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The Harms Of Pornography
Guide to Family Issues: The Harms of Pornograpy
Publisher
United Families International
Writing & Research
Dennis Durband
Editing
Marcia Barlow
Graphic Design
Larry Mishler
© June 2008
United Families International
P.O. Box 2630, Gilbert, Arizona85299-2630
(480) 632-5450 Office / (480) 892-4417 FAX
www.unitedfamilies.org
Introduction
About the Guide
This publication includes peer-reviewed scientific research, expert commentary and sound logical arguments regarding the harmful consequences to society of pornography. In preparation for this publication, United Families International (UFI) reviewed a vast number of social science studies on the topic of pornography. Watch for updates to this and other similar guides on topics impacting the family on UFI’s website: www.unitedfamilies.org
Position Statement
Lacking in socially redeeming value, pornography represents a significant and growing menace to families, individuals, employers and communities. The price tag of pornography is crime, exploitation, sexual assault, child abuse, fractured marriages and families, addiction and compulsion, distracted and uprooted lives and tremendous social costs for the communities, employers and government agencies paying the resultant costs. Governments have proven incapable of protecting the public from the consequences of pornography. Too often, courts have undermined legislative remedies and community standards because they are unwilling to distinguish between freedom of speech and obscenity. Pornography is entrenched by its profitability and wealth.
United Families International opposes pornography in all forms and urges families to monitor usage of their home computers and cell phones to reduce exposure to pornographic media. Parents are responsible for teaching their children what does and does not constitute healthy sexuality. Rather than trust family members to the temptations posed by the easy accessibility of pornography, families can instead take opportunities to engage in healthy, family-strengthening activities that build relationships. By holding one another accountable in not viewing pornography, families around the world can make progress in drying up the markets and the profitability of pornography. Furthermore, UFI implores the world’s private business sector to weigh civic responsibility vs. a profits-at-all cost mentality and limit the corporate mainstreaming of pornography. The obscene profits of pornography exact a staggering toll in human suffering: fractured marriages and families, devastated lives and preventable social agency costs. Courts of law should uphold practical community standards which are carefully crafted by local governments in the attempt to reduce exposure to and the harms of pornography.
About United Families International
United Families International is a 501(c)(3) public charity devoted to strengthening the traditional family as the fundamental unit of society at the local, national and international levels. UFI is a worldwide organization, accredited with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. UFI seeks (1) to educate government, community and religious leaders and citizens at the grass roots level on issues affecting the family and (2) to promote public policies and programs that preserve the traditional family.
Table of Contents
Index of Charts
Executive Summary
Foreword
Questions & Answers about Pornography
Impact on Marriage
Risks of Pornography
“Mainstreaming” Porn
Guarding against Obscenity
Creation of Porn Markets
Harms to Children
Porn Addiction
Gender
Academic Studies
Government and Pornography
Healthy Sexuality
Fast Fact and Commentary Index
INTRODUCTION
Definitions
United Nations Document Provision
PHYSICAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT
Addiction and Compulsion
FAMILY IMPACT
Marriage
Families
Men
Women
Children
BUSINESS ASPECTS
The Business of Pornography
Pornography in the Work Place
Creation of Pornography Markets
TECHNOLOGY
The Internet
THE PUBLIC SQUARE
The Courts and Regulation
Pornography In the Neighborhood
U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography
Pornography in Public Libraries
CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES
Child Pornography
Rapists, Killers and Pedophiles
Trafficking and Prostitution
Crime
Organized Crime
ACADEMIC EXERCISES
The Classroom
Behavioral Studies
DIVIDED OVER PORNOGRAPHY
Feminism
PROPONENTS OF PORNOGRAPHY
The American Civil Liberties Union
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography
HEALTHY SEXUALITY
What Constitutes Healthy Sexuality?
Resources
Helpful Tips for Home Internet Use
Index of Charts
Chart I – Cyber Porn’s Impact on Relationships
Chart II – Online Victimization
Chart III – Unwanted Exposure: Age of Target
Chart IV – Receipt of Prevention Messages
Chart V – Pornographic Web Pages Produced by Country
Chart VI – U.S. Pornography Industry Revenue Statistics
Chart VII – Annual Pornography Revenues by Country
Chart VIII – U.S. Hardcore Pornography Titles Released by Year
Chart IX – Pornography in the Workplace
Chart X – U.S. Adult Internet User Demographics-Income
Chart XI – U.S. Adult Internet Usage by Age
Chart XII – Male-Female Use of Internet
Chart XIII – Impact of Cyber-Sex Addicts on Their Families
Chart XIV – Pornography Acceptance and Use Among College-Age Adults
Chart XV – Acceptance of Pornography
Executive Summary
Definitions of Pornography
Writings, pictures, etc. intended primarily to arouse sexual desire; the production of such writings, pictures, etc.
Webster’s Dictionary
Since the arrival of the Internet, cell phones and the DVD and video industries, pornography has become the most pervasive and immediate threat to marriages and families – adults and children. Addiction and divorce are the most recognizable social costs of pornography, but the costs run much deeper. United Families International’s “Guide to Family Issues: The Harms of Pornography”examines what is perhaps the most insidious threat to individuals and families around the globe today.
Daniel Weiss, media and sexuality analyst for Focus on the Family and project manager forPureIntimacy.org, offers the following perspective on pornography:
“Through much of our nation’s history, Americans have intuitively understood the danger to family and community posed by pornographic and obscene material. But things have changed. Starting in the early twentieth century, increased automation, communication and entertainment options brought about a more materialistic view of the world. Movements promoting eugenics became popular and influential. These developments set the foundations upon which our current fascination with pornography stands. Human beings began to be seen less as unique creations with inherent dignity and more as objects to be manipulated to further personal aims. These ideas of the mere utility of people blossomed during the sexual revolution and have steadily grown to reap their disastrous reward today. To win the battle against the consumption and disposal of human beings so common to pornography, we must rediscover what it means to be human—and live with the purpose of treating others—and ourselves—as such.”
History and research reveal the many harms of pornography:
- Pornography seeks out people from all walks of life, then poisons and corrupts them. The allure of substantial profits seduces corporations, hotel chains, cable television companies and Internet entrepreneurs – without concern for the well-being of families.
- Pornography has the propensity to deaden husbands’ attraction for their wives. The result is often heartache, alienation and divorce.
- Pornography is a perpetrator of family breakdown.
- Pornography demeans its participants. It is a form of prostitution, and porn subjects are frequently the victims of molestation, rape, coercion and blackmail.
- Pornography corrupts children and robs them of their innocence. Children have been raped and murdered by the producers of pornography.
- Organized crime is heavily involved in pornography, and crime rates are much higher in the neighborhoods where pornography is available.
- Pornography takes billions of dollars out of economies that could be much better spent on the needs of families.
- Pornography is not a benign phenomenon; it leaves a clearly discernible trail of victims.
The scenes of sex crimes and the homes of those committing sex crimes are frequently littered with pornography. Pornography creates callous attitudes toward rape and causes users to develop distorted perceptions about sexuality. - Pornography acts as a harmful “drug.” Physiologically, viewing pornography commonly triggers internal, endogenous drug production. An image in a person’s head acts as an electrical signal for no more than a few seconds can leave a trace that will last for years.
- Pornography distorts a healthy understanding of human sexuality.
- Pornography is pervasive, and no one is beyond its reach. One does not have to look for pornography; it will find you.
- Driven by greed and a disregard for families and consumers, businesses continually seek to expand pornography’s reach by creating new markets.
- Pornography contributes to the rising tide of sex trafficking.
The preponderance of social science research demonstrates how pornography harms men, women, children, families and marriages and poisons homes, work places, governments, communities and corrupts the mass media culture.
Foreword
This publication provides factual support, motivation and encouragement to responsible citizens and policy makers in the continuing effort to preserve and protect the traditional family as the fundamental unit of society.
This guide strives to serve the following purposes:
To educate the public, government agencies, news media, non-governmental organizations, religious organizations, families and individuals on facts about cohabitation and the consequences of cohabitation to individuals and society;
To arm citizens with factual information that enables them to make informed decisions regarding relationships and family;
To equip policy makers with research, facts and logical arguments in favor of marriage; and
To provide a reference source to citizens for use in articulating the consequences of pornography.
The guide was also created to assist in advancing the debate in the following scenarios:
• legislative debates
• school board meetings
• city council meetings
• preparing letters to the editor
• classroom debates
• educational term papers
• community involvement
• discussions with friends, family and neighbors
The section on Questions & Answers about Pornography provides insight into the arguments frequently raised in discussions and publicity about pornography.
The section on Fast Facts & Commentary supplements the Answers’ section by providing peer-reviewed social science research and expert analysis that accurately portray the harms of pornography.
“All healthy men, ancient and modern, Western and Eastern, hold that there is in sex a fury that we cannot afford to inflame; and that a certain mystery must attach to the instinct if it is to continue delicate and sane.”
G.K. Chesterton, from the essay “Rabelaisian Regrets” in the book “The Common Man”
Questions & Answers
about Pornography
Supporting documentation
and commentary can be found
in the Fast Facts & Commentary section
| IMPACT ON MARRIAGE |
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“This is not about couples going to the porn store to spice up their sex lives. Men in growing numbers are using porn in ways that are secret, shameful and damaging. It is having a damaging impact on intimacy and sexuality.”
“The sex became impersonal and aggressive: It became more ‘porn’ style — pulling my hair, no kissing, slapping around a bit, all stuff I was initially okay with. There was no real intimacy, no thought about what I might like. Slowly, the sex tapered off: I would wake up and find him looking at it, I would go to bed at night and he would look at porn. We would argue; he would look at porn.” — A woman told theSydney Morning Heraldhow pornography wrecked her marriage
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Question 1 Can pornography serve as an aphrodisiac to help couples attain higher levels of sexual desire and enhance their marriage? |
Answer
Pornography actually dampens sexual interest among couples and is a contributing factor in divorces. In the place of a loving, focused relationship with a spouse, pornography substitutes fantasy relations with a two-dimensional, air-brushed image. The fantasy partner is always available, makes no demands, exists solely to please the viewer and delivers sexual climax without any give and take, with no need to exercise tenderness, sensitivity or compassion. There is no emotional attachment between “partners.” Compared to the fantasy affair, the demanding work of a genuine relationship with another real, living being can appear daunting. As porn users divert from interpersonal relationships and withdraw into pornography, the relationship with one’s spouse becomes increasingly strained and disconnected, which fuels a further withdrawal into fantasy.
Pornography addicts become increasingly dissatisfied with their mates and require increasing levels of stimuli in order to achieve sexual arousal. This makes sexual intimacy with a spouse less appealing, and pornography becomes nearly exclusive as the porn user’s sexual outlet.
Pornography may rouse a couple’s interest for a while, but wives with imperfect bodies lose out in the end because they cannot compete with the forever young, cosmetically-altered women in videos.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 7-73
Question 2
Can pornography be used as a helpful source of education in sexuality and teach people how to please their mate?
Answer
Pornography creates a false, self-focused view of human sexuality which is profoundly destructive to families. Among the unrealistic attitudes conveyed by pornography are the following myths perpetrated on porn users:
- Sex with anyone, under any circumstances, in any way, is beneficial and has no negative consequences for either party.
- Women have one purpose – to meet the sexual demands of men.
- Sexual objectification: the only thing that matters about women is their body parts.
- Even if women say no, they don’t mean it.
- Marriage and children are obstacles to sexual fulfillment.
- Monogamous relationships are boring.
- No one is monogamous and faithful to their spouse.
- Everyone is involved in either pre-marital or extra-marital sex.
- Young children are sexual beings at their core who desire to experience sexual pleasure.
According to the Final Report of the Attorney General’s 1985 Commission on Pornography, “Substantial exposure to material of this type will increase acceptance of the proposition that women like to be forced into sexual practices, and once again, that the woman who says “no” really means “yes.” (Final Report, p. 42).
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 7-73
| RISKS OF PORNOGRAPHY |
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“Significant effects of pornography are feelings of aggression and abuse. Exposure to particular kinds of erotic imagery can result in an increase in aggressive sexual fantasies, aggressive behavior, acceptance of anti-female attitudes, and specifically, in male aggression against females.”
After six weeks of exposure to nonviolent porn, subjects came to see non-monogamous relationships as normal, had developed callous attitudes toward rape and sought after more deviant, bizarre types of porn. Dolf Zillman and Jennings Bryant, Pornography’s Impact on Sexual Satisfaction, Journal of Applied Social Psychology 18(5) 1988, 438-453; and Dolf Zillman and Jennings Bryant, Effects ofProlonged Consumption of Pornography on Family Values, Journal of Family Issues 9(4) December 1988): 518-544.
“More than 3,000 research projects and scientific studies between 1960 and 1992 have confirmed the connection between a steady diet of violent entertainment and aggressive and anti-social behavior.”
“Research has shown that pornography and its messages are involved in shaping attitudes and encouraging behavior that can harm individual users and their families. Pornography is often viewed in secret, which creates deception within marriages that can lead to divorce in some cases. In addition, pornography promotes the allure of adultery, prostitution and unreal expectations that can result in dangerous promiscuous behavior.” The Effects of Pornography and Sexual Messages, National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families
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Question 3 Is pornography addictive? |
Answer
Pornography is highly addictive – more addictive than cocaine for some persons. Dr. Robert Weiss defined sexual addiction as an inability to stop despite negative consequences, such as lost sleep, lost wages or damaged relationships.
A Stanford/Duquesne universities study classified users as “cyber-sex compulsives” if they spent more than 11 hours a week visiting sexually-oriented areas.
Habitual users turn to pornography for a release from unmanageable stress. The sight of something shocking and forbidden provides an adrenalin rush and releases chemicals in the body, which deliver a temporary high. But stressors return when the high wears off and are aggravated by feelings of guilt and shame. This necessitates another dose of pornography, which in turn increases stress and the vicious cycle continues.
People have reported tremendous financial consequences attributable to experiences with pornography, including physical injury, mental trauma and loss of employment. One such person spent more than $500 a month on therapy. Another incurred hospitalization costs of nearly $30,000.*
Overcoming the problem is complicated by the shame attached to a sexual addiction. Addicts require a network of support in order to help them overcome their compulsive behavior. Pornography addicts must deal with loved ones’ disapproval and feelings of betrayal, and are liable to be marginalized as “perverts.”
*Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 7-28, 289-318
Question 4
Are people at risk of attitudinal changes by repeatedly viewing pornography?
Answer
Anyone and everyone who views pornography is susceptible to changes in attitude – up to and including compulsion and addiction. Like drug use, pornography is an escalating addiction for many people – adults and children.
Over time, the user becomes desensitized to soft porn images that previously were considered shocking. Users seek out more deviant material in order to obtain the same effect. Soft porn media contain numerous teasers (in cartoons, costuming, columns, Internet links) that whet users’ appetites for – and draw them into — more deviant material.
Empirical research suggests that when experimental subjects are exposed to repeated presentations of hardcore non-violent adult pornography over a six-week period, they:
- developed an increased callousness toward women; trivialized rape as a criminal offense (to some it was no longer a crime at all);
- developed distorted perceptions about sexuality;
- developed an appetite for more deviant, bizarre or violent types of pornography (escalation); normal sex no longer seemed to “do the job”;
- devalued the importance of monogamy and confidence in marriage as a lasting institution; and
- viewed non-monogamous relationships as normal and natural behavior.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 289-318
Question 5
Is pornography a harmless activity without adverse repercussions, except for “psychos” like Ted Bundy?
Answer
Fantasies do affect behavior, by altering sexual preferences. In the normal progression of the addiction, pornography addicts eventually act out their fantasies. Law enforcement authorities find evidence of ties between pornography and individuals engaging in sex crimes in eight out of 10 cases.
According to Dr. Victor Cline, who has treated more than 3,000 sex addicts and sexual offenders, the common course of unchecked porn addiction advances from addiction to escalation to desensitization to acting out.
Masturbation to deviant images is a surefire means of acquiring a deviant sexual compulsion or fetish. Stanley Rachman demonstrated in the laboratory how sexual deviations could be created in adult male subjects. He was able to condition, in two separate experiments, 100 percent of his male subjects into a sexual deviancy (fetishism).*
*(Stanley Rachman, “Experimentally induced sexual fetishism,” The Psychological Record, 1968, 18, p. 25.)
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 7-99, 118-130, 193-196, 212-277, 289-318
Question 6
Is the viewing of pornography a private matter and therefore a victimless activity?
Answer
Many arguments in defense of pornography have been perpetrated by the industry in attempting to protect its financial interests by minimizing opposition to graphic sexual depictions. As standards of decency decline, the treatment of women and children deteriorate as well. Marriages and families break down and sex crimes increase. The victims of pornography verify that it is not merely a “private matter.” Private behavior can have public consequences.
Among the many victims of pornography are:
- The subject of the pornographic production. Porn subjects are frequently victims of molestation and/or rape, and are many times coerced into their first photo-shoot and then blackmailed into continuing.
- Viewers who acquire deepening sexual dysfunction, twisted attitudes and decreased capacity for intimacy and sexual addiction.
- Marriages ending in divorce, resulting in broken homes.
- Addicts, who may also suffer career and/or financial loss.
- The children who are raped and murdered by persons who viewed child pornography. At the very least, pornography robs children of their innocence by portraying sexuality in perverted and bizarre ways which are detached from love, emotionally scarring them for life.
- Society at large suffers. Many people who are incarcerated due to sex crimes were motivated, at least in part, by porn and/or used pornography in the commission of their crimes against innocent citizens. Many sex offenders had viewed pornography prior to committing sex offenses.
- The work place, where decreased productivity and distraction from tasks and responsibilities, has resulted in sexual harassment, termination and other problems.
- Communities which bear the social costs of divorce, devaluation of property and reduced standard of living in the areas surrounding sex-oriented businesses.
- Victims of sex trafficking and forced prostitution.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 7-99, 118-130, 193-196, 212-277, 289-318“MAINSTREAMING” PORN
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“Pornography is a multi-billion-dollar industry inAmerica and is making multimillionaires of sicko producers, twisted directors and pathetic ‘actors’ — who have now made inroads into the mainstream culture.” Laura Ingraham, Ingraham taking back America, one reader at a time, Today, 12 September 2007, MSNBC
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Question 7 Once considered a “dirty business,” isn’t porn now considered a mainstream business? |
Answer
The pornography industry — and all too often, the media – tries to make that case. They base this assumption on the financial numbers involved in pornography. In doing so, they gloss over the many social harms which are also “mainstreamed.”
Worldwide, more than $100 billion was spent on pornography in 2006.
The story behind the story is this:
- Much of the money generated by the pornography industry goes to organized crime.
- Pornography has no socially redeeming value and does not enhance the cultural quality of communities.
- Pornography poses severe threats to families. Money spent on pornography can be diverted to much more worthwhile causes, such as cost of living needs and harmless leisure time activities and recreation.
- Pornography creates no high quality jobs.
The damages caused by pornography far outweigh any gains.
Corporations producing and peddling pornography profit off the backs of children and adults who are sometimes exploited in the production stages of the industry. Organized crime syndicates benefit from pornography sales.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 100-117, 131-135
| GUARDING AGAINST OBSCENITY |
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“Parents are the most effective guard against kids getting involved in pornography. It’s time for you to get involved in their life. Ask the tough questions. Talk about the dangers.” Craig Gross, XXXChurch.com
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Question 8 Should we depend on governments, courtsand laws to control obscenity? |
Answer
Government is inconsistent at best in combating obscenity. In theUnited States and Canada, courts of law have protected pornography and struck down a children’s online protection act. Adult obscenity is largely tolerated by governments, preferring to go after child pornographers.
The obscenity lobby is extremely well-funded and powerful. Anti-family interests have been successful in defending obscenity and in defining legal standards downward.
Concerned citizens working together can establish community standards and prevent sex-oriented businesses, such as strip bars, from opening in areas where they are inappropriate. Citizens may not be able to close down existing sex-oriented businesses, but they can push for the enactment of strict regulations on them. Consumers may not be able to persuade grocery stores to get rid of lewd magazines, but they can insist that the magazines be covered in wrapping paper, placed in obscure locations and sold only to adults. Citizens can urge hotel chains not to offer pornographic cable programming. In short, citizens may not be able to outlaw pornography, but they can work to educate people of its harms and advocate that the use of pornography is unthinkable.
Parents need to control and monitor the use of home computers, keeping them in areas of high visibility. Many good filtering programs are available and reasonably priced. Family engagement in wholesome activities is the best defense against the contamination of porn in the home.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 162-192, 327-336CREATION OF PORN MARKETS
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“As with video, the porn industry quickly realized the possibilities. Firms that had grown big and profitable off of video — Vivid Video, VCA Pictures, even the Playboy empire — could repackage and resell their product almost endlessly and distribute it, cheaply, via several media nationwide: rental and mail-order video, home and hotel pay-per-view, websites, porn magazines, and satellite TV.”
Nicholas Confessore, (2002, February 7), “Porn and Politics in a Digital Age,” Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
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Question 9 Has consumer demand created a market for pornography? Is the mass media merely responding to those demands by producing and distributing pornography? |
Answer
The adage, “if you build it, they will come,” fits appropriately into a discussion of pornography and consumer markets. There is no logical, historical or economic argument against the premise that the pornography industry has created its own markets. The mass media uses technological innovations to dangle pornography carrots in front of consumers, enticing them to access obscenity in new ways.
The “American Dictionary” offers this definition of “marketing”: “The commercial functions involved in transferring goods from producer to consumer.” The word “producer” precedes “consumer.”
The rise in pornography revenues directly correlates to the proliferation of cable television, video stores, pay-per-view TV, cell phones and the Internet, with its downloadable streaming video. Prior to the arrival ofPlayboy Magazine in 1954, pornography was largely unattainable. When pornography was mainstreamed on newsstands and in grocery stores, book stores, convenience stores and elsewhere, the markets were created and the cash flow followed.
In areas with high levels of access to Internet, cable TV, video and paper forms of pornography, the porn industry utilized existing market venues to create new markets and attract paying customers.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 131-135HARMS TO CHILDREN
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The Los Angeles Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit found “a strong correlation between child pornography and the sexual exploitation of children.”
Twenty-six popular children’s characters, such as Pokemon, My Little Pony and Action Man, were used as search terms to lure children into thousands of porn sites. Thirty percent were hardcore.
“Although much child pornography is probably consumed by pedophiles who are already stimulated by children, exposure to it may create new converts. It seems equally likely that child pornography can reinforce a partially developed interest and rationalize acting it out.” David Finkelhor, Sexual Abuse of Boys, Victimology 6: 71-84. Cited in: Diana Russell, Sexual Exploitation, (Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1984), 242.
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Question 10 Why are the creation of and access to child pornography treated so seriously? |
Answer
Obscenity and child pornography are not protected by the First Amendment and are not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press. Pornography exploits children in numerous ways. It warps children’s sense of what constitutes healthy and mature sexuality, exposes children to the risks of incest, pedophilia, sex trafficking, violence, acting upon pornographic images and loss of innocence. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimates that a large percentage of those who view child pornography have or will abuse their own children.
Between 2000 and 2004, federal criminal referrals of sexual exploitation over the Internet increased by 124 percent. One in five children will be solicited online. More than 50,000 predators are online at any given time. One in 33 of predator solicitations will result in the successful contact of a child by phone, letter or physical meeting. Many online predators use pornography to manipulate children and as a precursor to meeting them for illegal sexual relations.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 161, 183, 202, 204, 211-231, 242, 244, 251, 253, 260, 262-263
Question 11
Do pornography producers take adequate steps to minimize minors’ exposure to their product?
