeans people and damages morality.

Many people disagree that pornography is harmful...