Definition

1. Adjective:
   • Designed to arouse sexual excitement or lust: Describes materials, such as images, videos, or texts, whose primary purpose is to stimulate sexual desire. This is the core and most common meaning.
   • Explicitly depicting sexual activity: Characterizes content that shows sexual acts or nudity in a graphic and direct manner, typically without artistic, educational, or other non-sexual justification.

Usage

• The adjective pornographic is used to describe media, literature, or imagery.
• It is a formal and legal term, often used in contexts discussing censorship, law, media classification, or societal standards.
• It carries a strong negative connotation, implying the material is obscene or intended solely for sexual arousal.

Examples

• The court ruled that the material was pornographic and not protected as free speech.
• They seized a large quantity of pornographic magazines.
• The film was banned for its pornographic content.
• He was charged with distributing pornographic images online.

Advanced Usage

• "Pornographic violence": A metaphorical use describing extreme, gratuitous, and sensationalized depictions of violence, often in media, that are compared to pornography in their intent to shock or arouse base instincts.
  • Some critics accused the war documentary of featuring pornographic violence.

Variants and Related Words

• Pornography (n): The collective term for pornographic material.
  • The debate focused on the effects of online pornography.
• Pornographer (n): A person who produces or sells pornographic material.

Synonyms

• Obscene: Offensive or disgusting by accepted standards of morality and decency.
• Erotic: Relating to or tending to arouse sexual desire or excitement. (Note: can have a more artistic or less explicitly graphic connotation than ).
• Salacious: Having or conveying undue or inappropriate interest in sexual matters.
• X-rated: Formerly used as a classification for films with explicit adult content.

Antonyms

• Chaste: Not having any sexual nature; pure.
• Decent: Conforming with generally accepted standards of respectable or moral behavior.
• Wholesome: Conducive to or suggestive of good health and physical well-being; morally beneficial.

Related Idioms/Phrases

• "Pornographic detail": Used figuratively to describe an excessive, intrusive, and unnecessarily graphic level of detail about any subject, not just sex.
  • The biography went into pornographic detail about the star's financial troubles.

Adjective

1. designed to arouse lust
   • pornographic films and magazines
   • adult movies