Answer
Pornographers have not made adequate attempts to minimize the exposure of minors to obscenity. Children are viewed as current porn consumers.
Scores of online pornographers have embedded the names of popular children’s toys in their websites so that Internet users are directed to their site when searching for toys.
Most children have encountered online porn and one in five has been sexually propositioned by adults or other children forwarding porn to them.
Some children’s websites are besieged by pop-up ads for adult sites. It is not uncommon for “children’s” video games to feature pimps, prostitutes and full nudity.
Boys in the 12-to-17 age range constitute pornography’s largest consumer group. It is not then surprising that the number of treatment centers for juvenile sex offenders has risen exponentially in recent years.
Pornographic sites on the Internet show free sample images and some sites employ the practice of “mousetrapping” – making it impossible to navigate out of their sites unless one shuts down the computer.
The pornography industry and organizations sympathetic to the pornography industry, such as the ACLU, have aggressively fought attempts by communities to place filters on library computers.
The only true “policing” available to prevent children from entering pornographic Internet sites is the involvement of parents and guardians in computer use. Unsupervised minors, who are naturally curious to learn about sexuality, are a mere click away from entering porn sites.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 142, 144-145, 148, 150
Question 12
Does exposure to child pornography create a desire for sexual contact with children in males for whom it did not previously exist?
Answer
Yes, exposure to child pornography can cause sexual arousal in some males who were not previously sexually interested in children.
The transition of a male’s arousal to child pornography can be achieved through a step-by-step process of exposure to gradually younger sexualized teenagers and eventually prepubescent girls. Seemingly normal heterosexual males can become sexually aroused by depictions of children that:
- sexually objectifies children
- merges sexual images of girls and women thereby increases male viewers’ propensity to use girls as sexual substitutes for women
- applies the laws of learning
Males who have become habituated to adult pornography and who now seek more extreme forms of pornography may divert to child pornography.
The “adultification” of child images can result in the merging of sexual images of girls and women. This is when girls are portrayed as mini-adults with the use of makeup, seductive clothes, sexy and adult-like poses and/or accompanying text. Like pseudo-child pornography, adultified child images can sexualize girls for some male viewers who never before felt sexual interest in young girls.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 8-15, 17-18, 20-24, 55-59, 216, 225PORN ADDICTION
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It is critical that addicts and their families get specialized assistance from counselors trained to work with pornography addiction. Participation in a support group for addicts or family members seeking recovery can be invaluable.
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Question 13 Are porn addicts hopeless perverts who can never hope to be normal again? |
Answer
Porn addiction is a serious problem. Like drug dependency, porn addiction is a clinical disease, one with identifiable causes and definitive treatment solutions. Porn abuse is comparable to drug abuse insofar as both are predicated on the physical and psychological needs of addicts themselves, and both can only be eradicated through intensive addiction treatment programs. Porn addiction kept private is porn addiction allowed to fester, and grow. It will eventually overwhelm its captive.
Like all forms of addiction, porn addiction is characterized first and foremost by compulsive and uncontrollable behavior. Drug addicts use drugs at the expense of everything else in their lives: their jobs, their families and their health. The same holds true for porn addicts, for whom porn viewing becomes a singular locus of pleasure and purpose. Porn addiction is a condition under which an individual will go to any length to view porn, over and over again, with complete disregard for everything except the viewing itself.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 7-28, 289-318GENDER
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“In recent years, the accessibility, affordability and anonymity of the Internet have made pornography undeniably attractive to millions of women. While some women simply find it exciting, others have battled addictions and other problems.” Mark O’Keefe, Newhouse News Service, Cited in:Gretchen Gallen, More Women into Porn,XBiz: The Industry Source, 31 October 2003
The scientific foundation of the pornography-as-cathartic effect has been refuted. Steven Hill and Nina Silver, Civil Rights Anti-Pornography Legislation: Addressing the Harm to Women, 288. Transforming a Rape Culture,Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher and Martha Roth (eds.) (Milkweed Editions, 1992).
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Question 14 Are most pornography users and addicts males? |
Answer
Most users are men. However, women make up an increasing share of those using pornography. An estimated 9.4 million women in theUnited States accessed pornography online in September 2003. One study revealed that college-age women were more accepting of pornography than their fathers.
The accessibility, affordability and anonymity of the Internet have enticed millions of women to view pornography. While some women simply find it exciting, others have encountered addiction and related problems. One-third of Internet porn viewers are female and the number of women falling victim to pornography is rising significantly. Young women and men have grown up in a sex-saturated culture, and desensitization can occur easily in such a climate.
Ministries and other organizations are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of women seeking help in breaking free from porn addiction. One in six women in America struggle with pornography. Women, far more than men, are likely to act upon pornography use and to seek multiple partners, casual sex or affairs. The resulting implications on families are immense.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary #55-59, 60-73
Question 15
Is pornography a natural and healthy outlet for males?
Answer
Pornography use is healthy for no one. In fact, it represents a threat to all who consume it. Obsessions, compulsions and addiction can quickly set in. Until males (and females) learn how to control physiological reactions in their brain, they are no match for the overpowering effects of pornography. In other words, when people play with “fire,” they are going to get burned.
Social scientists and law enforcement authorities have reached a similar conclusion: pornography can change men’s attitudes, make them more calloused toward women, desensitize them toward rape and incite men to commit sexual crimes.
Many men are obsessed with pornography at work and at home. Their lives are derailed from real meaning and purpose. Their families suffer as a result of their problem.
There is nothing glamorous about porn use or addiction. Men have the opportunity to set a positive tone for their family by abstaining from pornography use. It’s not a matter of what they can and cannot do; it’s a matter of what they should and should not do.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 7-28, 29-45, 55-59, 74-99, 118-130, 232-251, 259-267, 289-318, 348-358
| ACADEMIC STUDIES |
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“Congress should end all federal funding of educational institutions that train students with bogus Kinseyan academic pornography and/or that teach pornography as harmless. Congress should also remove the authority of so-called sexology institutes — most of whom are pornography grantees ….” |
Question 16 Is the academic study of pornography liberating and educational when done in the right context? Is it a legitimate use of taxpayer dollars? |
Answer
The study of pornography in college classroom settings is in no way valuable to the education of young men and women. Several academicians have conducted legitimate research on the impact of pornography, but college courses actually validate it. Some syllabi require students to produce pornography, which does more to corrupt students than it does to make them marketable as potential employees in respectable professions.
Author Diane Glasser said it is problematic that students watch pornography because it subjects them to harmful and degrading images and experiences which impact their psyches and bodies — all under the guise of academic discipline. Students are not studying porn because it’s the most popular and enduring of all the movie genres, but to get a thrill for college credit.*
Universities have demonstrated hypocrisy over pornography. Harvard Divinity School dean Ronald Thiemann was discovered having thousands of pornographic images stored on his office computer. Under pressure, Dean Thiemann stepped down from his post and went on leave. It is apparently not acceptable for an academic dean to possess pornographic images on his computer, but it is acceptable for faculty to offer pornography disguised as exercises in academia.
*Diane Glass, Do pornography college courses have intellectual merit? 13 January 2006,Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 278-288
| GOVERNMENT AND PORNOGRAPHY |
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“There is nothing harmless about pornography in any form, and state and national lawmakers have a public duty to do all they can to protect families from the destructive effects of an industry that profits from the sexual exploitation of human beings.”
“Although the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography had its share of critics and criticism, the vast data used in the Commission’s findings and recommendations clearly justify the conclusion that there is at least some relationship between the pornography industry and the victimization of women.” Barry Flowers, (1994), The Victimization and Exploitation of Women and Children: A Study of Physical, Mental and Sexual Maltreatment in the United States, (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 182.
“We had hoped that liberalization [of pornography] would lead to the open and honest portrayal of all aspects of sexuality. Instead, the sex capitalists moved in and what we got was pornography, which was cold, mechanical, violent and degrading.” – The chairman of Sweden’s Sex Ed Association Newsweek Coverage Scores One for Pornographers, National Federation for Decency Journal, September 1985, 12.
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Question 17 Did the 1970 Congressional Commission on Pornography exonerate pornography? |
Answer
In 1968, the American pornography industry was considered new and shocking, and Congress established a commission to look into the growing problem. The commission report, based on a limited amount of research, concluded:
“Much of the ‘problem stems from the inability or reluctance of people in our society to be open and direct in dealing with sexual matters.”
The commission recommended two legal reforms: repealing all obscenity laws at the state, local and federal levels; and replacing them with new laws to protect children and to control public display.
Many of the experimental studies utilized by the commission were sexually explicit materials obtained from sex research institutes because of the difficulty of obtaining materials from the local market.*
The U.S. Senate voted 60-5 to reject the commission’s recommendations.** Marvin Wolfgang, a prominent sociologist and one of the authors of The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, later stated that violent pornography does in fact encourage physical aggression.
* Einsiedel, E.F. (1995). Social Science and Public Policy: Constraints on the Linkage, Prevention in Human Services, 12, p.93.
**Tim Wu, “How Laws Die,” Slate Magazine, October 15, 2007 Part of a five-part series on which laws we violate.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 337-347
Question 18
Was the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography (July 1986) biased against pornography, and weren’t its scientific findings criticized?
Answer
Opposition to the commission was fierce, before and after it convened. Activated at the direction of President Ronald Reagan, the commission was subjected to threats and intimidation by the pornography industry and its defenders, including the ACLU. Pornographic magazines threatened to sue each of the 11 commission members $30 million for “putting them under pressure.” A liberal attorney called the formation of the commission “un-American.” Opponents also vilified the commission simply because some of its members were religious individuals.
The Media Coalition launched a $1 million campaign to discredit the commission and those who opposed pornography, created hysteria over censorship and planted news stories falsifying the harmful impact of pornography. Representatives of Penthouse and the ACLU attempted to suppress free speech by heckling witnesses during commission testimony.
The commission marked the first time the U.S. government undertook a full examination of the special problems presented by the use of actualpersons to create sexually explicit materials and to receive testimony from actual performers in the sex industry. The commission’s conclusion directly contrasted with the earlier commission’s findings: pornography is harmful. The 1986 commission found convergent validation of the effects of violent pornography, including evidence that sexually violent depictions led to:
- aggression against women under laboratory test conditions;
- significant increases by college males in the acceptance of rape myths and of sexual violence towards women;
- seeing the rape victim as more responsible for the assault, with perpetrators absolved and viewed less negatively; and
- more aggressive sexual fantasies.
The commission made 92 recommendations calling for a widespread federal, state and local crackdown on the pornography industry. As a result of the commission’s work, the attorney general created a federal prosecutorial unit that specialized in prosecutions of obscenity-related crimes. Among the main recommendations were those calling for enforcement of obscenity laws. Despite the horrors of pornography revealed by the commission’s work, none of the companies in the liberal-dominated publishing industry agreed to print the final report.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 197-203
Question 19
Has the United Nations taken a position on pornography?
Answer
Yes. The 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) expressly condemned the sexual exploitation of minors in pornography, prostitution and illegal sexual practices, and 191 nations signed on.
Under Article 19 of the UNCRC, children must be protected from all forms of abuse, neglect, and exploitation by parents and others and obligates states to undertake prevention and treatment programs to this end. Article 34 specifically requires states to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse including involvement in pornography. The UNCRC established a Committee on the Rights of the Child for the purpose of monitoring the progress of the parties who must make periodic reports to the Committee. The Committee lacks authority to receive petitions from states or individuals alleging violations of the Convention, and the Convention offers no remedies.
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography draws special attention to sexual exploitation issues. Adopted through the UN Economic and Social Council March 26, 2000, the Optional Protocol calls on party states to cooperate with other states to further the prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment for crimes of sexual exploitation of children. Under Article 3(1) of the Protocol, states agree to pass national legislation making certain offenses illegal regardless of whether they are committed domestically, transnationally or on an individual or organized basis. Included among these offenses are specific provisions for the production, distribution, dissemination, import, export, offer, sale, or possession of child pornography.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 5-6
Question 20
Has the permissiveness associated with adult pornography led to a reduction in sexual assault?
Answer
In the nations where the availability of pornography proliferated, rapes and sexual assaults increased dramatically. Despite claims that one European nation’s sexual assaults decreased, the opposite in fact had occurred.
Social science research shows that pornography can inhibit viewers’ disdain for rape. Compulsive viewing contributes to addiction to pornography. History has shown that a high percentage of rapists owned and viewed vast amounts of pornography, borne out by police records and testimony to courts and commissions.
The victims of sexual assault will attest that nothing good can come of pornography.
Marriage counselors are seeing an exponential rise in troubled marriages and divorce related to pornography.
Because of technological advances of the past 30 years, adults are exposing children to pornography and preying on them.
These are the costs of permissiveness.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 248-249, 251-252, 271-281, 284-288, 290-291, 293-299, 302-306, 309-320, 325-329, 365, 370-373, 375-376, 378-381, 383-384, 388-393THE WORK PLACE
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“Every American workplace has a story to tell about the casual use of company computers for personal purposes, and many of those stories reflect fairly benign behavior such as online shopping. But now we get a clear and compelling insight into the significant use of workplace computers for more explicit sexual purposes well beyond online dating.” Stephen Hirschfeld, CEO, Employment Law Alliance, Loren Baker, Workplace Internet Full of Porn, Blogs and Dating, 15 February 2004, Search Engine Journal.
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Question 21 Isn’t pornography common and acceptable in the work place? |
Answer
It’s certainly true that pornography is not uncommon in the work place. Seventy percent of adult site traffic on the Internet occurs during prime business hours. However, pornography is just as harmful and disruptive in the work place as it is in the home.
From small businesses to the White House, pornography has proven both present and problematic. The viewing of pornography in the workplace can cause serious social, psychological, ethical, legal and financial problems for both employer and employees.
Pornography requires businesses to monitor employees and computers, prompting disciplinary actions and terminations.
Hand-held electronic devices tempt employees to view pornography on the job in a way that is harder for administrators to detect.
Employees also email pornography to co-workers – some of them unwilling recipients. This has resulted in sexual harassment lawsuits against perpetrators and the company.
In short, pornography has brought new tensions into the work place. Families suffer when dad or mom is distracted at work by pornography, thereby putting their family’s financial security at risk.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 118-130HEALTHY SEXUALITY
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“Porn is like junk food–it provides little in the way of real nutrition for your sexual health.” Dr. Ian Kerner, author of Sex Detox
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Question 22 Do pornographic productions demonstrate healthy sexuality? |
Answer
Pornographic productions depict anything but examples of healthy sexuality. By nature, healthy sexuality is a private expression – not a spectator event for the world to view repeatedly. By contrast, healthy sexuality is the natural result of love, intimacy, commitment and fidelity. It is best demonstrated by married couples who affirm each other by giving each other affection, love and respect over a long period of time. Love is given consensually without measure by partners who know each other’s sexual history and who have made a public and legal commitment to one another. Healthy sexuality creates an ever-growing sense of love, admiration and respect for one another and contributes to marriage longevity.
Among the characteristics of healthy sexuality are: romance, affection, intimacy and sensuality. Pornographic productions are characterized by none of these. Porn typically features little or no foreplay and demonstrates little or no expression of respect for the other partner(s). Porn is purely a matter of mechanical sex – taking something from one or more partners without attachment, intimacy, emotion, love, respect or giving in return. It is a cold, calloused exercise by partners who are often anonymous to each other.
Pornography is associated with fear, exploitation, crime and high risks of disease and injury.
Healthy sexuality comes with no price tag attached. Healthy sexuality is guided by maturity and secure, healthy boundaries; pornography is a demonstration of unhealthy sexual boundaries.
See: Fast Facts and Commentary # 348-388
Fast Facts & Commentary
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
Definitions 1-4
United Nations Document Provisions 5-6
PHYSICAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT
Addiction and Compulsion 7-28
FAMILY IMPACT
Marriage 29-45
Families .. . 46-54
Men 55-59
Women 60-73
Children 74-99
BUSINESS ASPECTS
The Business of Pornography 100-117
Pornography in The Work Place 118-130
Creation of Pornography Markets 131-135
TECHNOLOGY
The Internet 136-161
THE PUBLIC SQUARE
The Courts and Regulation 162-192
Pornography in the Neighborhood 193-196
U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography 197-203
Pornography in Public Libraries 204-211
CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES
Child Pornography 212-231
Rapists, Killers and Pedophiles 232-251
Trafficking and Prostitution 252-258
Crime 259-267
Organized Crime
ACADEMIC EXERCISES
The Classroom 278-288
Behavioral Studies 289-318
DIVIDED OVER PORNOGRAPHY
Feminism …………………………………………………….319-326
PROPONENTS OF PORNOGRAPHY
The American Civil Liberties Union 327-336
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography …………337-347
HEALTHY SEXUALITY
What Constitutes Healthy Sexuality? 348-358
APPENDIX
Resources
Helpful Tips for Home Internet Use
INTRODUCTION
Definitions
“For me, It’s anything written, spoken, printed, photographed or videotaped to elicit a sexual response from an individual.”
Raymond Pierce, retired New York police detective, (31 August 2000), The Sexual Criminal’s Relationship to Porn, ObscenityCrimes.org.
1. The 1986 Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography defined pornography: “The material is predominantly sexually explicit and intended primarily for the purpose of sexual arousal.” Hardcore pornography “is sexually explicit in the extreme, and devoid of any other apparent content or purpose.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part II, Section 1.4, (1986).
2. The Supreme Court ruled in the case of Miller v. California that a legal definition of obscenity must meet a three-part test. In this 1973 case, material is obscene if all three of the following conditions are met:
(a) whether “the average person, applying contemporary community standards” would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Roth, supra, at 489,
(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and
(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), United States Supreme Court, Argued January 18-19, 1972 Reargued 7 November 1972, Decided 21 June 1973.
3. The Council of Europe defines child pornography as “any audiovisual material which uses children in a sexual context.”
Council of Europe, Recommendation R(91)11 and Report of the European Committee on Crime Problems (1993). Cited in: UNESCO Conference in Paris.
4. Pornography is “material that explicitly represents or describes degrading and abusive sexual behavior so as to endorse and/or recommend the behavior as described.”
Helen Longino. “Pornography, Oppression and Freedom: a Closer Look,” in Laura Lederer (ed.),Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography (New York: William Morrow, 1980). Cited in: Diana Russell, Sexual Exploitation, (Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications, 1984), 124.
United Nations Document Provisions
5. Article 34 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), among other articles which prohibit the degrading treatment of children, explicitly requires countries to take “all appropriate national, bilateral, and multilateral measures to prevent … the inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful sexual activity … [and] the exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials.”
Child pornography: an international perspective, paper presented at World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, 27-31 August 1996.
6. International Labor Organization Convention 182, adopted in 1999 and ratified by the U.S. in 2000, provides that State parties shall take immediate and effective measures to prohibit and eliminate the worst forms of child labor, including child prostitution and pornography.
U.S. State Department, Fact sheet: The Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child Pornography, (2002, 24 December).
PHYSICAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT
Addiction and Compulsion
“People who use pornography feel dead inside, and they are trying to avoid being aware of that pain. There is a sense of liberation, which is temporary: that’s why pornography is so repetitive — you have to go back again and again.”
Psychoanalyst Estela Welldon quote in “Addicted to Porn,” (2003, 22 November), TheAge.com.
7. A study of 932 sex addicts and found that 90 percent of the men and 77 percent of the women reported that pornography was a significant element in their sexual addiction. He found two common elements in sex addiction: childhood sexual abuse and frequent pornography use accompanied by masturbation.
Cited in: “Compulsive Sexual Behavior and Sex Addiction: Too Much of a Good Thing?,” National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, 1999, 5. Victor Cline, “Pornography’s Effects on Adults and Children, The Porn Problem and Solutions,” ObscenityCrimes.org. Cited in: Alysse ElHage, “Sexual Degradation: How Pornography Destroys the Family,” North Carolina Family Policy Council, 3.
8. “Cybersex is the crack cocaine of sexual addiction. It works so quickly and it’s so instantly intense. We’re seeing a whole population of clients who have never had a history with the problem, but for the first time, they’re beginning one particular activity and getting hooked. The point of sexual addiction is to stay in the excitement state. The computer offers the perfect opportunity to do that. The video doesn’t end, and you can always go to another site.”
Dr. Robert Weiss quote in: Jim Dyar, “Cyber-porn held responsible for increase in sex addiction; Mental health experts warn of adverse impact on job, family,” Sexual Recovery Institute,Washington Times, (2000, 26 January).
9. “There is a chemical change in the human brain upon orgasm, and it has been reported that there is a chemical change in the brain from sexual thinking and/or fantasizing. The men I’ve worked with regarding this problem imply that the more they view porn, the less they can stop themselves. It eventually has led to major disruptions in their marriages or lives. Indeed, many are single, and the cyber-sex becomes a substitute for a real relationship. We have no way of discerning who will develop an addiction to porn, so the more conservative approach of abstinence may be more prudent.”
Gerry Blasingame, a licensed marriage and family therapist at New Directions to Hope in Redding, California, in:Jim Dyar, (26 January 2000), “Cyber-porn held responsible for increase in sex addiction; Mental health experts warn of adverse impact on job, family,” Sexual Recovery Institute,Washington Times.
10. Dr. Mark Schwartz, of Masters and Johnson in St. Louis, said: “Sex on the Net is like heroin. It grabs them and takes over their lives. And it’s very difficult to treat because the people affected don’t want to give it up.” Those most strongly hooked on Internet sex are likely to spend hours each day masturbating to pornographic images or having “mutual” online sex with someone contacted through a chat room. Occasionally, they progress to off-line affairs with sex partners they meet online.
Jane Brody, “Cybersex Gives Birth to a Psychological Disorder,” New York Times (2000, 16 May).
11. Psychologists reported that frequent exposure to violence or sexually explicit material desensitizes viewers and eliminates shock or horror. Violence would then become “acceptable.”
Karen Holgate, “Pornography and Its Effect on Children: Photographs Don’t Affect Us?” ChildCare Action Project, (2000).
12. Pornography affects the most dangerous sex offender as well as the normal person, and it interferes with interpersonal relationships and personal moral development in everyone who uses it, not only in the disturbed and demented. Normal and emotionally disturbed persons become habituated to pornographic materials. They require increasingly deviant and bizarre images to re-establish their original, pre-habituation level of sexual arousal.
Symposium on Media Violence and Pornography (Toronto: Toronto Media Action Group, Inc., 1984): 44.
13. At a conference of the German Society for Research on Sexuality, German psychologists said a sharp increase in the number of people whose sex drives had gone out of control was mainly the result of pornography and sex chats on the Internet. Conference chairpersonSteffen Fliegel said, “about 75 percent of people, who can no longer control their sexual instincts, are men.” “Sex obsession is behaviour that is learned. It’s not inborn,” he said. Therapy to “unlearn” the behaviour took at least a year, and could only succeed if the sufferer had recognized that his obsession was no longer healthy.
Psychologists finger Web over ‘sex obsession, Independent Online, (2004, 3 October).
14. When powerful sexual urges are directly linked with the viewing of anything, the desires to view the same things again are increased. Such conditioning occurs when sex is mixed with violence, abuse, children or anything. Stanley Rachman (1968), a British psychologist at the London Maudsley Hospital, demonstrated in the laboratory how easy it is to condition adult males into sexual deviancy using erotic stimuli. Other researchers (McGuire, 1965; Evans, 1968; Marquis, 1970) have independently found this same kind of conditioning in out-of-laboratory experiences and identified it as a step to acquiring sexual deviations or illnesses.
