Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist David Horsey a political commentator for the
Los Angeles Times maintains Thanks to the Internet Americans have been pushed unwittingly into a vast social experiment testing whether unfettered access to the most freakish and foul pornography will warp sexual relations for generations to come. Common sense and a growing body of evidence suggest that there is a negative cost being paid that only begins with the sex trafficking and exploitation undergirding the lower depths of the porn industry."
Sex-as-a-business (pornography prostitution strip clubs phone sex and even comic books and Play Station games) is estimated to be a $97 billion industry. U.S. sales of sex toys alone generate $15 billion. Last year the porn industry raked in $13 billion by producing 13000 videos while Hollywood grossed about $12 billion in the movie business.
Gail Dines Professor of Sociology at Bostons Wheelock College observes that A lot of people believe the Internet drives porn but in fact much of the research and development for todays technology is driven by the porn industry itself." Case in point: Mind Geek who owns several porn sites is the number three bandwidth-consuming company in the world; the other two being Google and Netflix.
Pornhub with a net worth of $2.5 billion recorded 23 billion visits last year and reports that teen" mom" and step-sister" were among its top ten search terms. Step-mom" was number two. Their website features such flicks as Whos Your Daddy" Nineteen" and Tortured."
Gail Dines who is also author of
Todays Pornography and the Crisis of Violence Against Women and Children notes: We cannot speak about rape child sexual abuse teen dating violence domestic violence or college sexual assault without understanding porn as a driving force behind the normalization and legitimization of violence against women and children."
Stanford University Emeritus Professor Philip Zimbardo writes in
Psychology Today: Some people can watch porn occasionally and not suffer significant side effects; however plenty of people including teens and pre-teens with highly plastic brains find they are compulsively using Internet porn and their porn tastes are becoming out of sync with their real-life sexuality. Researchers found that the hours and years of porn use were correlated with decreased grey matter in regions of the brain associated with reward sensitivity. It may be no coincidence then that porn users report less satisfaction in their relationships and real-life intimacy and attachment problems."
That insensitivity and alienation is reflected in the results of a survey of 8
th-12
th graders published in September 2017 issue of
The Atlantic:
- In 2000 80 percent of teens dated but by 2015 that number had steadily gone down to 55 percent.
- Teens hung out" with friends on the average of three days a week in 2000 but in 2015 the average dropped to two days a week.
- In 2000 22 percent of teens admitted to often feeling lonely;" that figure jumped to 34 percent in 2015.
Consider too the North Carolina State University poll (38 of respondents were female) on the question of How often did you view pornography:" 30 percent of students watch porn at least once maybe a few times a month 20 percent said several times each week and 10 percent admitted they watch porn daily.
In 2016 the London-based Internet Watch Foundation identified over 57000 URLs containing child sexual abuse images. Over 39000 Verified Registered Sex Offenders have profiles on MySpace and those are just the ones who have registered their real names. The Crimes Against Children Research Center reports that one in five teenagers say they have received an unwanted sexual solicitation via the Web.
The most popular day of the week to watch porn is Sunday and a
study of 3000 adults and teenagers and 800 pastors and youth pastors commissioned
by Josh McDowell Ministries found that: 14 percent of pastors and 21 percent of youth pastors admit they struggle with using porn; 12 percent of youth pastors concede they are addicted; 26 percent of self-identified Christian teenagers ages 13 to 17 watch porn at least once a week.
According to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation the Justice Department has not initiated any new enforcement actions against adult-obscenity cases since President Barack Obama took office in early 2009. In 2011 U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder ended the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force that President George W. Bush created in 2005.
Candidate Donald Trump signed a pledge to aggressively enforce federal obscenity laws child pornography laws and the sex trafficking laws" and to appoint an Attorney General who will make the prosecution of such laws a top priority." However when asked about re-establishing the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force at his confirmation hearing Attorney General Jeff Sessions said I didnt know it was shut down Ill look into it."
In contrast at least 13 states conservatives are pushing legislation to restrict and regulate the porn industry. A bill in South Carolina would make it illegal for anyone in the state to sell a computer tablet or smartphone without a porn filter which companies would update via dedicated 24/7 support centers. Consumers would have to submit a written request and a payment of $20 to get the filter removed and money from these fees would go toward anti-trafficking efforts. Advocates of a paywall even includes porn film star James Deen: I want all adult websites to be behind an age-verification wall. You cant just say Yes Im 18 you actually have to input a credit card or something to create an 18-and-older environment."
Mark Stabile of the porn industrys lobbying front the Free Speech Coalition believes these filter laws will soon be moving through the legislature in up to 24 states.
Recently Utah became the first state to allow lawsuits against pornographers for damage to minors including seeking reimbursement for any therapy expenses. Rep. Kevin Stratton the House sponsor of the bill said This is an effort to hold those who are profiting from the harm of pornography accountable for the damages that are done." Utah State Senator Todd Weiler notes that Seventy years ago the tobacco industry denied that its product was addictive and they denied that their products were harmful. The first 30 or so people that sued them lost but eventually that tide turned."
Outside of government Starbucks and McDonalds with a combined total of 21000 venues offering Wi-Fi have blocked X-rated websites. Marriott and Hilton announced that their in-room cable offerings would no longer include the pornography channels and Google has stopped running pornography in Google Play and on their advertising platform.
Monitoring and regulating the porn industry is not a problem the government can or should address on its own. The responsibility must first be with parents and in the private sector from sociologists to medical professionals and from spiritual leaders to lawmakers - and a strong campaign of caveat emptor for consumers is necessary. As George Mason warned No free government or the blessing of liberty can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice moderation temperance frugality and virtue and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