Dr. Victor Cline, Pornography’s effects on adults and children. New York: Morality in Media, (2000).
15. A sexual addiction is occurring when the sexual experience has become the driving force of people’s lives to the sacrifice of their health, family, friends, values, and jobs. Sex addicts are people who have lost the power to choose when, where, and with whom they wish to be sexual. Addiction is an illness of escape. Its goal is to obliterate, medicate, or ignore reality. It is an alternative to letting oneself feel hurt, betrayal, worry and—most painful of all—loneliness.
Patrick Carnes, Facing the Shadow: Starting Sexual and Relationship Recovery, (Carefree, Arizona: Gentle Path Press, 2005). Cited in: General Information about Sexual Addiction, Front Range Counseling Center.
16. Dr. Alvin Cooper, clinical director of the San Jose Marital Services and Sexuality Centre in San Jose, California, conducted one of the largest Internet studies of online sexuality, surveying more than 38,000 Internet users. Dr. Cooper said, “A significant subset of people access the Internet for sex, and a smaller subset of users visit X-rated sites excessively, reflecting a mental health problem that can have serious adverse consequences. Research in this area has attempted to get at the magnitude of the problem and to assess its medical and psychological significance.
Internet Research Methodology of Online Sexual Activities Study Proves Reliable, Says Report in CyberPsychology & Behavior, Business Wire, (2001, 19 September).
17. Studies suggest that “pathological sexuality” is far from uncommon and can be associated with considerable morbidity. The disorder appears more common in men, and patients may be seen with a range of different behaviors, including compulsive masturbation, excessive use of printed or telephonic pornography, and pathological use of the services of sex workers. As with impulse-control disorders, although the symptoms are gratifying, there is also typically an element of ego dystonicity. Sufferers may experience mood disorders, anxiety disorders and substance use disorders. Symptoms may severely affect family, social and occupational function, and negative consequences include those of sexually transmitted disease.
A.Goodman, Sexual Addiction: An Integrated Approach. (Madison, Connecticut: International Universities Press, 1998). D.Black, Compulsive sexual behavior: a review, Journal of Practical Psychiatry and Behavioral Health 4 (1998): 219-229.
18. Clinical psychologist Dr. Victor Cline said that addiction to pornography is a four-step process. The first step is addiction. The second step is escalation. The third step is desensitization and the fourth step is acting out sexually.
Dr. Victor Cline, Porn Addiction: The Progression, Set Free.
19. The immature brain is more vulnerable to addictions of many types. Many pornography addicts speak of becoming addicted during their adolescence. Developing intimacy skills is an important part of adolescent male psycho-sexual development, as it is in this way that sex and love are brought together, allowing successful and satisfying adult relationships. Pornography, however, is about emotional distance, self-gratification often at the expense of another’s pain, and objectification — polar opposites of what a teenage boy needs most to learn. Pornography has the power to leave a young man without the most essential tools he needs to achieve emotional and sexual maturity.
Sharon Secor, A Growing Trend: Teen Pornography, Obscenity Crimes, (2004, October).
20. Pornographic images cause secretion of the body’s “fight or flight” sex hormones. This triggers excitatory transmitters and produces non-rational, involuntary reactions; intense arousal states that overlap sexual lust — with fear, shame and/or hostility and violence. Media erotic fantasies become deeply embedded, commonly coarsening, confusing, motivating and addicting many of those exposed. Pornography triggers myriad kinds of internal, natural drugs that mimic the “high” from a street drug. Neurochemical imprinting affects children and teens especially deeply; their still-developing brains process emotions differently, with significantly less rationality and cognition than the adult brain. Pornography psychopharmacologically imprints young brains.
Dr. Judith Reisman, testimony at U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing on Science, Technology and Space, The Science Behind Pornography Addiction, (2004, 18 November).
21. Similar to cigarettes, pornography is a delivery system that has a distinct and powerful effect upon the human brain and nervous system. Exactly like cigarettes, this effect causes a powerful addiction. Like any other addiction, the addiction is both to the delivery system itself—the pornography— and to the chemicals that the delivery system delivers. The pornography addict soon forgets about everything and everyone else in favor of an ever more elusive sexual jolt. He will place at risk his career, friends and his family. He will indulge his habit anywhere and everywhere, at any time. Like other addicts, the pornography addict will lie to cover it up, heedless of risk or cost to himself or to others.
Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, letter to Senator Sam Brownback and U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing on Science, Technology and Space, (2004, 17 November).
22. “With the advent of the computer, the delivery system for this addictive stimulus has become nearly resistance-free. It is as though we have devised a form of herpin 100 times more powerful than before, usable in the privacy of one’s own home and injected directly to the brain through the eyes. It’s now available in unlimited supply via a self-replicating distribution network, glorified as art and protected by the Constitution.”
Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, letter to Senator Sam Brownback and U.S. Senate Subcommittee hearing on Science, Technology and Space, (2004, 17 November).
23. Clinical case history data, field studies and experimental laboratory studies suggested risk and the possibility of harm from being immersed in repeated exposure to pornography.
Victor Cline, Pornography’s Effects on Adults and Children, Obscenity Crimes.org, Morality in Media, Inc.
24. “The Internet is the crack cocaine of sexual addiction,” said Dr. Jennifer Schneider.
Jennifer Schneider (photo, left) and Robert Weiss, Cybersex Exposed: Simple Fantasy or Obsession? (Center City, Minnesota: Hazelden, 2001). Cited in: Pamela Paul, The Porn Factor: In the Internet age, pornography is almost everywhere you look, TIME magazine, (2004, 19 January).
TREATMENT
25. Most sex addicts live in denial of their addiction, and treating an addiction is dependent on the person accepting and admitting that he or she has a problem. Sometimes, only a major event — such as the loss of a job, the break-up of a marriage, an arrest or health crisis – can cause the addict to admit to his or her problem. Treatment of sexual addiction focuses on controlling the addictive behavior and helping the person develop a healthy sexuality. Treatment includes education about healthy sexuality, individual counseling and marital and/or family therapy. Support groups and 12-step recovery programs for people with sexual addictions are available. Medications may be used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder, such as Prozac and Anafranil.
Sexual Addiction, WebMD
26. Individual work offers patients an opportunity for a one-on-one relationship with an expert in sexual addiction who will help develop an individual plan for sexual behavior change and support accountability to that plan. For some, individual treatment will transition to a group process. Other patients may require or choose a longer individual process. Patients already in individual therapy with outside clinicians are encouraged to continue with those therapists if they wish to do so, seeing therapists specifically for help with their sexual addiction problem.
Individual Treatment, Sexual Recovery Institute.
27. Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz developed a treatment approach based on the idea that sexual addictions result in the brain being stuck and unable to shift. His approach is designed to assist the brain to shift. Through the use of brain scans of his patients, Dr. Schwartz has documented changes in the brain before and after the treatment process.
A. Dean Byrd,Sexual Addiction: A Psycho-Physiological Model for Addressing Obsessive-Compulsive Behaviors, National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality.
28. Sex Addicts Anonymous (SAA) is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other so they may overcome their sexual addiction and help others recover from sexual addiction and dependency.
- Membership is open to all who share a desire to stop addictive sexual behavior. There is no other requirement.
- Our common goals are to become sexually healthy and to help other sex addicts achieve freedom from compulsive sexual behavior.
- SAA is supported through voluntary contributions from members.
The SAA Program, Sex Addicts Anonymous
FAMILY IMPACT
Marriage
“[P]ornography is infidelity. Infidelity is termed as finding and executing a sexual relationship outside of your marriage. Paying sexual attention to others. Using your sexual energy for a purpose other than within your marriage.”
Don Whiting, Is Pornography Addictive? Dependency Answers.
29. At a 2003 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, two-thirds of the 350 divorce lawyers who attended said the Internet played a significant role in the divorces in the previous year. Excessive interest in online porn contributed to more than half those divorces. “This is clearly related to the Internet,” said Richard Barry, president of the association. “Pornography had an almost nonexistent role in divorce just seven or eight years ago.”
Porn Matters — Divorce and Pornography Statistics, Divorce Wizards: Your Guided Journey Through Divorce.
30. The marital relationship is a logical point of impact to examine because it is the foundational family unit and a sexual union easily destabilized by sexual influences outside the marital contract. The majority of Internet users are married and the majority seeking help for problematic sexual behavior online are married, heterosexual males. The research indicates pornography consumption is associated with the following six trends, among others:
- Increased marital distress, and risk of separation and divorce;
- Decreased marital intimacy and sexual satisfaction;
- Infidelity;
- Increased appetite for more graphic types of pornography and sexual activity associated with abusive, illegal or unsafe practices;
- Devaluation of monogamy, marriage and child rearing; and
- An increasing number of people struggling with compulsive and addictive sexual behavior.
Jill Manning, Pornography’s Impact on Marriage and the Family, Testimony before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights Committee on Judiciary, United States Senate, (2005, 9 November).
31. Husbands and wives who choose pornography as a means to sexually arouse themselves will forfeit the ability to become aroused by their spouse. Over time, it will become more and more difficult to be sexually aroused by one’s mate because he or she will age while the porn star remains youthful. This puts a marriage partner at risk for the temptation of an affair. The use of pornography will inevitably destroy the self esteem of your spouse. As one’s spouse is constantly exposed to the “perfection” of the people having sex in the video, he or she usually begins to feel ugly, inadequate and unwanted. It becomes painfully obvious to each spouse in time that a substitute is required to sexually excite his/her spouse.
Pornography In Marriage, Marriage Missions International
32. “I have also seen in my clinical experience that pornography damages the sexual performance of the viewers. Pornography viewers tend to have problems with premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction. Having spent so much time in unnatural sexual experiences with paper, celluloid and cyberspace, they seem to find it difficult to have sex with a real human being. Pornography is raising their expectation and demand for types and amounts of sexual experiences at the same time it is reducing their ability to experience sex.”
Testimony of Dr. Mary Anne Layden, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation,18November 2004.
33. Thirty percent of the women surveyed had very negative reactions to their partners’ use of pornography. They viewed it as infidelity. They attached all sorts of negative meaning to it: that they didn’t measure up, that they had been replaced, that they were being rejected. The other 70 percent said they were not thrilled by it, but they accepted that this is what men do. No one said, “This is good for us.”
Sarah Hampson, Porn — the elephant in the bedroom, The Globe and Mail, (2007, 12 July).
34. “The spouses of porn viewers are often depressed, and are more likely to have eating disorders, body image disorders and low self-esteem. These wives can’t function in the fake sexual world in which their husbands live. The wives may try to please their spouse by engaging in sexual behaviors that they find degrading. The wives may think that they can increase the sexual energy in the relationship and satisfy her husband if she views the pornography with him. My clinical experience is that these wives often get a short-lived boost in sexual activity, but soon she notices that when her husband is having sex with her, he is turning around to watch to porn on the TV screen. She then realizes that he isn’t having sex with her at all. He’s masturbating inside her body while he is having sex with the women on the screen.”
Testimony of Dr. Mary Anne Layden, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, (2004, 18 November).
35. Pornography creates a misguided representation of what the most important relationships in life are supposed to be like. For some, these unhealthy expressions of sexuality are a means of escape; for others they are a form of self-medication. However, the end result is the same for all. Pornography prevents users from living in a state of truth, integrity and peace. Pornography destroys relationships by putting distance between couples. It attacks users through shame, sexual addictions and profound confusion as to what normal sexuality really is. In the end, it destroys people’s capacity for intimacy.
Kathryn Wilson, “Stone Cold in a Warm Bed,” (Camp Hill, Pennsylvania: Horizon Books, 1998), vii. Cited in: Pornography, Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma.
36. Many men who view pornography compare their wives unfavorably to images they have seen. Wives do not measure up to the enhanced image of a centerfold. One wife said, “Although I was careful with my clothes and figure, I found that my husband was increasingly critical of the way I looked. … I wasn’t attractive enough to compete with eternally young, surgically altered models. … In the end, he lost all interest in me as a sexual partner. This had a devastating impact on my view of my worth as a woman. It created such despair in me that I began to let my appearance go.”
Laurie Hall, “An Affair of the Mind,” (Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1998): 76.
37. Dale Lach, a paralegal who helps people represent themselves in their own divorces, says she’s seeing more and more women who want to leave their husbands because of porn. She says the availability has made it an issue in relationships. It used to be that a man who needed a fix had to leave the home to go buy a magazine or watch a movie. “It’s so convenient now,” says Lach, “that they don’t even have to say, Tm going to go bowling tonight.’ They just go into the home office and close the door.”
Amy Sohn, “A Laptop Never Says No,” New YorkMagazine 38(19) (2005, 30 May): 1, 73.
38. An increasingly common cause of divorce is due to one partner’s obsession with Internet pornography. Now that porn is so easy to watch at home or at work, many men are spending enough time and energy on it that they drive their female partners to end the relationship. Once upon a time, a woman’s greatest fear was a good-looking, buxom blonde. These days, her greatest fear is thousands of them. In fact, Internet porn has so changed American relationships that in a 2003 survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, more than half said the Internet played a “significant role” in divorces in the past year, and that online porn contributed to half of these cases.
Amy Sohn, “A Laptop Never Says No,” New YorkMagazine 38(19) (2005, 30 May): 1, 73.
39. A teacher from Dallas said that when she found out her husband was usingpornography behind her back, she felt sick and angry. “Those women are so unreal,” she said. “They’re so different from the normal average person. I didn’t measure up at all.” She wondered if it was because she was overweight. “Maybe that’s what drove him to this,” she said. But then again, even if she were her perfect weight, she would never look like them. She figured she may as well just give up.
Pamela Paul, Testimony to United States Congress, (2005, 10 November).
40. Author Thomas Szyszkiewcs wrote that pornography is implicated in impotence. Men become so desensitized to sexual stimulation after hours of viewing porn that they are often unable to sexually respond to their wives or partners.
S.Crawford, Pornography May Cause Impotence, The Chaparral, (2006, 4 December).
41.Dr. Judith Reisman said: “The proliferation of pornography into mainstream America spreads impotence as a natural outcome of moral apathy.” Men want a significant intimate emotional relationship with commitment just as women do, even though society would have us believe the opposite. Dr. Reisman said that “cures like Viagra conceal the dysfunctional and anxiety causing role played by pornography in promoting impotence.”
S.Crawford, Pornography May Cause Impotence, The Chaparral, (2006, 4 December).
42. Psychoanalyst Estela Welldon has treated couples that used pornography together: “A lot of men involve their partners in the use of porn. Typically, they will say, ‘Don’t you want a better sex life?’ I have seen cases in which first the woman has been subjected to porn and then they have used their own children for pornographic purposes.” When couples use porn together — a growing trend, if anecdotal evidence is anything to go by — there is, says Welldon, “an illusory sense that they are getting closer together. Then they film themselves having sex and feel outside themselves. This dehumanizing aspect is an important part of pornography. It dehumanizes the other person, the relationship and any intimacy.”
Addicted to Porn, TheAge.com, (2003, 22 November).
43. Interviews with women aged 25-50 whose partners were obsessed with pornography presented glimpses of lives which had been turned upside down by their partner’s online activities. The same themes emerged over and over. The men spent hours online, searching for progressively more hard core images. Family time or couple time was the first casualty. Then sex lives floundered and withered away as men lost interest. In the end they could not be bothered with real-life sex. In other cases, sex lives became porn-like, male-focused, extreme and lacking in intimacy. Women’s self-esteem nose-dived. They felt they could not compete with the nymphs on screen. They did not measure up to the bodies or sexual performance of the women their men were watching.
Adele Horin, How cyber porn is wrecking relationships, The Sydney Morning Herald, (2007, 26 May).
CHART I
44. Brett McCann, a senior lecturer in the sexual health program at the University of Sydney, said pornography is a growing problem “with big implications for the public health dollar. There’s no quick fix, and by the time the problem is uncovered, there’s usually a crisis in the relationship.”
Adele Horin, How cyber porn is wrecking relationships, The Sydney Morning Herald, (2007, 26 May).
45. Dr. Amelia Haines, a therapist at the Sydney Centre for Sexual and Relationship Therapy, reported seeing a lot of people for whom Internet pornography was “out of hand”: “Men want to see what else is out there. Some end up spending three hours a night looking for the right image, the right trigger. They search and search. Usually what they look at is not too scary. They worry more about wasting so much of their lives, they’re embarrassed about how much they’re accessing, and they can’t stop.”
Adele Horin, How cyber porn is wrecking relationships, The Sydney Morning Herald, (2007, 26 May).
Families
“Research has shown that pornography and its messages are involved in shaping attitudes and encouraging behavior that can harm individual users and their families. Pornography is often viewed in secret, which creates deception within marriages that can lead to divorce in some cases. In addition, pornography promotes the allure of adultery, prostitution and unreal expectations that can result in dangerous promiscuous behavior.”
National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, “The Effects of Pornography and Sexual Messages.”
46. Pornography is sometimes used in incestuous abuse. Dr. Judianne Densen-Gerber pointed out that all 27 cases of incest in Rockingham County, New Hampshire in 1977 included child pornography preceding and accompanying the assaults on children.
Franklin Mark Osanka and Sara Lee Johann, Sourcebook on Pornography, (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1989): 91-92.
47. Parents respond to the victimization of their children in a variety of ways, ranging from denial of clear evidence to anger and rage. Parents may minimize, de-emphasize or desexualize the involvement of their child in pornography. One of the family’s greatest concerns may be publicity about their child’s experience. Parents often feel stressed and embarrassed by media reports and may fear neighbors or even strangers will stigmatize them. Some parents of victimized children have urged that investigators minimize any potential damaging effects by preserving, to the best of their abilities, the anonymity of the children involved. A family’s embarrassment may prevent them from disclosing their child’s victimization or seeking any professional counseling they or their child may need.
Eva Klain, Heather Davies and Molly Hicks, Child Pornography: The Criminal-Justice-System Response, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, p. 11. Ann Burgess, Carol Hartman, Maureen McCausland and Patricia Powers, Impact of Child Pornography and Sex Rings on Child Victims and Their Families, in Child Pornography and Sex Rings, 120-26, Ann Wolbert Burgess and Marieanne Lindeqvist Clark (eds.), (Lexington, Massachusetts Lexington Books: 1984), 120-126. Carl Goran Svedin and Kristina Back, Children Who Don’t Speak Out at 40-41 (Radda Barnen (Swedish Save the Children) 1996.
48.Thevictims of pornography include boys and girls who have lost their innocence by viewing pornography at an early age; spouses whose partner is either preoccupied with or addicted to pornography; women who are being treated with disrespect and sexually abused; young women trapped in an industry that exploits them and uses them as mere sex objects; children used for the sexual satisfaction of fathers, stepfathers and others whom they had trusted; young men exposed to false images of sexuality; adults and children who use pornography for stimulating themselves while recalling those images; a society which has become desensitized and dependent upon readily-available images of pornographic sex; residents of neighborhoods where pornography is sold and who have experienced increased crime and decreased property values because of the proliferation of pornography in their communities.
Who Are the Victims of Pornography? Victims of Pornography.
49. In a study of 91 women and three men who had experienced serious adverse consequences of their partner’s cyber-sex involvement, they felt hurt, betrayal, rejection, abandonment, devastation, loneliness, shame, isolation, humiliation, jealousy and anger. Being lied to was a repeated cause of distress. Among 68 percent of the couples, one or both had lost interest in relational sex, 52 percent of addicts had decreased interest in sex with their spouse. Cyber-sex addiction was a major contributing factor to separation and divorce of couples in the survey: 22.3 percent of the respondents were separated or divorced and several others were seriously contemplating leaving their spouse.
Dr. Jennifer Schneider, “Effects of Cybersex Addiction on the Family: Results of a Survey, Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity 7(1/2) (2000, March): 1-2.
50. Pornography divorces the selflessness of a romantic relationship from the sexual fulfillment found therein. It wraps the most intense of human passions and emotions in the package of a self-serving sexual rush and nullifies the most powerful impetus drawing men and women together. The man who can solitarily satisfy himself with airbrushed photos has no need for a real relationship with a real woman. Pornography trains the user to be comfortable and satisfied while unplugged from reality. Pornography leaves the user with an unrealistic view of how relationships should work and ultimately contributes to unstable relationships and marriages. Since many people meet their spouses while at college, pornography use at Indiana University must be recognized as the lurking menace that it is.
Abram Hess and Natalie Avon, “Pornography leads to lack of real emotion,” Indiana Daily Student, (2006, 15 November).
51. “They have traded their libido, their masculine power and authority, for a steady stream of new paper dolls. In December 1953, Hugh Hefner began marketing Playboy as ‘sexual liberation.’ But Hefner didn’t bring sexual liberation; he brought Pornographically Induced Impotence, or PII. … Pornographically Induced Impotence is now a national pandemic, raking in untold billions for pornographers and their satellite businesses as well as from the marital discord and despair it produces.”
Dr. Judith Reisman, The impotence pandemic, World Net Daily, (2007, 27 September).
52. The March 4, 2004 issue of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) magazine reported to senior citizens that pornography is good for marriage. Columnist Hugh O’Neill told letter writer “S.S.” that, “level-headed adults can enjoy erotic pictures in private without undermining their relationships, their immortal souls, or the republic.” He suggested that S.S. and her husband could use pornography to improve their sex life. In attempting to change its focus from “old” to “sex,” magazine editor in chief Hugh Delehanty said, “We’ll have at least one reference to Internet porn in each edition.” AARP editor Ed Dwyer previously worked for Playboy and fellow editor Steven Slon formerly worked for Penthouse.
Hugh O’Neill, Help! My Husband Loves Porn! 4 March/April 2004, AARP: The Magazine, 28. Cited in: Jason Collum and Rusty Pugh, (April 5, 2004), AARP magazine: A little porn’s a good thing, Agape Press. AARP Magazine Looks to Adopt a Younger Face, Today’s Seniors.
53. “Pornography is affecting people at an increasingly young age,” said sociologist Diana Russell, author of several books on the subject. “And unfortunately for many kids growing up today, pornography is the only sex education they’ll get.” Because children learn sexual cues early, boys may train themselves to respond only to images shaped by porn stars, while girls may learn that submission and Brazilian bikini waxes are the keys to pleasing men. Studies show a correlation between increased aggressiveness in boys and exposure to pornography, and a link between childhood use of porn and sexually abusive behavior in adulthood. Judith Coche, a veteran therapist in Philadelphia, said an 11-year-old girl’s parents discovered their daughter creating her own pornographic website because it’s considered “cool’ among her friends.”
Pamela Paul, The Porn Factor: In the Internet age, pornography is almost everywhere you look, But what is it doing to real-life relationships? TIME magazine, 19 January 2004.
54. “I thought my porn addiction would go away when I got married. After all, sex was available to me any time I wanted it, right? I was so wrong. It got worse. Soon, it began affecting my sex life with my husband. I thought he had no idea what was going on – but he must have. At 24, we had our first son. I would say the porn addiction laid dormant for a little while and I thought I had it beat. Of course I hadn’t, because I had never dealt with the issues that kept me going back to porn. So soon after my son was born, I started the porn again. Porn was like a cancer eating me alive. It has totally infiltrated my marriage, totally unaware to my husband, and I finally hit rock bottom.”
Wife and mom caught by son: Jennifer’s story, (2008, 11 February), xxxchurch.
Men
“Eventually, the pornography participant becomes an empty shell of a man. Hollow to the core, he wanders through life, seeking only one thing: fulfillment of the lust that has taken hold of him. Every other achievement becomes merely a means to that end. Until at last, instead of spending his time achieving, he spends most of his time fantasizing.”
Laurie Hall, “Pornography – What’s the Big Deal?”, The Plain Truth Online, May-June 1998.
55. Experts say men who frequently view porn may develop unrealistic expectations of women’s appearance and behavior, have difficulty forming and sustaining relationships and feeling sexually satisfied. Alvin Cooper, who conducts seminars on cyber-sex addiction, said 15 percent of online porn habitues develop sexual behavior that disrupts their lives.
Pamela Paul, The Porn Factor: In the Internet age, pornography is almost everywhere you look. But what is it doing to real-life relationships? TIME magazine, (2004, 19 January).
56. Aline Zoldbrod, a sex therapist in Lexington, Massachusetts, said men’s use of porn for undemanding relief often distracts them from the task of trying to please their real life partners.
Pamela Paul, The Porn Factor: In the Internet age, pornography is almost everywhere you look. But what is it doing to real-life relationships? TIME magazine, (2004, 19 January).
57. Habitual abuse introduces a number of negative consequences with ramifications to college men. Healthy relationships are devalued by habitual exposure; the woman may be looked upon strictly for physical gratification at the expense of personal commitment. A man is more likely to engage in behaviors that are self-fulfilling at the expense of his partner while developing a more shallow conception of personal fulfillment.
Parker Snyder, Wake Forest University, “The Culture of Technology on Campus,” Journal of College and Character, (2000, 14 May).
58. “Consider how computing technologies have begun to insert pornography into popular campus culture. What has been previously considered as emotionally and physically harmful is being popularized as chic, enjoyable and common. Popular cable channels among college-aged students have begun to broadcast specials on the making of pornographic videos. Mainstream championship-wrestling personalities— popular with college men— have been dubbed ‘porn stars’ and their exploits of countless females glamorized. Non-pornographic web sites reinforce the trend to mainstream pornography by advertising chat sessions with adult film actresses. A popular national radio show for college men recently solicited the opportunity to have sex with a ‘porn star.’ The pornography industry has intensified its marketing strategy toward men on college campuses because of the framework for unlimited access and fast connection speeds. The widespread implementation of computing resources on college campuses has contributed to the mainstreaming of pornography and the popularization of its abuse by providing a potentially enormous target audience with a means of powerful access capabilities.”
Parker Snyder, Wake Forest University, “The Culture of Technology on Campus,” Journal of College and Character, (2000, 14 May).
59. Former Iowa State University assistant basketball coach Randy Brown served a prison sentence for receiving child pornography. He said he hated himself every night and said, “Let’s face it – the whole thing is awful,” and “it just seemed so harmless at the time. You engage yourself in fantasy, then it’s over and you’re out of there.” Brown acted upon his addiction, getting arrested for trying to pick up a 15-year-old girl, who was actually a man posing as a girl.
Pamela Paul, Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families, (New York: Times Books, 2005), 196-197.
Women
“More than 80 percent of women who have this addiction take it offline. Women, far more than men, are likely to act out their behaviors in real life, such as having multiple partners, casual sex, or affairs.”
Marnie Ferree, Today’s Christian Woman, September/October 2003.
60. Marnie Ferree, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Nashville, Tennessee, told the story of “Julie,” the alias for a woman who had viewed X-rated sex videos with her husband after hearing it would rejuvenate their sex life. “Julie” said: “That’s the ugliest lie out there. Instead of bringing you closer, it drives a wedge between you and your spouse.”
Ramona Richards, Dirty Little Secret — Men aren’t the only ones lured by Internet porn, Christianity Today Magazine, (2004, 15 July).
61. One out of every six women struggles with an addiction to pornography. That’s 17 percent of the population, which, according to a survey by Zogby International, is the number of women who truly believe they can find sexual fulfillment on the Internet.
Today’s Christian Woman, September/October 2003.
62. A random survey of 930 women in San Francisco suggested that the connection between pornography and abuse of women is strong and that many women have been harmed by pornography.
Diana Russell and Karen Trocki, The Impact of Pornography on Women, testimony to the Meese Commission, Houston, Texas, (1985, 11 September).
63. Many of the 200 street prostitutes who had been the victims of sexual abuse indicated that their abusers were imitating the abusing males in pornographic materials.
Mimi Silbert and Ayala Pine, “Pornography and Sexual Abuse of Women,” Sex Roles 10(11/12), (1984): 866.
64. Who are the victims of Pornography? Wives of men preoccupied with pornography and the sex industry; women who are being treated with disrespect and sexually abused; young women trapped in an industry that exploits them and uses them as mere sex objects.
Who Are the Victims of Pornography? Victims of Pornography
65. Pornography, created by novices and without scripts, in homes, was typically sold for $250-$2,000 to any of 100 U.S. companies providing minor editing, packaging and distribution services. Female victims spoke about coercion, abuse, rape, torture and battering in the production, along with fear and humiliation about the knowledge that people were buying videos of their abuse for pleasure and entertainment. These victims had no legal redress. Many women and children were photographed or videotaped by husbands, boyfriends or others without their consent or knowledge.
Gail Dines, Ann Russo and Robert Jensen, Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (New York: Rutledge, 1995), 24-25.
66. The myth began long ago, perhaps because women were rarely seen walking into seedy adult bookstores. But in recent years, the accessibility, affordability and anonymity of the Internet have made pornography undeniably attractive to millions of women. While some women simply find it exciting, others have battled addictions and other problems.
Mark O’Keefe, Web-Site porn attracts women by the millions, Newhouse News Service., (31 October 2003).
67. Some women get involved in the porn industry because they believe it will be glamorous and exciting and it will improve their current social and economic circumstances. One woman said: “I hated the way I was treated, but the job seemed glamorous, sophisticated; it was a far cry from the drudgery of minimum-wage office work. I was fascinated by the glimpses of corporate and male wealth, the call girls, the whole atmosphere of ‘adult’ sexuality. In a culture where female self-esteem still depends on sexual attractiveness, on male ‘appreciation’ of our looks, this job felt like the big time. To be paid for being beautiful and sexy was the ultimate reassurance. … No amount of wealth or power gives men the right to buy us, but the lack of our own wealth or power means that we can be bought.”
Gail Dines, Ann Russo and Robert Jensen, Pornography: The Production and Consupmtion of Inequality (New York: Rutledge, 1995), 24.
68. “I was married to an abusive husband for over 18 years. He used me to act out his pornographic fantasies. Disrespect, anger, belittlement, humiliation, pain, confusion, and brokenness are just a few of the words that describe how I felt as I recall what I went through. I have blocked out so much just to keep my sanity. I tried so hard to measure up and perform like the women and men in the pictures. I thought it would save my marriage. I soon learned that I was nothing but an object to be used and abused for his sexual pleasures. I have escaped the pain, but for a price. My children and I know that pornography is damaging in many ways.”
Former wife of a porn addict, Wives of Porn Addicts, Victims of Pornography.
69. A former Playboy bunny testified to the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography: “I was extremely suicidal and sought psychiatric help for the eight years I lived in a sexually promiscuous fashion. In Los Angeles, my roommate, who was a bunny, had slashed her wrists because she was so suicidal. Although I received small parts in ‘Godfather II and ‘Funny Lady,’ had sex with movie stars and producers, I felt worthless and empty. Out of my despair, I attempted suicide on numerous occasions.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: “Victimization,” (1986): 24.
70. Asked if she would encourage her children to follow in her footsteps, porn “actress” Jenna Jameson said: “I’d lock them in the closet. It’s not something that I would ever choose for my child. I don’t think any father or mother ever would. … It’s not something I would want my daughter to have to go through.’’
Kelly Wilson, Steamy star, East Valley resident Jenna Jameson dishes on celebrity, book and kids,East Valley Tribune-Get Out, (2004, 30 September).
71. The average age at which a child is first exposed to pornography is 11. Adolescent curiosity about sex is normal. What experts fear about Internet pornography is the constant bombardment of violent and degrading images, which can skew boys’ attitudes toward girls and can lead to earlier sexual behavior.
Bella English, The Secret Life of Boys: Pornography Is a Mouse Click Away, and Kids Are Being Exposed to It in Ever-Increasing Numbers, The Boston Globe, (2005, 12 May): D1
72. Carleton Kendrick, a family therapist, had counseled many males addicted to porn, one as young as 10. “If you’re going on these sites every day, it’s going to become part of your sexual DNA and your emotional DNA and your attitude toward women. Pornography changes boys’ expectations of real girls, and that by default changes reality for the girls. What bothers me is that the girls aren’t outraged by it.” Kendrick and other critics note that in pornography as in prostitution there is no romance. “You will be hard pressed on any porn site to see a man and a woman kissing. It has nothing to do with romance but with being used or being the user.”
Bella English, The Secret Life of Boys: Pornography Is a Mouse Click Away, and Kids Are Being Exposed to It in Ever-Increasing Numbers, The Boston Globe, (2005, 12 May): D1.
73. John Haney, psychotherapist with Crossroads Counseling and Associates in Austin, Texas, has worked with many teens and adults who have compulsive sexual disorders. He said, “It’s normal for (teenage) boys to have an interest in sex, but it’s not healthy for them to explore it that way. I think if a teen is turning to pornography to get information about sexuality, they are going to get a distorted and incomplete view.” He said most pornography depicts male domination and women as sexual objects rather than human beings, and incomplete, because sexual acts aren’t put into perspective. “(Pornography) completely neglects the emotional aspects of intimacy. There is more to sex than the physical aspect.” Viewing pornography, he said, also give teens — especially young girls — an unrealistic and even destructive way of viewing themselves and their sexuality.
Penny Starr, Porn-Maker Praises Planned Parenthood’s Teenwire Web Site, CyberNewsService, (2008, 13 March).
Children
“As children generally are not exposed to a reasonable explanation of healthy sexual attitudes and behavior, they have no way to recognize that pornography represents bizarre fantasy content and there is an absence of healthy affection and reasonable responsibility for one’s actions. In addition, much pornographic projects negative attitudes and messages about females.”
Dr. Franklin Osanka, behavioral and social scientist, in remarks to the Meese Commission in 1986. Cited in: Franklin Mark Osanka and Sara Lee Johann, Sourcebook on Pornography, (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1989): 95.
CHART II
74. A U.S. House of Representatives committee found that exposing children to pornographic material causes harm to children ad is a dangerous influence in their development. Neuroscientist Dr. Gary Lynch said, “[A]n event which lasts half a second[,] within five to 10 minutes has produced a structural change that is in some ways as profound as the structural changes … in [brain]damage … [and] can … leave a trace that will last for years.”
Dr. Gary Lynch, Study conducted for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention of the U.S. Dept. of Justice.
75. Watching sex on TV predicts and may hasten adolescent sexual initiation. A diet of TV high in sexual content was strongly related to initiation of intercourse and advancement of non-coital activity levels in the following year. Watching the
highest levels of sexual content effectively doubled the next-year likelihood of initiating intercourse.
Rebecca Collins, Marc Elliott, Sandra Berry, David Kanouse, Dale Kunkel, Sarah Hunter and Angela Miu, “Watching Sex on Television Predicts Adolescent Initiation of Sexual Behavior,”Pediatrics 114 (2004), e280, e284, e287.
76. “The children also show the damage. As pornography becomes normalized, it is left around the house. Children can get exposed to it. These are tender minds that are just developing their conceptualizations of sex. Normalizing abnormal sex increases the likelihood that they will engage in these behaviors. This increases the likelihood of early sexual experience and with it, the increasing risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. These children often think that all relationships are sexual. That sex is the core of their personalities and is the way in which you raise your self-esteem. This may be one reason that we see sexual addiction running in families. The distorted beliefs are not only reinforced but modeled as well.”
Testimony of Dr. Mary Anne Layden, U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, (2004, 18 November).
78. “I think most parents don’t have a clue this could be going on in their own family room where a kid is hooked up to a computer. And yet we know from our work on this committee and you’ve identified from the work you’ve done, it’s very easy to get caught up in the web of predators and perverts in this country who seek out children to do ghastly things to them. As a parent, it has been most troubling to learn about what does go on out there and I think most parents in America would share that, that they just can’t believe this happens and how easily and quickly it happens.”
U.S. Representative Bart Stupak (Democrat-Michigan), member Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, House Energy and Commerce Committee, (2006, 27 June).
79. “Ten years ago, before we had public access to the Internet so readily, parents were sexually abusing their children, but they weren’t taking videotapes and making pictures and putting them on the Internet. Now that’s what we’re beginning to see, which means that they see their children not only as their victims, but as a commodity for money, to the public, those who are like-minded and would like to have access to their children, in that sense. So I see the commodification of children as a bigger problem in our society and the fact that we fail to see them as individuals who will be highly harmed by knowing that their images are on the Internet.”
Dr. Sharon Cooper, Department of Pediatrics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill testimony, (2006, 4 April), U.S. Representative Edward Whitfield (Republican-Kentucky) Holds A Hearing On Children And The Internet, Committee: Oversight And Investigations Subcommittee, Subcommittee: House Energy And Commerce Committee.
80. “To children, pornography is instructional in that it provides a visual message about new information. However, that information is not an accurate portrayal of human sexuality. Photographs, videos, magazines, and virtual games which portray rape and the dehumanization of females in sexual scenes are powerful forms of sex education. Unlike learning provided in an educational setting, exposure to pornography is counterproductive to the goal of healthy and appropriate sexual development in children. It teaches without supervision or guidance, inundating children’s minds with graphic messages about their bodies, their own sexuality, and those of adults and children around them.”
Dr. Gary Brooks, The Centerfold Syndrome, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, (1995).
81. Children and adolescents who view violent pornography are probably more at risk than adults who view such material. The Internet allows many children and adolescents access to violent pornography, which previously would have been difficult for them to obtain. Exposure to such pornography may interfere with the course of natural sexual development and may inappropriately accelerate sexual relationships.
Sarah Coyne, Sexualized Violence, Jeffrey Arnett (ed.), Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media (Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Reference, 2007), 771.
82. Studies identified certain characteristics in the children targeted by sexual offenders: children who are depressed; children in the care of the state; previously abused children; children with learning and social difficulties; children who cooperate to seek rewards and children with low self-esteem. The majority of children (75 percent) do not report being approached sexually and only 10 percent of the approaches ever get reported to the police.
Peter David Goldberg, An Exploratory Study about the Impacts that Cybersex (The Use of the Internet for Sexual Purposes) is Having on Families and the Practices of Marriage and Family Therapists, p. 30. Mitchell, K. J., Finkelhor, D. and Wolack, J. (2003, March). The exposure of youth to unwanted sexual material on the Internet: A national survey of risk, impact and prevention.Youth and Society 34 (3), 330-358. Petraitis, V., and O’Connor, C. (1999). Rockspider: The danger of paedophiles – untold stories (Melbourne, Australia: Hybrid Publishers).
83. Child and adult pornography is frequently used by pedophiles to lure children. The typical child molester befriends the child, often through Internet chat rooms, and, after building trust, exposes the child to pornography. This is done in an attempt to make the child think that this behavior is acceptable and to lure him or her to participate. The experience of exploitation and abuse became a lifelong struggle for the victim and left them with the fear that their photos will stay out there for pornography users.
The Effects of Pornography and Sexual Messages, National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families.
84. When a child lives in a home where an adult consumes pornography, he or she encounters four risks: decreased parental time and attention, increased risk of encountering pornographic material, increased risk of parental separation and divorce, and increased risk of parental job loss and financial strain.
Jill Manning, Pornography’s Impact on Marriage and the Family, Testimony before the Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights Committee on Judiciary, United States Senate, (2005, 9 November).
85. Children growing up in an overly sexualized culture are being exposed to sexually explicit material on a daily basis through network television, movies, music and the Internet. Children are being subjected to sexual material and messages before they are mentally prepared to understand or evaluate what they are viewing. The majority of sex education takes place in the media, not in the home, church or school.
The Effects of Pornography and Sexual Messages. National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families.
86. Numerous sexual assaults on children by children were reported in the 1980s in connection with dial-a-porn. Included was the rape of a 10-year-old girl by two brothers, 12 and 15, who had listened to several dial-a-porn messages. A four-year-old girl was raped by a 12-year-old boy who had just spent 2 ½ hours listening to dial-a-porn.
Peter Stock, “The Harmful Effects on Children of Exposure to Pornography,” Canadian Institute for Education on the Family, (2004, November).
87. Fifty-three percent of child molesters deliberately used pornography in their typical planned preparation for offending, as did 33 percent of the rapists who were incited to offend by these materials.
W.Marshall, The Use of Sexually Explicit Stimuli by R apists, Child Molesters, and Nonoffenders, The Journal of Sex Research 25(2) (1988, May): 284.
CHART III
88. A study found that 13- and 14-year-olds became more accepting of premarital and extramarital sex after seeing sexual relations between unmarried on video (Bryant & Rockwell, 1994). “This example shows one route by which pornography can affect the moral values of young teenagers. Equally important, use of pornography can be an important additional risk factor for sexual violence when used heavily by boys already at risk for antisocial behavior. A study of long-term memories of impactful experiences with sexual media indicates that inadvertent or unintentional exposure can be frightening and disgusting to children and teens, especially girls. In sum, the evidence indicates that pornography and other sexualized media can influence sexual violence, sexual attitudes, moral values, and sexual activity of children and youth.”
Dr. Patricia Marks Greenfield, a developmental psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at UCLA, testified to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform, on 13 March 2003.
89. For pedophiles, pornography often became a lure and teaching tool. Many children and their molesters told the same story. Pornography was used to instruct the child in what the pedophile wanted.
Karen Holgate, Pornography and Its Effect on Children: Photographs Don’t Affect Us? ChildCare Action Project, (2000).
90. Several types of effects have been observed in studies of violent media content and children: desensitization, increases in hostility, imitation and disinhibition, and fear and anxiety responses. Desensitization occurs when an emotional response to a stimulus is diminished after repeated exposure to that stimulus.
Nontechnical Strategies to Reduce Children’s Exposure to Inappropriate Material on the Internet: Summary of a Workshop by Joah G. Iannotta, ed. NCJ 190174. U.S. Departments of Justice and Education, et al., 2001. Grant number: JN–FX–0071, 18, 19.
91. Spending one’s prepubescence and puberty on porn can have lifelong implications. Masters and Johnson clinical director Mark Schwartz has worked with boys age 14-15 who are addicted to pornography. “It’s awful to see the effect it has on them,” he said. “It affects how they develop sexually. Think about a 12-year-old boy looking at Playboy magazine. When you’re talking about Internet pornography, you can multiply that effect by the relative size of the Internet itself.”
Pamela Paul, Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families, (New York: Times Books, 2005): 198-199.
92. A study of 101 sexually abusive children in Australia documented increased aggressiveness in boys who used pornography. When questioned separately, nearly all of their parents said they doubted their child would access any pornography via the Internet.
Pamela Paul, Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families, (New York: Times Books, 2005): 199.
93. So, how is the developing child’s brain restructured by the pornographic release of inhibitory transmitters as well as its vision of reality? Such states of sexual or fear arousal (a child’s response to a flash of pornographic stimuli), says europsychologist Margaret Kemeny, trigger alarm and “an adrenaline rush, our pupils dilate and our heart starts to race.”
Dr. Judith Reisman, The Psychopharmacology of Pictorial Pornography Restructuring Brain, Mind & Memory & Subverting Freedom of Speech, (July 2003).
94. Eighty-three percent of pornography offenses with juvenile involvement occurred in homes and residences. The offenders were usually lone adult males. Victims comprised a slight preponderance of girls and teens with both family and non-family relationships to the offender.
David Finkelhor and Richard Ormrod, Child Pornography: Patterns from NIBRS, Juvenile Justice Bulletin, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, (2004, December): 5, 7.
CHART IV
95. Patrick Naughton, a former Walt Disney Company Internet executive, traveled from Seattle to Santa Monica, California to meet a 13-year-old “girl” going by the alias “KrisLA.” Upon arrival, he was arrested by an FBI agent posing as the girl. He fought the charge, but was convicted of possession of child pornography. Naughton avoided jail time by agreeing to develop software to help the FBI catch cyber-predators.
Brian Hansen, Congressional Qarterly Researcher 12(8) (2002, 1 March): 1.
96. Canadian children were considered especially vulnerable to cross-border pedophiles because the age of consent for sexual activity in Canada is only 14 years of age, one of the lowest ages in the Western Hemisphere. There were more than 10 million Internet users inCanada, and 99 percent of children in Canada had access to the Internet. According to Microsoft Canada, 25 percent of the children with access to a computer had been approached by a stranger online. Fifteen percent of the children had actually met an Internet stranger without their parents’ knowledge; some of these children never returned to the homes again.
Paedophiles Luring Your Child on the Internet, Real Women of Canada.
97. Incidents of young children displaying sexually aggressive behavior toward others were increasing, and exposure to pornography on the Internet is a key factor. The child-at-risk assessment unit at Canberra Hospital in Australia was seeing as few as three children a year in the mid 1990s who were involved in “sexually abusive behavior.” By 2000, the number had grown to 28. Of the 101 sexually abusive children seen during a three-year period, almost all had access to the Internet, and 90 percent admitted having seen sexually explicit material online. “We’re suggesting there’s an association between the children’s exposure to inappropriate material on the Internet … and their acting out in sexually aggressive behavior, experimenting and modeling what they’re seeing,” said Dr. Janet Stanley, one of the child protection experts at Canberra.
Patrick Goodenough, Online Porn Driving Sexually Aggressive Children, CNS News, (2003, 26 November).
98. There is a clear gap between what children do online and what their parents believe they do online. The Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 64 percent of teens say that teens do things online that they wouldn’t want their parents to know about. Also, 62 percent of parents of teenagers are unaware that their children have accessed objectionable websites. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that 49 percent of children who received sexual solicitations did not tell anyone about it.
Amanda Lenhart, Protecting Teens Online, Pew Internet & American Life Project, Washington (DC): (2005, 17 March). David Finkelhor, Kimberly Mitchell and Janis Wolak, Online Victimization: A Report on the Nation’s Youth, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Alexandria, Virginia: (2000, June).
99. Apple Computer iPods made video capabilities a concern for parents worried about their children potentially downloading pornography and then viewing it away from home. “This dilemma is going to get much worse, given the capacity of handheld, electronic devices to download porn,” said Carleton Kendrick, a psychotherapist in Millis, Massachusetts.
Eric Sinrod, Perspective: iPod Porn Pains Parents, Employers, 16 November 2005, c/net News. Stephanie Armour, Technology makes porn easier to access at work, USA Today, (2007, 17 October).
BUSINESS ASPECTS
The Business of Pornography
“A great many people are willing to deplore such material but unwilling to take or allow action to stop its distribution. … We are living through a cultural collapse, and major corporations are presiding over that collapse and grabbing everything they can on the way down.”
Robert Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, (New York: Harper Collins, 1996): 138.
CHART V
100. The top video porn-producing nations are:
| 1. United States 2. Brazil 3. Netherlands 4. Spain 5. Japan 6. Russia 7. Germany 8. United Kingdom 9. Canada 10. Australia |
Jerry Ropelato, Top Ten REVIEWS Reports Worldwide Pornography Market at Least $97 Billion, Business Wire, 12 March 2007. Michael Arrington, “Internet Pornography Stats,” Tech Crunch, (2007, 12 May).
101. If you take away the accountants and CEOs, you’re left with a small insular world, filled with renegades and outcasts, who like to flaunt society’s rules. Luke Ford, a former Internet gossip columnist, said: “They come into this industry, because this is the single easiest way that they can earn $1,000 in a day, in two hours. It’s not like we’re losing people from going to medical school or business school or becoming lawyers. Most girls who enter this industry do one video and quit. The experience is so painful, horrifying, embarrassing, humiliating for them that they never do it again.”
Steve Kroft, Porn in the U.S.A., 60 Minutes, CBS News, (2004, 5 September).
102. It is not only mainstream corporations that are anxious for a piece of the action. “The Porn/Hip-Hop Connection,” an article written by Dan Miller, an associate editor of Adult Video News, gleefully delineates the benefits to the pornography industry of partnering porn with hip-hop. Published in the print version of the magazine in September of 2002, Miller’s article discusses the history of the affiliation, the positive effect on revenue specifically due to the fan base that the rappers bring with them, and the desire of the “adult industry” to gain broader social acceptance by making use of the hip-hop industry’s current mainstream status.
Sharon Secor, The Tie Between the Porn Industry and Hip-Hop Videos. Obscenity Crimes, (2003, February)
CHART VI
103. Every second: $3,075 is spent on pornography, 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography and 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines. Every 39 minutes, a new pornographic video is being created in the United States. Though the number is growing constantly, there were 420 million pornographic web pages, 4.2 million pornographic websites and 100,000 websites offering illegal child pornography.
J.Ropelato, “Internet Pornography Statistics,” Top Ten Reviews, (2007).
104. Tim Connelly, editor and publisher of Adult Video News, estimated that when strip clubs, magazines, the Internet, television and DVDs are factored in, porn has become a $10 billion industry. “That’s more than Hollywood makes at the box office,” says Connelly. “And it just grows and grows and grows. It’s mainstream now.”
Pat Buchanan, As Adelphia goes, so goes America? World Net Daily, (2005, 14 February).
105. Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) attracted notoriety by using sexually explicit articles and photos of nude young men and women in its quarterly catalogs. A firestorm of protest led to a brief publication pause before a return to publishing more soft porn. This prompted a resolution by the Illinois State Senate calling on the public to boycott A&F, and urging stockholder action “against the marketing techniques promoting an obscene lifestyle, until advertising of this nature ceases.” The resolution noted that advertisements for clothing did not begin until page 122 — after 121 pages of explicit photographs of nude, semi-nude and provocatively posed young people.
Ed Hynes, A View from Riverside Drive, Morality in Media, (2002, May).
106. Pornography grossed 30 times as much as the highly successful movie, “The Passion of the Christ,” and 200 million citizens spent on average $50 a year each to keep the industry booming.
Pat Buchanan, As Adelphia goes, so goes America? World Net Daily, (2005, 14 February).
107. CleanHotels.com is a family-friendly directory of hotels and motels that exclude adult offerings from their in-room entertainment service: “Our primary purpose is to provide a service through which friends like you can book a room for your vacation, business trip or meeting with the expectation, first, that you and your family or associates will not be exposed to pornographic movies and, secondly, that you will be supporting a facility that cares enough about the well-being of its customers not to make harmful pornographic movies available.” Clean Hotels says that hotels pandering pornographic movies can create a hostile and potentially dangerous environment for women traveling alone or with children.
Welcome to our family-friendly service, CleanHotels.com!, CleanHotels.com
CHART VII
108.The trade publication of the porn industry, Adult Video News, frequently praised the Clinton Justice Department for not enforcing federal obscenity laws. The March 2000 issue asked, “How likely is it, would you say, that we are going to enjoy the same benevolent neglect that the industry has enjoyed under Janet Reno? Regardless of who is elected, our fortunes are going to change.”
Jan LaRue, The Porn Ring Around Corporate White Collars: Getting Filthy Rich, Concerned Women for America, (2002, 12 December).
109. American consumers spent an estimated $220 million on fee-based “adult” sites in 2001, according to Jupiter Media Metrix, a New York Internet research firm. That was up from $148 million in 1999. Jupiter is projecting $320 million by 2005.
Marilyn Elias, Cybersex follows Mars, Venus patterns, USA Today, (2002, 26 February).
CHART VIII
110. Spokesmen for two of the biggest hotel chains, Hilton and Marriott, defended the policies that make adult movies widely available at their affiliated hotels. Both companies considered adult movies acceptable because they can be ignored or blocked out by guests not wishing to view them. Roger Conner, of Marriott, said, “In-room movies are a revenue stream. This is a business matter.”
David Crary, Coalition wants porn movies out of hotels, Associated Press, (2006, 23 August).
111. LodgeNet and On Command combined to provide entertainment to nearly 2 million hotel rooms in North America.
David Crary, Coalition wants porn movies out of hotels, Associated Press, (2006, 23 August).
112. When Omni, with its chain of 80 hotels, stopped offering pornography from its entertainment system, the corporation found it difficult to find a movie provider that excluded porn. Eventually, LodgeNet agreed to offer movies to Omni without including porn. By shutting down pornography in its hotels, Omni experienced an increase in movie rental profits. Omni received 50,000 favorable letters from customers for its anti-porn stand. Nonetheless, LodgeNet Entertainment provided porn to 1.8 million hotel rooms in 9,300 hotel properties in North America.
LodgeNet website, 2007, The Associated Press, (9 August 2007). Anti-porn group targets company offering adult movies to hotel guests in the U.S. James Harder, Porn 500 – blue chip connections to porn industry – Statistical Data Included, BNET Research Center, (2001, 8 January).
113. General Motors’ DirecTV porn video offerings generated nearly $200 million in revenue in a recent year, selling more sex films every year than Larry Flynt, owner of the Hustler empire.
T.Egan, Wall Street Meets Pornography, New York Times, (2003, 23, October).
114. Hollywood produced about 400 movies a year. The pornography industry cranked out between 9,000 and 11,000 movies annually.
David Abel, Porn is Hot on Campus, Boston Globe, (2001, 20 August).
115. Forty percent of all U.S. hotel rooms were offering pay-per-view pornography, and 10 percent of guests were accessing the programming.
American Porn: Corporate America is Profiting from Porn-Quietly, ABC News, (2003, 28 January). Cited in: Sean Hannon Williams, The Regulation of Sex: The Parallel Trends of Increased Adult Content in Mainstream Media and Harder Core Pornography: A Tale of Market Failure? Carceral Journals, 68.
116. Bill Lyon, a former defense industry lobbyist who became head of the porn lobby, said, “This is an extremely large business and there’s a great opportunity for profits in it.” He said the profitable nature of the business was changing the view of the industry among politicians. Asked what reaction he got when telling politicians that he is a lobbyist for the pornography industry, he replied, “Initially, I think there’s a degree of shock. But when you explain to them the size and the scope of the business, they realize, as all politicians do, that it’s votes and money that we’re talking about.”
Steve Kroft, Porn in the U.S.A., 60 Minutes, CBS News, (2004, 5 September).
117. The pornography industry was employing 12,000 people in California and paying more than $36 million in taxes.
Steve Kroft, Porn in the U.S.A., 60 Minutes, CBS News, (2004, 5 September).
Pornography in the Work Place
“Many people may view some inappropriate computer images as a bit of harmless fun. But this is not just about sparing blushes. A culture where some dodgy pictures are tolerated can all too easily create the environment where far more offensive or even illegal images can find their way into an organization – by accident or otherwise.”
Imogen Haslam, professional advisor, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, Too Much Porn in the Workplace, Warns CIPD, (2004, 17 December), Out-Law.com.
CHART IX
SOURCE: 2005 Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance Survey: Many Companies Monitoring, Recording, Videotaping – and Firing – Employees, (2005, 18 May), American Management Association.
118. Seventy percent of all adult traffic on the Internet occurred between the hours of 9 a.m.and 5 p.m. – prime work hours.
Cited in: Al Cooper, Gale Golden and Jay Kent-Ferraro, Online Sexual Behaviors in the Workplace: How can Human Resource Departments and Employee Assistance Programs Respond Effectively?Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity 9 (2002), 149-165.
119. A survey found that 71 percent of companies in the United Kingdom had to take disciplinary action as a result of employees viewing pornographic images on company computers. Fifty-four percent of senior managers questioned were unaware of their personal liability for illegal and inappropriate images in the workplace. Sixty-eight percent of medium to large companies in the public and private sectors had not installed technology capable of identifying improper images accessed on computers.
Too Much Porn in the Workplace, Warns CIPD, Out-Law.com, (2004, 17 December).
120. Pornography creates tension in the workplace, in part because laptop computers, cell phones and other portable devices make it easier for risk-takers to visit such websites undetected. Devices providing wireless access to the Internet appear to be giving the porn-at-work phenomenon a boost even as employers are getting more aggressive about using software to block workers’ access to inappropriate websites. About 65 percent of U.S.companies used such software in 2005, according to a survey by the American Management Association and the ePolicy Institute, up from 40 percent in 2001. Employers worry about lawsuits brought by employees who were exposed to pornography by co-workers.
Stephanie Armour, “Technology makes porn easier to access at work,” USAToday, (2007, 17 October).
121. About one in four companies have fired an employee for misusing the Internet, according to a 2005 survey by the American Management Association. Some employers have adopted a zero-tolerance policy; others impose progressively more serious penalties when they catch an employee viewing adult websites.
Stephanie Armour, “Technology makes porn easier to access at work,” USAToday, (2007, 17 October).
122. The U.S. Office of the Inspector General found that a significant number of employees at the U.S. Department of the Interior were accessing pornographic sites, many for periods of 30 minutes to an hour. Four employees were found to have downloaded egregious volumes of pornography, including child pornography, and each was prosecuted and sentenced for anywhere from 10 months to eight years in jail.
“The Ten Most Dangerous Online Activities,” Forbes Magazine, (2006, 25 October).
123. About one-quarter of U.S. employees were using company computers to access sexual and/or romantic sites and chat rooms, according to the study “America at Work,” released by the Employment Law Alliance. Forty-three percent of survey respondents believed this reduced employee work productivity. Additional survey findings:
- 12 percent said they or a co-worker had accessed sexually explicit websites at work
- 12 percent said they or a co-worker had forwarded sexually explicit email content to co-workers
- 6 percent said they or a co-worker had engaged in sexually explicit online chats or instant messaging while at work
- 54 percent said these activities did not have a negative impact on their productivity
Loren Baker, Workplace Internet Full of Porn, Blogs and Dating, Search Engine Journal, (2004, 15 February).
124. iPods are becoming so ubiquitous and so small that they are an easy vehicle for bringing pornography into the workplace. Employees discreetly could try to view pornography away from the watch of superiors. In doing so, they can be distracted from their work and may contribute to a potentially hostile work environment if their porn is seen by co-workers.
Eric Sinrod, Perspective: iPod Porn Pains Parents, Employers, c/net News, (2005, 16 November).
125. Adrian Fenty, the mayor of Washington, D.C., fired six city employees who had each accessed at least 20,000 hits to hardcore pornographic sites. More than 30 employees were suspended after accessing between 2,000 and 20,000 pages during the year 2007.
CitizenLink, Family News In Focus, Focus on the Family, (2008).
126. Sierra Aluminum settled out of court by paying $200,000 to an employee who had complained that an assistant manager had viewed pornography on his company computer.
Stephanie Armour, “Technology makes porn easier to access at work,” USAToday, (2007, 17 October).
127. Researchers and psychologists who study Internet users’ behavior say those who view online porn at work are doing so because they get a rush out of taking risks, engage in self-delusional beliefs that they won’t get caught and, in some cases, suffer from addictive behaviors. The rising use of mobile devices such as video phones could exacerbate the problem, they say.
Stephanie Armour, “Technology makes porn easier to access at work,” USAToday, (2007, 17 October).
128. Psychologists say those who view porn at work are doing so because they get a rush out of taking risks, engage in self-delusional beliefs that they won’t get caught and, in some cases, suffer from addictive behaviors.
Stephanie Armour, “Technology makes porn easier to access at work,” USAToday, (2007, 17 October).
129. Use of the Internet for sexual activities in the workplace can cause serious social, psychological, ethical, legal and financial problems for both businesses and their employees. Little has been written to inform executives, managers, employers, Human Resource personnel, and Employee Assistance Program professionals who need to comprehensively manage the impact of this problem in the workplace.
A. Cooper, G.H. Golden and J. Kent-Ferraro, Online Sexual Behaviors in the Workplace: How can Human Resource Departments and Employee Assistance Programs Respond Effectively? Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity 9(2-3) (2002, 1 April), 149-165.
130. A consultant hired to beef up security for the White House’s computer network found that massive amounts of pornographic video files had been downloaded through the system’s Internet firewall. Some of the files were traced back to West Wing and the OldExecutive Office Building in 1998 and 1999. The real-time video files, which came from hardcore porn sites and included homosexual, animal and teen sex activities — were so large in byte volume that they accounted for most of the traffic coming into the firewall. The names of significant upper-level government administrators surfaced – including presidential personnel, national security officials and a senior White House computer systems manager.
Paul Sperry, Web-porn scandal rocks White House, (2000, 9 August), World Net Daily.
Creation of Pornography Markets
“Porn is often first to sniff out the practical uses of new media, leading the way for profitable investment by the media. Its design is, simply, to get to market as quickly and easily as possible. When new media offer new markets, porn spies them quickly and rushes to fill them, like an amoeba extruding a new pseudopod where its skin is thinnest.”
Peter Johnson, Pornography Drives Technology: Why Not to Censor the Internet, Indiana Law School.
131. Pornography helped drive early sales and the development of most new entertainment technologies for the past 25 years — providing software for the latest gadgets and a reason to buy them. The first people who purchase these technologies are usually affluent young men who like porn. Fred Lane, a lawyer and author, said, “The way I like to put it is that we went from 1,000 adult movie theaters in less than 10 years to 80 million adult movie theaters. And that basically is what happened with the VCR.”
Steve Kroft, Porn in the U.S.A., CBS News – 60 Minutes, (2004, 5 September).
132. Playboy Enterprises and Dwango Wireless joined forces to create another market for pornography. The two organizations jointly announced plans to sell adult mobile phone content to wireless subscribers in Canada and the United States. The two companies intended to flood the mobile phone airwaves with Plaboy-themed games, images, video clips and other items. Playboy already sells wireless entertainment overseas, including in Germany, the United Kingdom, Australia and Brazil. With its expansion into North America, the company estimates that it will tap a market of more than 170 million wireless subscribers.
Alorie Gilbert, Playboy aims to sex up U.S. mobile phones, C/net News, (2004, 2 December).
133. Do-it-yourself Internet kits enabled the rise of mom and pop shop home pornography providers. American Sex, Inc., sold a beginner’s kit for $200 that provided pornographic photos and videos allowing consumers to create their own online subscription sites. Having the technological tools to become home pornography entrepreneurs also resulted in people posting nude and lascivious images of their own spouse on the Internet. “The mom-and-pop player can bring a level of intimacy and personal service,” said Jim Duvall, co-founder of Jane’s Guide, a publication that rated and reviewed adult content.
Brendan Koerner, A Lust for Profits, U.S. News & World Report, (2000, 27 March): 36.
134. With the emergence of the use of computers to traffic in child pornography, a new and growing segment of producers and consumers is being identified. They are individuals who may not have a sexual preference for children, but who have seen the gamut of adult pornography and who are searching for more bizarre material.
Margaret Healy, Child pornography: An international perspective, Paper presented at the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, Yokohama, Japan, (2002, 27 February): 4.
135. Among Internet technologies providing access to child pornography are:
- Usenet — a distributed electronic bulletin system offering thousands of news groups, many of them dedicated to sharing of digital images.
- Peer-to-peer file sharing programs — Internet applications operating over peer-to-peer networks enabling direct communication between users. Used largely for sharing of digital music, images, and video. Juvenile users of peer-to-peer networks face a significant risk of inadvertent exposure to pornography when searching and downloading images. In a search using innocuous keywords likely to be used by juveniles searching peer-to-peer networks (such as names of popular singers, actors, and cartoon characters), almost half the images downloaded were classified as adult or cartoon pornography.
Linda Koontz, U.S. General Accounting Office, Users of Peer-to-Peer Networks Can Readily Access Child Pornography, Testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, (2003, 9 September): 7.
TECHNOLOGY
The Internet
“[Online pornography] is a serious national problem that is causing irreparable injury to our most important resource — our children.”
Solicitor General Theodore Olson, in oral arguments to the U.S. Supreme Courtviews
CHART X
SOURCE: ABC, Associated Press, AsiaMedia, AVN, BBC, CATW, U.S. Census, Central Intelligence Agency, China Daily, Chosen.com, Comscore Media Metrix, Crimes Against Children, Eros, Forbes, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Free Speech Coalition, Google, Harris Interactive, Hitwise, Hoover’s, Japan Inc., Japan Review, Juniper Research, Kagan Research, ICMEC, Jan LaRue, The Miami Herald, MSN, Nielsen/NetRatings, The New York Times, Nordic Institute, PhysOrg.com, PornStudies, Pravda, Sarmatian Review, SEC filings, Secure Computing Corp., SMH, TopTenREVIEWS, Trellian, WICAT, Yahoo!, XBIZ
136. Between 1998 and 2003, there was an 1,800-percent increase in the number of websites offering pornography, according to the N2H2/Secure Computing Corp.
Abram Hess and Natalie Avon, Pornography leads to lack of real emotion, Indiana Daily Student.
137. By the end of 2004, there were 420 million pages of pornography on the Internet, and the majority of the sites were owned by less than 50 companies.
Jan LaRue, Obscenity and the First Amendment, Summit on Pornography, (2005, 19 May).
138. The two largest individual buyers of bandwidth were U.S. firms in the adult online industry.
Dick Thornburgh and Herbert S. Lin, eds., “Youth, Pornography and the Internet,” (Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2002).
139. Forty-thousand expired domain names were taken over by porn sites.
Child-Proofing on the World Wide Web: A Survey of Adult Webservers, (2001), Jurimetrics. National Research Council Report, 2002. Cited in: Enough is Enough: Making the Internet Safer for Children and Families, Internet Pornography.
CHART XI
SOURCE: ABC, Associated Press, AsiaMedia, AVN, BBC, CATW, U.S. Census, Central Intelligence Agency, China Daily, Chosen.com, Comscore Media Metrix, Crimes Against Children, Eros, Forbes, Frankfurt Stock Exchange, Free Speech Coalition, Google, Harris Interactive, Hitwise, Hoover’s, Japan Inc., Japan Review, Juniper Research, Kagan Research, ICMEC, Jan LaRue, The Miami Herald, MSN, Nielsen/NetRatings, The New York Times, Nordic Institute, PhysOrg.com, PornStudies, Pravda, Sarmatian Review, SEC filings, Secure Computing Corp., SMH, TopTenREVIEWS, Trellian, WICAT, Yahoo!, XBIZ
140. More than half of all illegal sites reported to the Internet Watch Foundation were hosted in the United States. Illegal sites in Russia had nearly quadrupled in recent years.
Internet Watch Foundation, Annual Report, 2003, 3. Internet Watch Foundation, CEO Report to the Board, (2004, 27 April).
141. Six kinds of involvement with collecting child pornography on the Internet have been identified:
- Confirmed collector: owns a large collection of child pornography, often meticulously indexed
- Confirmed producer: engages in assaults, pictures of which are exchanged with others; owns a collection of child pornography
- Sexually omnivorous: may possess a collection featuring a wide range of sexual activities
- Sexually curious: may download small amounts of child pornography to see what it is, which may progress to growing involvement
- The libertarian: either through principle or rationalization downloads pictures to assert a right to freedom of access
- The entrepreneur: develops websites or sells CDs and may be marginally involved in the broader sex industry
Professor Max Taylor, The nature and dimensions of child pornography on the Internet, September 1999, Paper presented at the International conference Combating Child Pornography on the Internet in Vienna.
142. There are four ways in which pedophiles misuse the Internet: to traffic child pornography, to locate children to molest, to engage in inappropriate sexual communication with children and to communicate with other pedophiles. Use of the Internet by pedophiles constitutes a significant development in pedophiliac behavior. Pedophiles are using the Internet as an outlet for deviant sexual gratification and as a social consolidation mechanism. Moreover, the supportive social context afforded by the Internet may encourage some pedophiles to victimize children.
Keith Durkin, “Misuse of the Internet by pedophiles: implication for law enforcement and probation
Practice, Federal Probation 61(3) (1997, September): 14–18.
143. Detective Seargent Paul Gillespie, of the Toronto Police Force, wrote in an email message to Microsoft owner Bill Gates: “In the last couple of years, we’ve just seen such young children on regular seizures — babies, 2-, 3-, 4-year-olds.” Gates forwarded the message to Microsoft Canada. Working with the Toronto police force’s child exploitation section, headed by Gillespie, Microsoft Canada began working developing software that was expected to make it easier for police to investigate the dissemination of child pornography on the Internet.
“Bill Gates answers cop’s child porn plea,” Shanghai Star, (2003, 23 October).
144. Only three percent of porn sites actually required some proof of age from users before giving them access to pornographic material. Despite the availability of age verification systems, children had become some of the main viewers of Internet pornography. Elements of the industry directly targeted children for viewing online pornography and for performing illegal acts in pornographic videos.
Sean Barney, Jon Kott and Jessica Dillon, The Porn Standard: Children and Pornography on the Internet, A Third Way Report, (2005, July): 24. Dick Thornburg and Herbert S. Lin, eds., Youth, Pornography, & the Internet, Committee to Study Tools and Strategies for Protecting Kids from Pornography and Their Applicability to Other Inappropriate Content, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington D,C., 2002.
145. Elements of the industry directly targeted children for viewing online pornography and for performing illegal acts in pornographic videos. The pornography industry’s Washingtonlobby used its growing political influence to fight legislative and regulatory efforts designed to tighten protections for children.
Sean Barney, Jon Kott and Jessica Dillon, The Porn Standard: Children and Pornography on the Internet, A Third Way Report, (2005, July): 24.
CHART XII
146. One of the world’s largest child pornography sites was run by a formerTexas nurse named Thomas Reedy. He was reportedly the first to sell child pornography on the Internet on a pay-per-view basis. Reedy attracted 250,000 paying customers, earning him $1.4 million in profits a month. Between 1996 and 1999, Reedy earned $10 million, 85 percent from child pornography. Terri Moore, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Reedy, said: “He was making a tremendous amount of profit off the misery of children.” His 1,335-year prison sentence was reduced to 180 years, and his wife Janice received a 14-year sentence.
Pip Clothier, This is Thomas Reedy. Looks Harmless enough, doesn’t he?, The Independent, (2003, May 13). Landslide: Profile of a Pornographer, CBC News, (2003, 5 November).
147. “The pornography industry – once relegated to the shadows of society – has harnessed the power of the Internet to become as lucrative a business as network television. Its rapid growth in presence and profitability is increasing its influence on politics and American society. If the expansion of the past five years is any indication, the number of pornographic web pages on the Internet will soon reach one billion.”
Sean Barney, Jon Kott and Jessica Dillon, The Porn Standard: Children and Pornography on the Internet, A Third Way Report, (2005, July): 24.
148. A government study of convicted Internet offenders found: 85 percent of the offenders said they had committed acts of sexual abuse against minors, from inappropriate touching to rape. The study was conducted by psychologists Andres Hernandez and Michael Bourke, of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons. The 155 persons studied had been convicted of abusing 75 victims, but the researchers found that they had actually abused 1,777 victims.
Julian Sher and Benedict Cary, Debate on Child Pornography’s Link to Molesting, New York Times, (2007, 19 July). (Study accepted for publishing by The Journal of Family Violence).
149. Nine out of 10 children between ages 8 and 16 had viewed pornography on the Internet. In most cases, sex sites were accessed unintentionally when a child, often in the process of doing homework, used a seemingly innocent sounding word to search for information or pictures.
London School of Economics, January 2002. Cited in: Statistics on Pornography, Sexual Addiction and Online Perpetrators, TechMission, Safe Families. Cited in: Rules ‘n Tools, Protect Kids.
150. Among the 15-17 year-olds who had ever gone online: 70 percent had accidentally stumbled across pornography online — 23 percent “very” or “somewhat” often; 55 percent of those who were exposed to pornography said they were “not too” or “not at all” upset by it, while 45 percent were “very” or “somewhat” upset.
Generation Rx.com: How Young People Use the Internet for Health Information, The Kaiser Family Foundation, (2001, December): 3, 12.
151. Hundreds of thousands of Internet users showed compulsion for porn sites, X-rated chat rooms or other sexual materials online, according to a study by psychologists at Stanford and Duquesne universities. In one of the first studies to estimate the number of “cyber-sex compulsives,” researchers said at least 200,000 and millions more were at risk.”Cybersex compulsives” were classified as people who spent more than 11 hours a week visiting sexually oriented areas and scoring high on a questionnaire about attitudes toward sex.
Study finds 200,000 are ‘cybersex compulsives,’ (2 March 2000), Milwaukee Journal Sentine, Al Cooper (2000, January).
152. Young men in Hong Kong who reported to have viewed more online pornography scored higher on measures of premarital sexual permissiveness and proclivities toward sexual harassment.
Chun Bun Lam and Darius K-S Chan, “The Use of Cyberpornography by Young Men in Hong Kong: Some Psychosocial Correlates,” Archives of Sexual Behavior36(4) (2007, August): 588.
153. Yahoo! Inc. removed pornographic products from its shopping, auctions and classifiedweb pages in response to angry emails from Yahoo users following news reports that the company quietly had expanded its online offerings of porn videos. Yahoo! had begun offering X-rated videos, DVDs, magazines and other forms of pornography.
Yahoo! Yanks Porn Materials, Fox News, (2001, 13 April). Group Targets Yahoo! Porn, World Net Daily, (2001, 25 July).
154. Yahoo! clubs, member directories and Geocities hosted child porn and encouraged child sex abusers. Yahoo! also featured such content as “Family Incest Club,” “Rape Directory,” “Incest Directory” and “Child Pornography Crimes Directory.” Users traded child porn and rape photos with each other. The latter was used as a tool for pedophiles. Sue Florimonte of Yahoo!’s customer care center said in 2001 that there were no plans to change the company’s policy of relying on Yahoo!’s users to police clubs and directories.
Patrick Trueman, Yahoo! Defends Policy that Allows Child Porn and Rape Clubs on its Website, American Family Association news release, (2001, 12 November). Conservative Forum, Human Events, 30 July 2001. Donna Rice Hughes, Teens and the Internet, Protect the Kids, (2002, 1 March). Johann Pro, Virginia Suspect Billed Himself on Extensive Internet Site as Salve Master for Teen Girls, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, (2002, 6 January).
155. In March 2002, the Federal Bureau of Investigation broke up a child porn ring which had been operating through the Internet portal Yahoo! The FBI discovered 7,000 international e-mail addresses that were linked to three Yahoo! user groups that trafficked in child pornography. Criminal charges were filed by federal authorities against the perpetrators. Yahoo! was profiting from the user groups.
News of Interest, American Family Association Journal, May 2002.
156. Microsoft eliminated free, non-moderated chat rooms in nearly 30 countries and started forcing users in other countries to provide a credit card number to gain access to chat rooms. The move came about because of child safety fears. Spammers, pedophiles and pornographers had been abusing the system. Microsoft’s Internet branch, MSN, shut down the virtual rooms in Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa and most of Asia.
Mike Wendling, Spam, Child Safety Prompt Microsoft to Close Chat Rooms, CyberNewsService (2003, 24 September).
157. Small groups of technologically savvy child porn enthusiasts had been communicating since at least 1982 via regional, pre-Internet online “bulletin board” systems. The easier-to-use Internet linked these regionally isolated groups, spreading the child porn trade around the world. To avoid detection, child pornographers seldom traded illicit photographs on “fixed” Internet sites. Instead, they often communicated through “newsgroups” on the “Usenet” — a stand-alone, bulletin-board-like computer network that can be accessed through the Internet. Law enforcement authorities frequently monitor these newsgroups, when they can be located. Child porn enthusiasts and other types of cyber-predators typically went to great lengths to conceal their identities, e-mail addresses and geographic locations while online.
Brian Hansen, Congressional Qarterly Researcher 12(8) (2002, 1 March).
158. Cybersex can be described as creating external, ambiguous, and chronic stressors that enter into the family environment and significantly disrupt the family system. Cybersex addicts isolate themselves from their partners or parents and thus affect the family’s sense of mutuality and structure. The majority of the addicts (83 percent) and co-addicts (61 percent) reported a concurrent addiction such as chemical dependence, eating disorders, workaholism, compulsive spending or compulsive gambling.
Peter David Goldberg, An Exploratory Study about the Impacts that Cybersex (The Use of the Internet for Sexual Purposes) is Having on Families and the Practices of Marriage and Family Therapists, 27, 28. Boss, P., (1988), Family stress management, (California: Sage Publications). Becvar, D. and Becvar, R., (2000). Family Therapy: A systemic integration (4th ed.) (Boston,: Allyn and Bacon).
CHART XIII
SOURCES: Peter David Goldberg, An Exploratory Study about the Impacts that Cybersex (The Use of the Internet for Sexual Purposes) is Having on Families and the Practices of Marriage and Family Therapists, pp. 27, 28. Boss, P., (1988), Family stress management, (California: Sage Publications). Becvar, D. and Becvar, R., (2000). Family Therapy: A systemic integration (4th ed.) (Boston: Allyn and Bacon).
159. In order to gain membership in the Wonderland Club, an Internet organization of pedophiles, applicants were required to provide the group with 10,000 new child pornography pictures. Seven British male members of the Wonderland Club were arrested and tried for legal violations. During the investigation, law enforcement officers seized 750,000 pornographic images and 1,800 pornographic videos of children; 1,236 different children were identified from the images and videos seized.
Police smash international paedophile ring, Cambridge Network.
160. In 1999, Australian child sex tourists were identified as actively soliciting or engaging in sexual practices in some 22 countries. Some solicitation was believed to be facilitated through the Internet. Internet facilitators were known to be assisting with access to child prostitutes, the location of child sex tourism operators and the sale and trafficking of children. At least 600 Sri Lankan boys advertised their “services” on the Internet. In 2000,Australia developed a National Plan of Action in relation to the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
Janet Stanley, Child Abuse and the Internet, Australian Institute of Family Studies, No. 15, (2001, Summer).
161. A Victoria teenager’s participation in Internet chat rooms led to a police investigation focusing on an international child pornography ring and resulted in the arrest of two men, including one who was in contact with the Victoria youth. Investigators discovered that one of the men established contact with nine girls in six countries and was involved in distributing child pornography. He offered money in exchange for a 14-year-old Victoriagirl’s help in recruiting other young girls for him to use for sexual relations.
Jeff Bell, “Internet pedophile targets Victoria teen,” Victoria Times Colonist, (2005, 24 March).
THE PUBLIC SQUARE
The Courts and Regulation
“If we accept . . . the well nigh universal belief that good books, plays and art lift the spirit, improve the mind, enrich the humanpersonality, and develop character, can we then say that a state legislature may not act on the corollary assumption that commerce in obscene books, or public exhibitions focused on obscene conduct, have a tendency to exert a corrupting and debasing impact leading to anti-social behavior? ‘Many of these effects may be intangible and indistinct, but they are nonetheless real.’”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton, 413 U.S. 49, 1973
162. A National Opinion Research Center found that 95 percent of Americans favored restrictions against the sale of sexually explicit materials to minors and 54 percent supported regulations on adult consumption.
Cited in: Darrin Sherkat and Christopher Ellison, The Cognitive Structure of a Moral Crusade: Conservative Protestantism and Opposition to …, Social Forces 75(3) (1997, March): 958.
163. In the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roth v. United States (1957) decision: Roth operated a book-selling business in New York and was convicted of mailing obscene circulars and an obscene book in violation of a federal obscenity statute. Roth’s case was combined withAlberts v. California, in which a California obscenity law was challenged by Alberts after his similar conviction for selling lewd and obscene books in addition to composing and publishing obscene advertisements for his products. In a 6-to-3 decision written by Justice William Brennan, Jr., the Court held that obscenity was not “within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press.” The Court noted that the First Amendment was not intended to protect every utterance or form of expression, such as materials that were “utterly without redeeming social importance.”
Roth v. United States, Abstract, U.S. Supreme Court Media.
164. The Supreme Court held in Paris Adult Theatre v. Slaton (1973) that the Court held that obscene films did not acquire constitutional protection simply because they were exhibited for consenting adults only. Conduct involving consenting adults, the Court argued, was not always beyond the scope of governmental regulation. The Court found that there were “legitimate state interests at stake in stemming the tide of commercialized obscenity,” including the community’s quality of life and public safety. The Court also noted that conclusive proof of a connection between antisocial behavior and obscene materials was not necessary to justify the Georgia law.
Paris Adult Theatre v. Slaton, Abstract, U.S. Supreme Court Media.
165. In 1992, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in R. v. Butler that pornography can cause violence against women: “This Court has thus recognized that the harm caused by the proliferation of materials which seriously offend the values fundamental to our society is a substantial concern which justifies restricting the otherwise full exercise of the freedom of expression.”
R. v. Butler, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 452, Feb. 27, 1992
166. President Ronald Reagan appointed a commission to examine the impact of pornography, resulting in a 1986 report. The first 3,692 recommendations of the Meese Commission (former Attorney General Edwin Meese, photo, right) called for strengthening the obscenity laws. The number of obscenity bills introduced around the country jumped dramatically as state legislatures responded to recommendations that they increase the penalties for selling obscene material: the commission proposed that a second offense should be a felony and that obscenity punishable under racketeering laws, so that the assets of the business could be seized as punishment. Over half of the major obscenity bills considered in 1987 were inspired by the Meese Commission report. The Reagan administration carried through on its promise of stiffer enforcement of the federal obscenity laws. Following another Meese Commission recommendation, a National Obscenity Enforcement Unit was created in the U.S. Justice Department.
Christopher Finan, “Catherine A. MacKinnon: The Rise of a Feminist Censor, 1983-1993,” Media Coalition.
167. The United Kingdom made the possession of violent porn punishable by three years in jail. It follows a campaign by Berkshire woman Liz Longhurst whose daughter Jane, aBrighton schoolteacher, was strangled by Graham Coutts. The murderer was obsessed with violent Internet pornography.
Mother Wins Ban on Violent Porn, British Broadcasting Company, (2006, August 30).
168. In City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., et al., the U.S. Supreme Courtmaintained that it was ‘‘reasonable for Los Angeles to suppose that a concentration of adult establishments is correlated with high crime rates because a concentration of operations in one locale draws, for example, a greater concentration of adult consumers to the neighborhood, and a high density of such consumers eitherattracts or generates criminal activity.’’ Justice Anthony Kennedy reiterated the assumption that adult businesses cause negative secondary effects. In his opinion in Alameda he wrote: ‘‘municipal governments know that high concentrations of adult businesses can damage the value and integrity of a neighborhood. The damage is measureable; it is all too real. … A city’s “interest in attempting to preserve the quality of urban life is one that must be accorded high respect.”
City of Los Angeles v. Alameda Books, Inc., et al, United States Supreme Court.
169. In Canada, the Ontario Human Rights Commission ordered a 1993 investigation into complaints that the sale of men’s magazines in convenience stores created a hostile environment for female shoppers under Canadian civil rights law.
Christopher Finan, Catherine A. MacKinnon: The Rise of a Feminist Censor, 1983-1993, Media Coalition.
170. The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision blocked enforcement of the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 law intended to prevent minors from accessing pornography on the Internet. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2003 ruled the law unconstitutional for the second time, but the Bush Administration appealed the case to the Supreme Court.
Jerry Seper, Court rejects Internet porn law, Washington Times, (2004, 30 June).
171. In June 1993, Canada’s Parliament passed a law banning child pornography. Canadian courts believed the law was too severe because as it did not allow for freedom of expression. Using a “read-in” exception to the law, the courts allowed an existing loophole providing for the defense of “artistic merit” against a charge of possession of child pornography.
Background on Child Pornography Law, REAL Women of Canada.
172. Mary Beth Buchanan, the point person in the Justice Department’s campaign to rein in pornography, said, “We have just had a proliferation of this type of material that has been getting increasingly worse and worse. And that’s why it’s important to enforce the law, and to show the producers that there are limits. There are limits to what they can sell and distribute throughout the country.” Buchanan’s prosecution of a California company called Extreme Associates was the first major obscenity case brought by the federal government in more than a decade. An Extreme Associates film includes shots of women getting raped and murdered, suffocation, strangulation, beatings and urination. “They made absolutely no attempt to comply with federal law,” Buchanan said. “In fact, it was probably their intent not to. Because what they wanted to do was to make the most disgusting material available on the market. And they succeeded.”
Steve Kroft, Porn in the U.S.A., CBS News, 60 Minutes, (2004, 5 September).
173. Alan Sears, who served as executive director for the Meese Commission on Pornography, said: “The American people have a legal and constitutional right to stop the abuse of society and its individual members by the pornographers. As to arguments about privacy rights, there is nothing private about the commercial exploitation of persons and their sexuality by pornographers. Privacy ended when a production crew captured images for editing, production, duplication and distributing for public sale.”
Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations; Summary of Effects, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989): 323, 325.
174. In 1998, British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Duncan Shaw decided that Vancouver pedophile Robin Sharpe was not guilty of possessing child pornography because the exploration of material depicting children as vehicles of sexual gratification was an integral part of the defendant’s character and his freedom of expression and conscience and also an essential part of his intimate and private life. Judge Shaw also ruled in Sharpe’s favor during a re-trial. In 2001, the Supreme Court of Canada overturned a decision by Justice Shaw and issued read-in improvements to the child pornography law to allow for “freedom of expression” based on exceptions which were in addition to existing exemption for artistic merit. The Supreme Court said it would allow exceptions to the law when child pornography is for personal use only.
Activist Judges and the Child Pornography Law, REAL Women of Canada.
175. In Butler v. State of Michigan (1957), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Michiganstatute outlawing printed material that contained obscene language “tending to the corruption of the morals of youth.” This ruling was a rejection of the principle that adult material must be restricted because it might harm minors. Justice Felix Frankfurter said the sweep of the restriction was far too broad and that it amounted to “burning the house to roast the pig.” He claimed the law violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment because it “reduce[d] the adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children.” The decision also repudiated a longstanding test for obscenity – the Hicklin Principle. Based on British common law, this principle declared obscene any material that tended to “deprave or corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences,” including children.
Adults can’t be limited to material fit for children. Frontline, Public Broadcast System. Butler v.State of Michigan, U.S. Supreme Court, Argued 16 October 1956, Decided February 25, 1957.
176. In Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), U.S. Supreme CourtJustice William Brennan ruled that the “community standards” applied to obscenity determinations must be national standards rather than local standards. Nico Jacobellis was arrested after his movie theater in Cleveland Heights, Ohio showed a French film called “The Lovers,” which contained an explicit sex scene. He was convicted of violating Ohio’s obscenity statute, but Brennan declared the movie was not obscene.
An Overview of Past Pornography Rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
177. In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling (A Book Named “John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” v. Attorney General of Commonwealth of Massachusetts”) that affirmed a lower court decision finding the novel “Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure” was obscene. The lower court had noted that the “social importance” element of the Roth test did not require that a book “must be unqualifiedly worthless before it can be deemed obscene.” The higher court ruled that underRoth (1957), material could not be deemed obscene unless it was “utterly without redeeming social value.”
Fanny Hill: Utterly Without Redeeming Social Value, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
178. Ginsburg v. United States (1965) introduced the principle that the intent of the seller could be a deciding factor in determining obscenity. Publisher Ralph Ginsburg was convicted under a federal obscenity statute for mailing three sexually explicit publications. The Supreme Court upheld Ginsburg’s conviction. Justice William Brennan wrote the majority opinion that Ginsburg deliberately represented his publications as appealing to customers’ erotic interest and upheld the obscenity charge. The Court stated that there were no lack of studies which purported to demonstrate obscenity is or is not “a basic factor in impairing the ethical and moral development of … youth and a clear and present danger to the people of the state.” The Court also said that though a causal link between obscenity and harm has not been proven, it has not been disproved either.
Advertising Matters, Frontline, Public Broadcast System. Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Hillsdale, New Jersey): 338.
179. Redrup v. New York (1967) consolidated three obscenity cases in which the defendants were convicted under state obscenity statutes for buying pornographic publications. The Supreme Court overturned all the convictions, citing violations of the First and 14th Amendments. The case elaborated on the confusion the Court had faced in applying the Roth decision.
Three Scattered Opinions, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
180. Ginsberg v. State of New York (1968) established that a state can legislate tougher obscenity laws for the sale of sexually explicit items to children than to adults. The State ofNew York’s “Smut Peddling Law” had criminalized the sale to children under 17 materials regarded “harmful to minors.” The Court upheld the state’s right to prohibit the sale of obscene material to minors.
Children Have No Right to Porn, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
181. In Stanley v. Georgia (1969), the Supreme Court upheld the right of citizens to possess obscene material. While being investigated for alleged bookmaking activities, Eli Stanley was found in possession of sexually explicit films. He was convicted of violating Georgia‘s obscenity law. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall reversed the conviction and ruled “the mere private possession of obscene matter cannot constitutionally be made a crime.”
Can’t Prohibit Possession of Porn, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
182. In the landmark case, Miller v. California (1973), the Supreme Court discarded the 1957 Roth obscenity standard and established a new definition of obscenity. Miller marked the first time that a majority of the Court agreed on an obscenity standard. The State ofCalifornia‘s Obscenity Law had criminalized the mailing of obscene material. Marvin Miller was convicted for violating that law. The Supreme Court vacated an appellate court’s ruling upholding the conviction and sent the case back for the appellate court to reconsider in light of the new First Amendment standards set out in the opinion.
A Landmark Ruling, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
183. In New York v. Ferber (1982), the Supreme Court declared that child pornography was not entitled to First Amendment protection. The Court upheld New York‘s child pornography law, which criminalized the production or sale of any visual depiction of children under 16 engaging in sexual acts.
Child Pornography Has No Free Speech Protection, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
184. In Renton v. Playtime Theatres, the Supreme Court supported the use of zoning regulations to restrict adult theaters to remote areas. Justice William Rehnquist’s majority opinion upheld the City of Renton, Washington’s law prohibiting adult theaters from locating within 1,000 feet of residential zones, churches, parks and schools.
Zoning for Adult Businesses, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
185. In Denver Telecommunications v. the FCC (1996), the Supreme Court upheld one provision and overturned another in a 1992 federal law designed to protect children from exposure to “patently offensive sex-related material” on certain cable television channels. The Court struck down a provision permitting cable operators to ban “indecent” programming from public-access cable channels, while upholding a provision permitting operators to ban indecent programs from channels leased to commercial programmers. It also struck down a provision requiring cable operators who chose to allow indecent material to be broadcast on leased channels to segregate that material to a single channel, and to block that channel unless the cable subscriber requested to have it unblocked.
X-rated Cable Television, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
186. During the years 1984 to 1989, Oklahoma City closed 150 out of 163 sexually oriented businesses. Robert Macy, the district attorney of Oklahoma County took a clear stand that pornography and illicit sexual oriented business cases presented to his office by law enforcement personnel would be prosecuted with an emphasis on maximum penalties for offenders. During the same period, reported rapes declined 27 percent in Oklahoma Citywhile rising 16 percent in the remainder of the state.
Jon Stephen Gustin, Retired Sergeant, Oklahoma City Police Department, A Look At Successful Abatement of Adult Oriented Business Nuisances in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (1984 – 1989), Citizens for Community Values, 4, 9, 10.
187. On January 18, 2001, the pornography industry engaged in self-regulation. Paul Cambria, an attorney for the porn industry, prepared the “Cambria List,” or guidelines for pornography. The list created controversy within the industry and interpretations differed on its application. Among the disagreements was whether the guidelines were only for video box covers or for the sex acts depicted. The Cambria List resulted from a fear of a potential crackdown on the pornography industry by the Bush administration.
The Cambria List, Frontline, Public Broadcast System.
188. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in United States v. American Library Association that the federal government can require pornography filters in public libraries. In the June 2003 decision, Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote, “Congress has wide latitude to attach conditions to the receipt of federal assistance in order to further its policy objectives.”
United States et al. v. American Library Association, Inc., et al. 539 U.S. 194.
189. The U.S. Department of Justice created the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in 2005. The Task Force is dedicated exclusively to the protection of America‘s children and families through the enforcement of our Nation’s obscenity laws. The Task Force’s trial prosecutors and law enforcement agents partner with the Nation’s 93 United States Attorneys to initiate and conduct investigations and prosecutions under federal statutes prohibiting obscenity crimes involving the transportation of obscene matter via the mails, common carriers, interactive computer services, or other means or facilities of interstate or foreign commerce.
Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, United States Department of Justice.
190. Pornography laws resemble precisely what the 1970 U.S. commission recommended. Prosecution of mainstream pornography is nearly nonexistent, and instead, everything is directed toward the protection of children and the zoning of the public media. The laws haven’t changed at all.
Tim Wu, How Laws Die, Slate Magazine, (2007, 15 October).
191. During the Clinton Administration (1992-2000), porn producers were “flying high … [thinking] we’re invincible, nobody’s prosecuting us. The Justice Department doesn’t care what we do. We can rape, pillage, and plunder, and use everybody up.” In the 1990s, mainstream pornography prosecutions slowed considerably and came to a near-halt. Bruce Taylor, one of the nation’s most prominent obscenity prosecutors, told PBS, “Janet Reno just did not like doing obscenity cases.”
Tim Wu, How Laws Die, Slate Magazine, (2007, 15 October).
192. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federal law banning “virtual child pornography” that uses young adults or computer-generated pictures to depict children. Justice Anthony Kennedy said the law was too broad and prohibited speech that contained serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.
Amanda Novak, Supreme Court Strikes Down Child Pornography Law, Reuters and University of Wisconsin Badger-Herald, (2002, 17 April).
Pornography in the Neighborhood
In a five-year period, according to the Office of Midtown Enforcement, police statistics showed an estimated 54 percent decrease in crime in the Times Square area. This decrease parallels the decrease in adult use establishments.
Report on the Secondary Effects of the Concentration of Adult Use Establishments in the Times Square Area, Insight Associates, (1994, April): 26.
193. Sexually oriented businesses, such as strip clubs and massage parlors, attracted crime to communities. In addition, the general content of pornography supports abuse and the rape myth (that women enjoy forceful sex) and serves as a how-to for sex crimes, primarily the molestation of children. Land Use Studies by the National Law Center for Children & Families show evidence of the correlation of adult businesses and crime.
The Effects of Pornography and Sexual Messages, National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families.
194. Land use studies in several U.S. cities revealed large increases in crime rates in neighborhoods where sexually-oriented businesses were located. The number of sex offenses was 506 percent greater in Phoenix, Arizona neighborhoods fitting that description. Pandering was up 340 percent in a Los Angeles neighborhood. Malicious mischief increased 700 percent in Whittier, California. Sixty-six percent of the armed robberies in an area of Denver, Colorado during 1986-87 occurred at adult bookstores, and seven homicides between the years 1977 to 1987 were directly linked to adult bookstores and nude entertainment businesses.
National Law Center for Children and Families, Crime Impact Studies by Municipal And State Governments On Harmful Secondary Effects Of Sexually Oriented Businesses, 1988 Land Use Study, Adams County, Colorado. National Law Center for Children and Families, Crime Impact Studies by Municipal and State Governments On Harmful Secondary Effects Of Sexually Oriented Businesses, 1979 Land Use Study, Phoenix, Arizona. National Law Center for Children and Families, Crime Impact Studies by Municipal And State Governments On Harmful Secondary Effects Of Sexually Oriented Businesses, 1977 Land Use Study, Los Angeles. National Law Center for Children and Families, Crime Impact Studies by Municipal And State Governments On Harmful Secondary Effects Of Sexually Oriented Businesses, 1977 Land Use Study, Whittier, California.
195. In a 1978 St. Paul, Minnesota study and a 1980 Minneapolis study, statistically significant correlations were seen between location of adult businesses and neighborhood deterioration. It was concluded that adult businesses tend to locate in somewhat deteriorated areas to begin with, but further deterioration follows the arrival of adult businesses. In these early studies, significantly higher crime rates were associated with an area containing two adult businesses than in an area with only one such business. Significantly lower property value prevailed in an area with three such businesses than in an area with only one.
Report on the Secondary Effects of the Concentration of Adult Use Establishments in the Times Square Area, Insight Associates, (1994, April): 9.
196. The City of lndianapolis, Indiana researched the relationship between adult entertainment and property values at the national level. They took random samples of 20 percent of the national membership of the American Institute of Real Estate Appraisers. Eighty percent of the survey respondents felt that an adult bookstore located in a hypothetical neighborhood would have a negative impact on residential property values of premises located within one block of its site. Seventy-two percent of the respondents felt there would be a detrimental effect on commercial property values within the same one-block radius.
Report on the Secondary Effects of the Concentration of Adult Use Establishments in the Times Square Area, Insight Associates, (2004, April 1994): 10.
U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography
A boy who had been forced to participate in the production of pornography said, “During the trial the only name to come out in the newspaper was my name. I was 11-years-old at the time.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1996).
197. A gang rape of a juvenile girl was committed by six adolescent boys who used a pornographic magazine’s pictorial and editorial layout to recreate a rape in the woods outside of their housing development.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1996).
198. In his testimony to the Meese Commission, social scientist Jennings Bryant said: “If the values which permeate the content of most hardcore pornography are examined, what is found is the almost total suspension of the sorts of moral judgment that have been espoused in the value systems of most civilized cultures. Forget trust. Forget family. Forget commitment. Forget love. Forget marriage. Here, in this world of ultimate physical hedonism, anything goes. If we take seriously the social science research literature in areas such as social learning or cultivation effects, we should expect that the heavy consumer of hardcore pornography should acquire some of these values which are so markedly different from those of our mainstream society, especially if the consumer does not have a well developed value system of his or her own.”
Daniel Linz and Neil Malamuth, Pornography (Sage Publications: Newbury Park, California, 1993), 25.
199. Linda Marchiano testified on the brutality of her involvement in pornographic film-making: “When I decided to head back north and informed Mr. Traynor of my intention, that was when I met the real Mr. Traynor and my two-and-a-half years of imprisonment began. He began a complete turnaround and beat me up physically and began the mental abuse, from that day forward my hell began. During the filming of Deep Throat, actually after the first day, I suffered a brutal beating in my room for smiling on the set. Mr. Traynor started to bounce me off the walls. … I was being beaten, I was being kicked around and again bounced off of walls. And all of a sudden the room next door became very quiet. Nobody, not one person, came to help me.”
Linda Marchiano’s testimony, Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization,” (1986).
200. A witness described the influence pornography had on his criminal activities: “The day came when I invited a small neighborhood boy into my apartment, molested him and then killed him in fear of being caught. Over the next few years I kidnapped, sexually abused and murdered four other boys. Pornography wasn’t the only negative influence in my life, but its effect on me was devastating. I lost all sense of decency and respect for humanity and life.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
201. Troy Daniel Dunaway was found dead on August 6, 1981. He had just read the Hustler Magazine article, “Orgasm of Death.” Dunaway set up a sexual experiment depicted by the magazine article, following the instructions of the article and he ended up dead. The magazine article was found at his feet.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
202. The National Conference of Judges wrote in a statement submitted to the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography: “Many of our child molesters, both juvenile and adults, have utilized both adult and child pornography as a way to initiate their victims into the sexual behavior as well as a tool or guide for the sexual behavior of child molesting. Many of our victims blame themselves and feel a great deal of culpability because they believed the original depiction from pornography as being normal behavior between adults and children.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
203. A woman who had been forced by family members to view and participate in the production of pornography as a child said this deviancy can become multi-generational: “My sisters, they are all repeating the cycles of abuse. They are abusing their children and their children are being incested. This is the long-term cycle, the repeating and maintaining of violent life cycles.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
Public Libraries
“We are losing control of what is happening in the library and relinquishing control to these people.” — Mary Kay Harris, a librarian in Minneapolis. “The only other place that resembles our environment right now is an adult bookstore.” — Librarian Wendy Adamson
Library Protection Plan, National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families.
204. In 2000, Amicus published a report based on responses to freedom-of-information requests that were served on the nation’s 9,767 public library systems, with 27 percent responding. “Many of the incidents were highly disturbing, as librarians witnessed adults instructing children in how to find pornography, adults trading in child pornography, and incidents involving both adults and minors engaging in public masturbation at Internet terminals. Analysis of computer logs from just three urban libraries revealed thousands of incidents that went unreported, indicating that the 2,062 incidents represent only a fraction of the total incidents nationwide. The incidents suggest that Internet policies alone do not deter crime on library Internet stations. The incidents supplied by libraries included 172 incidents where librarians described crimes being committed, such as the accessing of child pornography, the accessing of material described by the librarians as ‘obscene,’ public masturbation, and adults exposing children to pornography.”
Janet La Rue, American Library Association vs. United States of America – Legal Brief, Amicus Brief submitted to U.S. Supreme Court by Concerned Women for America, (2002, 20 March). United States of America, et al., v. American Library Association, et al., Brief Amici Curiae, National Law Center for Children and Families, Concerned Women for America, National Coalition for the Protection of Children & Families, and Citizens for Community Values, In Support of the United States, et al., Appellants, 14-15.
205. A convicted child molester was arrested in an FBI sting operation for allegedly using anEast Providence public library computer to make a date to have sex with a 12-year-old girl. The police and the FBI began investigating Foster after librarians at the Weaver Library found sexually explicit images of a minor among his trash.
Doane Hulick, Molester held on federal sex counts, Providence Journal-Bulletin, (2001, 25 July), 5B.
206. Two lawsuits were filed over lewd conduct by patrons surfing porn sites on Broward County, Florida library computers. The plaintiffs made a records request for all incident reports involving Internet porn at county libraries between April 1997 and March 2000. They received a stack of documents so big it cost nearly $1,000 in copy and research fees. Among the findings were 14 incidents of masturbation documented by library and police reports, 23 complaints about patrons viewing porn, two incidents of men exposing themselves and one instance of a man fondling a female patron. This represented one-fifth of the incidents the plaintiffs found in the library’s reports, they said.
Bob Whitby, Library chief Sam Morrison is caught in a sticky lie over onanism in the stacks,NewTimesBroward-PalmBeach, (10 May 2001).
207. A 13-year-old boy, who had viewed Internet porn in the Phoenix Burton Barr Library, followed a 4-year-old into the bathroom and asked the younger boy to give him oral sex, onJune 29, 1998.
David Burt, Dangerous Access, 2000 Edition: Uncovering Internet Pornography in America’s Libraries, Family Research Council, 9.
208. Police arrested a longtime Venice, Florida Public Library employee and charged him with three counts of possessing pornographic images of children. Police said they found Kim Hinton at the library after hours and in possession of 190 computer discs loaded with child pornography and had an image of a naked child on a computer screen.
Matthew Henry, Police: Worker had Kiddie Porn, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, (2001, 19 April), BV1.
209. Library director Lupe Mier said a formal Internet policy change was needed at Bellevue,Nebraska Public Library because some people had been using computers to view pornographic images. Miers described what librarians were facing as “sexual harassment” when resetting the computers or reviewing their online histories and discovering that users were viewing pornography. Some people, perhaps intentionally, left the computers on those pornographic sites would startle the next users when they turn on the monitors, Mier said.
Jeremy Olson, Library May Expand Online Computer Time, Omaha World-Heraldm (2000, 15 March): 15.
210. The Minneapolis library system settled a lawsuit out of court with 12 librarians over Internet pornography, in August 2003. The librarians had complained that by allowing patrons to surf online porn sites and to print out Internet pornography, the library had created a hostile work environment. The library system agreed to pay $435,000 to the offended employees and to increase penalties against Internet violators. “We believe the financial settlement in this case sends a strong message to libraries around the country that they must take the concerns of their employees seriously,” the librarians said in a joint statement.
Librarians Settle Porn Case, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, (2003, 16 August).
211. The Phoenix, Arizona City Council voted September 8, 2004 to restrict adults from using the city’s public library computers to access pornography. The move was prompted by an admission of a child molester who said that he had downloaded child pornography at thePhoenix Public Library. The ACLU immediately threatened to sue the city.
Internet Porn Ban Enacted for City Libraries, Arizona Republic, (2004, 9 September).
CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES
Child Pornography
The typical age of children whose photographs appear in Internet porn sites was between six and 12, but the profile was getting younger. Forty percent of people charged with child pornography also sexually abused children.
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings fro the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study, (2005).
212. In 1984, U.S. Department of State officials gained the cooperation of governments in the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden in eliminating child pornography. That same year, an NBC documentary, “The Silent Shame,” exposed international trade in pornography and was credited by U.S. officials specifically with contributing to an immediate decrease in foreign shipments.
Child pornography: an international perspective, paper presented at World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, (1996, 27-31 August).
213. Child pornography is prohibited by federal statutes, which provides for civil and criminal penalties for its production, advertising, possession, receipt, distribution and sale. Defined by statute as the visual depiction of a minor—a person under 18 years of age—engaged in sexually explicit conduct, child pornography is unprotected by the First Amendment, as it is intrinsically related to thesexual abuse of children.
Linda Koontz, U.S. General Accounting Office, Users of Peer-to-Peer Networks Can Readily Access Child Pornography, Testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, (2003, 9 September).
214. Clinical data indicated that being a subject in pornography was disturbing and damaging to the juveniles used. Short- and long-term negative effects were apparent in terms of physical, behavioral, attitudinal and emotional impact on the subjects.
Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations; Summary of Effects, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989): 226.
215. Juveniles exploited by pornography displayed negative effects that included: physical soreness in genitalia, flu-like symptoms, anxiety, fear, emotional withdrawal, isolation, moodiness, hopelessness, inattentiveness, learned helplessness and others.
Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations; Summary of Effects, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (Lawrence Erlbaum: Mahwah, New Jersey, 1989): 226-228.
216. Liberal attitudes about sex — especially in Europe — fostered the establishment of a hardcore child pornography industry. Films and magazines depicting children engaged in sex acts with adults were prevalent throughout the Netherlands and Denmark and other Scandinavian nations. Pornography was viewed by some European experts as beneficial to society, acting as a type of “safety valve” for people harboring violent instincts.
Brian Hansen, Congressional Qarterly Researcher 12(8) (2002, 1 March).
217. Street children, poor children, juveniles from broken homes, and disabled minors were especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation and to being seduced or coerced into the production of pornographic material. These children, however, are not the only victims. Sex exploiters frequently targeted neighborhood children or those with whom they have contact through their vocation or avocations. Additionally, pornographic activity was a common part of life for teen prostitutes. In many countries, child victims came from homes where their parents used them to create child pornography or where their parents offered them to others for the same purpose.
Child pornography: an international perspective, paper presented at World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, (1996, 27-31 August).
218. Japanese law forbids the printed portrayal of adult genitals, intercourse and pubic hair, but the representation of children’s genitalia is not consistently enforced. Commercial producers have found creative ways to avoid prosecution by creating sexually explicit materials that barely avoids depiction of forbidden body parts.
Jack Seward, ed., Japanese Eroticism 6, (1993); Constantine, supra note 11, at 160-61.
219. All of Australia’s states and territories, except New South Wales, had passed legislation making the mere possession of child pornography illegal. Also banned by law were “possession for the purposes of distribution, sale, or exhibition.” In 1995, the Australian Customs Service initiated “Amigo,” a national intelligence project enlisting the public in efforts to establish the nature and content of child pornography trafficked in and out of the country.
Australian Parliament Report, supra note 24, at 2-3, 38.
220. State statutes on child pornography generally included promoting and producing both visual representations of pornographic materials involving minors and live performances by minors, including promoting minors in sexually explicit performances. Many states only outlawed production of obscene materials. Other states criminalized the production of any visual depiction of the sexual exploitation of a minor.
Eva Klain, Heather Davies and Molly Hicks, Child Pornography: The Criminal-Justice-System Response, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, p. 27. ALASKA STAT. § 11.41.455; MASS. GEN. LAWS ch. 272, § 29A; MONT. CODE § 45-5-625; N.M. STAT. § 30-6A-3(B). See alsoPeople v. Riggs, 604 N.W.2d 68 (Mich. 1999) (use of otherwise benign image of child exhibiting ordinary nudity to create what could fall within definition of erotic nudity is conduct prohibited by statute criminalizing child sexually abusive activity). 303. 458 U.S. 747 (1982).
221. The impact on child victims exploited to produce pornography is often serious. Children can experience a myriad of symptoms including physical illnesses, emotional withdrawal, anti-social behavior, mood-swings, depression, fear and anxiety. In a study of children involved in sex rings, all of whom were sexually abused, 54.8 percent of the children were used in the creation of pornography. In these children, there was a significant relationship between involvement in pornography and a pattern of identification with the exploiter, along with deviant and symptomatic behavior. Those exploited children who enjoyed the attention or who were sexually stimulated carry special shame about their participation in pornography.
Ann Wolbert Burgess, et al., Response Patterns in Children and Adolescents Exploited Through Sex Rings and Pornography, American Journal of Psychiatry 141:5 (1984, May). Child pornography: an international perspective, paper presented at World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, 27-31 August 1996.
223. The U.S. General Accounting Office study found that some children participated in pornography to survive after running away from home. These children experienced psychological scarring, objectification, fear and cynicism. Some felt dirty, unwanted and became bitter adults. Some had difficulty experiencing normal sexual fulfillment as adults and some wound up as prostitutes, drug addicts, criminals or adolescent parents.
Franklin Osanka and Sara Lee Johann, Sourcebook on Pornography (Lexington Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1990), 454.
224. Child pornography is damaging to children in the following ways:
a) it is psychologically damaging to the child;
b) it ruins a child’s self-image’
c) it is exploitive;
d) it makes children vulnerable to adults in unnatural ways;
e) it spreads incorrect information about sex, which hinders a child’s normal sexual functioning later in life;
f) it forever invades a child’s privacy; and
g) it complicates a child’s moral development.
Shirley O’Brien, Child Pornography (Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company: Dubuque, Iowa, 1983), viii.
225. The easy accessibility and transnational distribution of child pornography sexualizes children for a rapidly growing audience. The broad array of communication channels provided by the Internet facilitates the creation of many virtual communities, or networks, including those dedicated to child pornography. These community structures are occupied by anonymous individuals who never meet in person. In this computer underground, adults with a sexual interest in children act as colleagues who share pornography and ideas, and devise ways of preventing discovery, apprehension and sanctioning by social control agents.
Rachel O’Connell, (2001), Paedophile networking and the Internet. In C. Arnaldo (ed.), Child Abuse on the Internet: Ending the silence (p. 65). Paris: UNESCO Publishing/Berghahn Books.
226. Child pornography is used to groom children into sexual abuse. This is done partly through a process of “desensitization,” in which the child is familiarized with adult-child sexual activity. Pornographic materials are used to initiate a child into how to perform sex acts.
Cited in: Kerry Sheldon and Dennis Howitt, Sex Offenders and the Internet (Josh Wiley & Sons, Ltd.: W. Sussex, England, 2007), 10.
227. The Orchid Club was a group of 16 male child sex abusers coming from several different countries united only by their pedophilia. Each of these men had a video camera attached to their computer screens, enabling them to watch of girl of 10 years being sexually abused in real time. They directly participated in the abuse by offering suggestions and encouragement to the abuser. All the men were arrested and the Orchid Club disbanded.
Ron O’Grady, chairman of End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography And Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes, opening address at the Child Pornography on the Internet Experts Meeting, (1998, 28-29 May), Lyon France.
228. Child pornography is now seen as ‘the visual record of the sexual abuse of a child, either by adults, other children or which involves bestiality’. The two World Congresses against Commercial Exploitation of Children (held in Stockholm in 1996 and Yokohama in 2001) stressed that child pornography was part of a cycle of child sexual abuse and exploitation and not a separate genre of its own. Over 120 countries in the world have legislation on child prostitution and general obscenity that can include child pornography, but few have legislation specifically designed to combat child pornography.
Susan Creighton, Child pornography: images of the abuse of children, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, (2003, Novermber).
229. In 2007, U.S. officials urged Japanese lawmakers to outlaw possession of child pornography. Japan and Russia were the only countries among G-8 members where possession of child porn was legal, and this created a massive demand for images. In many cases, the thousands of annual victims of this child abuse were under the age of three.
U.S. officials meet Diet members over ‘loophole’ in Japan’s child pornography law, Mainichi Daily News, (2007, 11 June).
230. The recidivist rate in pedophilia was higher than for any sexual offense other than exhibitionism. Although the courts inevitably had to consider all cases of pedophilia under one heading, there were considerable differences in the desires and habits of the people who involved. Doctors divided them into those who were exclusively pedophiliac and those who were also, sometimes predominantly, sexually aroused by adults. There were also divisions between those attracted to prepubescent children, as opposed to young adolescents. Pedophiles were male homosexuals, bisexuals and heterosexuals. The average heterosexual pedophile preferred girls ages 8-10; bisexuals tended to prefer children under eight; and homosexual pedophiles preferred boys 10-13.
Dr. Thomas Stuttaford, The Evil of Child Porn Addiction, The Times (London), (2003, 16 January).
231. Child pornography can be used by exploiters to lower children’s inhibitions in order to seduce or encourage them to freely participate either in prostitution or pornography. Pedophiles and child abusers also use pornography to legitimize their actions and to convince themselves that their behavior is not abnormal, but is shared by others. Child porn can also be used as a medium of exchange with other exploiters in public and private sex markets. Sexually explicit images of children may be used to blackmail child victims into obedience or silence. There is evidence that child porn is being used as an active tool by homosexuals for the recruitment of young boys.
Ofelia Calcetas-Santos, Child Pornography on the Internet, Child Abuse on the Internet: Ending the Silence, Carlos Arnoldo (ed.) (New York: Bergahn Books, 2001), 56.
Rapists, Killers and Pedophiles
“Countries adopting a liberal approach to pornography have, contrary to expectations, experienced major increases in rape reports in the years following the inception of that approach. By contrast, those jurisdictions taking a conservative [repressive] stance have experienced only minimal increases.”
Diana Russell, Pornography: Towards a Non-sexist Policy. Diana Russell website.
232. Eighty-six percent of rapists admitted regular use of pornography, and 57 percent admitted to actual imitation of pornography scenes in the commission of sex crimes.
Dr. William Marshall, Report on the Use of Pornography by Sexual Offenders, Canada Federal Department of Justice, (1983).
233. Scott Tyree, a 38-year-old divorcee, was arrested for enslaving a 13-year-oldPennsylvania girl at his home in Herndon, Virginia in 2001. Tyree had been advertising himself on Yahoo! as a “slave owner”: “Training young female slaves to serve me in all ways. If being treated as property to be used [and] abused for your owner’s pleasure and amusement [suits you], then you may be worthy to serve me.” His Yahoo! pages featured photos of his “dungeon” and included photos of torture, bondage and sexual devices. Tyree belonged to 19 Internet clubs, including the “young virgin slave market” and “teens who love bondage.” Tyree and his victim had communicated online for a month before he enslaved her.
Johann Pro, (January 2006), Virginia Suspect Billed Himself on Extensive Internet Site as Salve Master for Teen Girls, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Porn Clubs Involved In 2nd Teen Kidnapping and Torture, American Family Association, (2002, 9 January).
234. “Those who use pornography have also been shown to be more likely to engage in illegal behavior as well. Research indicates and my clinical experience supports that those who use pornography are more likely to go to prostitutes, engage in domestic violence, stranger rape, date rape and incest. These behaviors should not be surprising since pornographic videos containing all of these themes are readily available and the permission-giving beliefs of these pornographic videos reinforced by the orgasm say that all these behaviors are normal, acceptable, common and don’t hurt anyone.”
Dr. Mary Anne Layden, United States Senate Subcommittee Hears Experts on Pornography Toxicity, (2004, 18 November).
235. Serial killer Ted Bundy said he began to buy pornographic magazines during his early teen years and gradually became obsessed with more and more violent, hardcore materials.“I planned the crimes, I knew what I was doing … [porn was] “central to the development of the vile behaviour.”
Ian Johns, The grubby mind of a serial killer, The Times (London), 17 August 2006, 27. Bundy Told Dobson, “It Was Pornography,” Christianity Today, (1989, 17 February): 43.
236. The FBI has reported that 81 percent of sexually-oriented murderers and serial killers listed pornography as their primary sexual interest.
Pornography tied to Green River Killer, American Family Association Journal, January 2004. Green River Killer Confesses, 5 November 2003, Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Cliff Kincaid, The Reason for the Killing Spree, Accuracy in Media, (24 November 2003).
237. Former New York City police detective Raymond Pierce, who investigated nearly 1,000 criminal cases, said, “It’s expected that they [the suspects] read pornographic literature and magazines. Anywhere between 60 and 80 percent of the cases, if I were looking for it, I would have found it. But realistically, well over 80 percent.”
The Sexual Criminal’s Relationship to Porn, Morality in Media, (2000, August 31).
238. Home-made pornographic videos accounted approximately 20-60 percent of video sales in New England. Female victims of pornographic creations spoke about coercion, abuse, rape and battering involved in the video production and about their fear and humiliation in knowing that people were buying videos of their abuse for pleasure and entertainment. These victims had no legal redress to what amounted to a documentary of harassment, rape, abuse and torture.
Gail Dines, Robert Jensen and Ann Russo, Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (New York: Routledge, 1998), 25.
239. A study by Darrell Pope, a former Michigan State police officer, found thatof 38,000 cases of sexual assault on file in Michigan over a 20-year period, 41 percent involved the use of pornography just prior to or during the act.
Michael Craven, Pornography: The Deconstruction of Human Society, (2004, 10 October): 21.
240. An FBI study of 36 serial killers revealed that 29 were attracted to porn and incorporated it into their sexual activity, which included rape and murder. In profiling serial killers, the FBI found that 81 percent of the 36 serial killers reported that their biggest sexual interest was in reading pornography.
David Alexander Scott, Pornography: Its Effects on the Family, Community and Culture (Free Congress Foundation: Washington, D.C.), 1. Sex Killers Can’t Tell Fact from Fantasy, Morality in Media of Wisconsin, Inc., newsletter, (1987, Summer): 3.
241. “[S]ex murder cases are invariably tied to some form of obscene literature … [T]he files of our law enforcement agencies contain many reports of persons who patterned their criminal conduct after behavior depicted in obscene material.”
Justice Tom Clark, dissenting, Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 3838 U.S. 413, 452-453 (1966).
242. Seven-year-old Danielle van Dam was abducted from her family home and killedFebruary 2, 2003. Within two days of the abduction, a neighbor, David Westerfield, became the prime suspect in the case. Authorities seized thousands of computer files filled with child pornography from the defendant’s computer, including a cartoon video of the rape of a young girl. The prosecutor said, “The video represented Westerfield’s sexual fantasies and inspired the abduction, rape and murder of Danielle.” Westerfield received a death penalty for the murder.
New York Police Department lieutenant commander (retired) Vernon Geberth, Sex-Related Homicide and Death Investigation: Practical and Clinical Perspectives, (CRC Press: Chicago), 602-604. Effects of Pornography, Vernon Geberth Investigations Offer Answers, Houston Area Association for Decency. Harriet Ryan, Van Dams settle civil suit against daughter’s killer, Court News, (2003, 15 May).
243. Executed serial killer Ted Bundy explained the impact pornography had on him: “The most damaging kind of pornography — and I’m talking from hard, real, personal experience — is that that involves violence and sexual violence. The wedding of those two forces — as I know only too well — brings about behavior that is too terrible to describe. In the beginning, it fuels this kind of thought process. Then, at a certain time, it is instrumental in crystallizing it, making it into something that is almost a separate entity inside. Once you become addicted to it, and I look at this as a kind of addiction, you look for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder and gives you a greater sense of excitement, until you reach the point where the pornography only goes so far — that jumping off point where you begin to think maybe actually doing it will give you that which is just beyond reading about it and looking at it. I knew it was wrong to think about it, and certainly, to do it was wrong. I was on the edge, and the last vestiges of restraint were being tested constantly, and assailed through the kind of fantasy life that was fueled, largely, by pornography. It’s a very difficult thing to describe — the sensation of reaching that point where I knew I couldn’t control it anymore. The barriers I had learned as a child were not enough to hold me back from seeking out and harming somebody.”
Pornography and sex: Ted Bundy’s fatal addiction … Dr. James Dobson Interviews Serial Rapist and Murderer Ted Bundy Hours Before He is Executed by Electrocution, (16 December 2007), Community Standards Inc., New Zealand. Fatal Attraction: Ted Bundy’s Final Interview, You Tube, 23 January 1989. R.Wieber and Harold Vetter, The language of the psychopath, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 23(1) (1994, January).
244. Emeritus Professor Freda Briggs, of the University of South Australia, said, “Research showed a 100-percent correlation between those who collected child pornography and those who abuse children.”
Ben Doherty,No Such Thing as ‘Just Looking,’ Psychologically, Canberra Times, (2004, 1 October).
245. Pornography contributed to the criminal activities of convicted/executed mass murderer John Wayne Gacy. He showed his large collection of pornography depicting homosexual acts to boys and young men he brought into his home for the purposes of gratifying his need for erotic homosexual experimentation. He killed 33 males.
Franklin Mark Osanka and Sara Lee Johann, Sourcebook on Pornography, (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1989): 93, 94.
246. According to many case histories of victims and perpetrators of crime, pornography serves as a catalyst for sexual and physical abuse. Some researchers believe that, barring the exposure of perpetrators to pornography, many victims would not have been killed, raped or abducted. For example, in 1985, Leonard Lake and Charles Ng acted out and video taped sexual torture fantasies in the murders of up to 25 persons. Police found pornographic photographs and video tapes of sexual scenes showing sexual torture of a man, woman and child by Lake and Ng.
Franklin Mark Osanka and Sara Lee Johann, Sourcebook on Pornography, (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1989): 95.
247. Gary Bishop, an honor student and Eagle Scout convicted of sexually abusing and killing five young boys: “Pornography is a widespread social problem, so prevalent that many people accept it as normal. … During my trial, Dr. Victor Cline testified about the adverse effects of pornography. As I listened to his explanations, I could discern how my own life desires escalated. These normal feelings become desensitized, and they tend to act out what they have seen. So it was with me. I am a homosexual pedophile convicted of murder, and pornography was a determining factor in my downfall. Somehow I became sexually attracted to young boys, and I would fantasize them naked … . I would need pictures that were more explicit and shortly the images became commonplace and acceptable. Finding and procuring sexually arousing materials became an obsession. For me, seeing pornography was like lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite; I became stimulated and had to gratify my urges and explode. The day came when I invited a small neighborhood boy into my apartment, molested him and then killed him in fear of being caught. Over the few years I kidnapped, sexually abused and murdered four other boys. I lost all sense of decency and respect for humanity and life … . If pornographic material would have been unavailable to me in my early stages, it is most probable that my sexual activities would not have escalated to the degree they did.”
Convicted Killer, Arthur Gary Bishop, Pornography and the Sex Offender, Victims of Pornography.
248. In 1969, Denmark legalized pictorial pornography. One of the strongest arguments for changing the law was that women would not be raped as much as they had before. It was argued that men who would like to rape someone would buy a pornographic magazine instead. However, with the legalization of pornography, it became legal to regard women as sex objects, to rape and accost according to need, because pornography ideologically establishes that a woman’s innermost wish is to subject herself to men.
Diana Russell, Testimony against Pornography: Witness from Denmark, Take Back the Night, Laura Lederer (ed.) (New York: William Morrow Company, 1980), 83.
249. Rape reports have increased where pornography laws have been liberalized. In theUnited States, rape increased 139 percent from 1964 to 1974. At the same time, Australiaexperienced a 160-percent increase (284 percent in South Australia where porn was widely available). England and Wales began to allow greater freedom of circulation of obscenity and saw rape reports rise 94 percent.
John Court, Sex and Violence: A Ripple Effect, Pornography and Sexual Aggression, Neil Malamuth and Edward Donnerstein (eds.) (New York: Academic Press, 1984), 158, 164. Cited in: Franklin Osanka and Sara Lee Johann, Sourcebook on Pornography (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1990): 81.
250. Eighty-seven percent of girl child molesters and 77 percent of boy child molesters studied in Ontario, Canada admitted to regular use of hardcore adult pornography. The obscene material was used by these sex offenders for three reasons: (1) to stimulate themselves; (2) to destroy the consciences and lower the inhibitions and resistance to sexual activity in their intended child victims; and (3) as teaching tools for the child to imitate or model in their real life sexual encounter with the adult.
Dr. William Marshall, Report on the Use of Pornography by Sexual Offenders, Canada Federal Department of Justice, (1983).
251. Police detectives in Los Angeles, New York, Indianapolis, Philadelphia, Houston andMilwaukee all confirmed that in many of the child molestation and pedophilia cases they worked, the perpetrators used pornography. In fact, many of them had large collections of porn. Dane County, Wisconsin sheriff Jerome Lacke said the single most distinctive characteristic of a pedophile was “his consummate interest in adult and child pornography.” A Detroit police inspector said, “There has not been a sex murder in the history of our department in which the killer was not an avid reader of lewd magazines.”
Report of the U.S. Congress Permanent Subcommittee of Investigations on Child Pornography and Pedophilia, 99th Congress, Second Session, (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1986), 9. Letter from City of Indianapolis police detective Terry Hall to Sara Lee Johann, 21 October, 1985. Letter from William Fortune, New York Police Department, to Wisconsin State Representative James Rutkowki, (1985, 22 July). Letter from Houston chief of police Lee Brown to Wisconsin State Representative James Rutkowki, (1985, 13 August). Letter from Milwaukee police chief Robert Zianik to Wisconsin State Representative James Rutkowki, (1985, 21 May). Letter from Dane County, Wisconsin, sheriff Jerome Lacke to Wisconsin State Representative James Rutkowki, (1985, 20 May). Charles Keating Jr., Memorandum Re: Statistical Study of Relationship of Obscenity to Crime and Other Antisocial Behavior, letter to William Lockhart, (1969, 11 August); Exhibit C of the Report of Commissioner Charles Keating Jr., in The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), 637. Harry Clor, Obscenity and Public Morality: Censorship in a Liberal Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 140.
Trafficking and Prostitution
“[We} were all introduced to prostitution through pornography, there were no exceptions in our group, and we were all under 18. Pornography was our textbook. We learned the tricks of the trade by men exposing us to pornography and us trying to mimic what we saw. I could not stress enough what a huge influence we feel this was.”
Former prostitute, “Terese,” Franklin Mark Osanka and Sara Lee Johann, Sourcebook on Pornography, (Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books, 1989): 107.
252. Some feminists have insisted that there must be no distinction made between child and adult prostitution and that all pornography and prostitution is violence against women.Janice Raymond, director for the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women, said: “Recently, and unfortunately, some non-governmental and women’s rights groups have attempted to draw distinctions between trafficking and prostitution, between ‘forced’ and ‘free’ prostitution, and between child and adult prostitution. … Recognizing pornography as violence against women is an important landmark in the struggle for women’s equality and for the elimination of all forms of violence against women.”
Norma Jean Almodovar, In The Us Government’s War Against Prostitution And Pornography….. Sex Workers Are Out-Numbered And Out-Gunned…And Wondering, Where Are Our Allies? International Sex Worker Foundation for Art, Culture and Education.
253. Sexual trafficking can include the following tactics: production of child pornography, prostitution, sex rings, adult molestation of children, the sale and transportation of minors for sexual purposes, the use of juveniles to recruit other youths into the ring, blackmail, threats, coercion and intimidation.
Daniel Campagna and Donald Poffenberger, The Sexual Trafficking in Children: An Investigation of the Child Sex Trade, (Dover, Massachusetts: Auburn House Publishing Company, 1988): 39.
254. Some women work in the pornography industry because they are running away from sexually and physically violent homes, and pornographers offer them food, shelter, money, promises of love and a home. Some go into pornography because their fathers, uncles, husbands, brothers or boyfriends prostitute them or make pornography of them and then act as their “agents.” Sometimes, the porn is used to blackmail young girls into continuing life in the sex industry.
Gail Dines, Ann Russo and Robert Jensen, Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (New York: Routledge, 1995): 24.
255. Thirty-eight percent of prostitutes in San Francisco reported that explicit photographs had been taken of them when they were children, for commercial purposes or for the personal gratification of the photographer.
Gail Dines, Robert Jensen and Ann Russo, Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (New York: Routledge, 1998): 24.
256. A study revealed that of the 193 cases of rape against San Francisco area prostitutes, 24 percent mentioned allusions to pornographic material made by the rapist. The comments followed the same pattern: the assailant referred to pornographic materials he had seen or read and then insisted that the victims not only enjoyed rape but also extreme violence.” Ten percent of the prostitutes said they had been used in pornographic films and magazines as children, and 38 percent reported that explicit photographs had been taken of them when they were children for commercial reasons or for the personal gratification of the photographer.
Mimi Silbert and Ayala Pines, Pornography and Sexual Abuse of Women, Sex Roles, 10:857-868, (1984), 863. Cited in: Gail Dines, Ann Russo and Robert Jensen, Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (New York: Routledge, 1995): 24.
257. Users of pornography were more likely to engage in illegal behavior. Those who used pornography were more likely to go to prostitutes and engage in domestic violence, stranger rape, date rape and incest. These behaviors should not be surprising since pornographic videos containing all of these themes are readily.
Dr. Mary Anne Layden, testimony at the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space hearing on The Science Behind Pornography Addiction, (2004, 18 November).
258. A spokeswoman for former prostitutes in Minneapolis said: “All of us feel very strongly about the relationship between pornography and prostitution. … This is absolutely incredible to me that prostitution is seen as a victimless activity and that many women are rightly terrified of breaking their silence, fearing harassment to themselves and families and loss of their jobs. We have started to meet together to make sense of the abuse we have experienced in prostitution and how pornography endorses and legitimizes that abuse.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, 44, (1986).
Crime
“It is my professional and personal opinion that there is a direct correlation between pornography and violent sex crimes. Individuals who commit these crimes receive reinforcement, motivation, encouragement and validation of their sexual fantasies from the pornography they view and read. This material then becomes a catalyst for acting out their fantasies.” – Roger Young, retired FBI agent who worked obscenity, child pornography and prostitution cases for a quarter of a century
Robert Peters, The Link Between Pornography and Violent Sex Crimes, Morality in Media, Inc., (2004, March).
259. Mainstream erotica/pornography is widely believed to portray nonviolent adult female nudity for an adult audience. However, a content analysis of Playboy, Penthouse and Hustlermagazines (December 1953 to December 1984) yielded 6,004 child images and an estimated 14,854 images of crime and violence. Imagery received both by juvenile and adult readers, newsstand-available child images in erotica/pornography increased nearly 2,600 percent (16 to 412) from 1954 to 1984, peaking in 1978 at 465 newsstand-available depictions. Nearly two-thirds of the child scenarios were sexual and/or violent; the dominant age bracket 3-11 years; girls more prevalent than boys and most likely associated with adult males; and racial portrayals almost exclusively Caucasian. Nearly 1,000 sexual scenarios included children with adults; 80 percent of the children were actively involved in all scenes; and each magazine portrayed children as unharmed and/or benefited by adult-child sex.
Dr. Judith Reisman, The Psychopharmacology of Pictorial Pornography Restructuring Brain, Mind & Memory & Subverting Freedom of Speech, (July 2003): 28.
260. In 2002, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “Operation Candyman” sting broke up an international child porn ring which had been operating through the Internet portal Yahoo! The FBI discovered 7,000 e-mail addresses that were linked to three Yahoo! user groups that trafficked in child pornography. Criminal charges were filed by federal authorities against the perpetrators. Yahoo! was profiting from the user groups. Twenty-seven persons were arrested and they admitted to the prior molestation of 36 children. Since its inception in 1995, the FBI’s Innocent Images Task Force had initiated more than 5,700 investigations resulting in over 3,000 arrests.
News Release, Federal Bureau of Investigation, (2002, 18 March).
261. In 2003, U.S. federal agents uncovered a “vast underground market” of customers for Internet child pornography, resulting in the arrests of teachers, doctors, ministers, scouting volunteers and camp counselors. The government probe began in Minsk, Belarus, where agents followed the Regpay company’s electronic transaction trail to American credit card users.
Michael Powell, Child Porn Operation Busted, FBI Says, Washington Post, (2004, 16 January 2004).
262. Germany busted one of the world’s largest child pornography rings, which counted 26,500 users in 166 nations. The raid seized a photograph showing the abuse of a baby only four-months-old. More than half the child porn sites were hosted in the United States, according to a report by the United Kingdom’s National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS). The number of Russian child porn sites had doubled compared to the previous year. NCIS said the number of websites carrying child abuse images rose by 64 percent in 2002.
(July 2004), Tip-off Nets Crime Ring, End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes newsletter, 6. Child porn bust nets thousands, but number of ’Net sites up, American Family Association Journal, November/December 2003.
263. A woman who stumbled onto evidence of child abuse while looking for information about babies on the Internet helped Spanish police break a child pornography ring. Police made 13 arrests in different parts of Spain after detecting thousands of images of child pornography following the woman’s tip-off, the interior ministry said Tuesday. The woman called police after she found files with names suggesting pedophilia on an Internet file-sharing site. Investigators discovered that the files contained images of two adults sexually abusing a child.
Woman seeking baby info breaks child porn ring, Reuters, (2007, 27 November).
264. Commercial sex is often called a victimless crime, but sex businesses have many victims. Residents move out of the areas from fear, customers stop patronizing legitimate businesses which have to sell out at a loss. City dwellers are victimized by having to pay more taxes to make up for the areas that are in arrears because of sex businesses. In the spreading decay, muggers, dope pushers move in. It’s harder to spot their crimes in a general sea of rot. Police and courts tend to give up. Civilization living by rules moves out and we’re all victims.
Howard K. Smith, Sex for Sale: The Urban Battleground, ABC News Special, (1977).
265. Because so many people are exposed to violent media, the effect on society can be immense even if only a small percentage of viewers are affected by them. It might be that only 1 in 1,000 viewers will behave more aggressively immediately after viewing violent media, but the cumulative effects may well increase the aggressiveness of most (if not all) of the 1,000 viewers. Furthermore, laboratory experiments have shown that merely viewing 15 minutes of a relatively mild violent program increases the aggressiveness of a substantial proportion (at least one-fourth) of the viewers (e.g., Bushman, 1995).
Brad Bushman and Craig Anderson, Media Violence and the American Public: Scientific Facts Versus Media Misinformation, American Psychologist (2001, June/July): 482.
266. There is a sufficient empirical database to state that exposure to violent video games can cause increases in aggression.
Brad Bushman and Craig Anderson, Media Violence and the American Public: Scientific Facts Versus Media Misinformation, American Psychologist (2001, June/July): 482.
267. Convened in a meeting called by the U.S. surgeon general, experts in the area of research on the effects of pornography achieved consensus in five areas:
a) Children and adolescents who participate in the production of pornography experience adverse, enduring effects;
b)Prolonged use of pornography increases beliefs that less common sexual practices are more common;
c) Pornography that portrays sexual aggression as pleasurable for the victim increases the acceptance of the use of coercion in sexual relations. Impressionable men see this material and get the impression that women like to be hurt, humiliated and forced to do things they really do want to do. It is a false and vicious stereotype that leads to much pain and even death for victimized women;
d) Acceptance of coercive sexuality appears to be related to sexual aggression. If a man sees a steady stream of sexually violent material in which the victim seems to enjoy the treatment, he begins to believe that coercion and violence are acceptable in sexual relations. And then he may well take the next step: he may convert this attitude into behavior and himself become the perpetrator he has been watching or reading about in pornography; and
e) In lab studies measuring short-term effects, exposure to violent pornography increases punitive behavior toward women.
C. Everett Koop, Report of the Surgeon General’s Workshop on Pornography and Public Health,American Psychologist 42(10) (1987, October): 945
Organized Crime
“It is the belief of state, federal, and local law enforcement that the pornography industry is controlled by organized crime families. If they do not own the business outright, they most certainly extract street tax from independent smut peddlers.” — Thomas Bohling of the Chicago Police Department Organized Crime Division, Vice Control Section
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 4: Organized Crime, (1986).
268. The Investigative Services Division of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department undertook a study in 1978 to determine the extent of organized crime involvement in the pornography industry. The initial probe determined that law enforcement could document organized crime control in certain geographic areas, though not on a national level. The project participants determined that traditional organized crime was substantially involved in and did essentially control much of the major pornography distribution in the United States during the years 1977 and 1978.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
269. The FBI conducted a survey of 59 field offices and learned that the vast control of the multi-million dollar pornography business in the U.S. is maintained by a few individuals with direct connections to the La Cosa Nostra organized crime establishment. The FBI reported: “Although La Cosa Nostra does not physically oversee the day-to-day workings of the majority of pornography business in the United States, it is apparent they have ‘agreements’ with those involved in the pornography business in allowing these people to operate independently by paying off members of organized crime for the privilege of being allowed to operate in certain geographical areas.” Next to gambling and narcotics, porn is the major income maker for La Cosa Nostra in the U.S.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
270. Los Angeles is considered the pornography capital of the world. Organized crime families from Chicago, New York, New Jersey and Florida were openly controlling and directing the major pornography operations in Los Angeles. Former Chief Daryl Gates of the Los Angeles Police Department said: “Organized crime infiltrated the pornography industry in Los Angeles in 1969 due to its lucrative financial benefits. By 1975, organized crime controlled 80 percent of the industry and it is estimated that this figure is between 85 to 90 percent today.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
271. An investigative report submitted to the California Legislature by the attorney general ofCalifornia indicated that in the early 1970s four organized crime groups from the Eastern United States got involved in pornography operations in California. These organized crime groups met relatively little resistance because the California organized crime group was not strong enough to prevent the infiltration by outside organized crime groups.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
272. Newly-arrived organized crime groups in California began to form film duplication companies and illegally duplicated the films made by independent producers, then displayed them at their own theaters around the nation. Faced with continued piracy and loss of profits, many original producers were forced to do business with organized crime controlled distribution companies and film processing labs. By gaining control of manyCalifornia wholesale and retail companies, organized crime forced independent retailers out of business through price manipulation. Some of the dealers that resisted takeover were silenced through extortion or arson.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
273. California Attorney General John Van De Kamp reported that the arrival of home VCRs in 1979 was accompanied by a growing demand for adult video tapes. California pornographers linked to the Gambino, DeCavalcante, Luchese and Columbo organized crime families entered this market through companies that produce, duplicate, distribute and sell adult video tapes.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
274. The Periano brothers of the Columbo organized crime family produced the pornographic film “Deep Throat,” for $25,000. By 1982, the film had generated an estimated $50 million — the biggest money maker of any porn film up until that time. Joseph, Anthony, and Louis Periano all became millionaires as a result of “Deep Throat.” They used profits from the film to build a vast financial empire in the 1970s that included garment companies in New York and Miami, investment companies, a 65-foot yacht in the Bahamas, “adults-only” porn theaters in Los Angeles, and record and music publishing companies on both coasts. The Perianos used profits from “Deep Throat” to finance drug smuggling operations in the Caribbean.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
275. Aladena Fratianno, a member of a La Cosa Nostra organized crime family and one-time acting boss of the Los Angeles crime family, told the attorney generals’ commission that large profits have kept organized crime heavily involved in the pornography industry. He estimated that 95 percent of organized crime families were involved in one way or another in pornography.
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
276. The Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography concluded that organized crime “exerts substantial influence and control over the obscenity industry. This influence and control has increased since the report of the 1970 Commission on Obscenity and Pornography and is particularly evident in the distribution of pornographic materials. Organized crime elements have found that the large financial gains to be reaped from pornography far outweigh the risks associated with the trade.”
Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, Part 4, Chapter 1: Victimization, (1986).
277. Japan produced millions of erotic comics, targeted to youth and sold in vending machines in public places. Japanese child pornography reflected a special appeal for sex with Japanese girls who were often depicted in school uniforms. Canadian Customs found pornographic materials involving Japanese children commonly possessed by crew members of Japanese cruise ships. The Yakuza organized crime group exerted much control over the sex industry in Japan, but toughened Japanese anti-mob laws have attained some success against Yakuza.
Child pornography: an international perspective, paper presented at World Congress Against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, (1996, 27-31 August).
ACADEMIC EXERCISES
The Classroom
“What may be most frightening about a college that holds pornography classes and sex fairs isn’t what it reveals about the administration’s depravity. It’s what it may mean for students in the dorms and on Greek Row. Safety is a top concern on college campuses, and the relatively recent phenomenon of men dumping GHB (gamma hydroxybutyrate, a.k.a the date-rape drug) into women’s drinks has parents more concerned than ever about what kind of sexual stimuli college men are receiving.”
Karla Dial, Pornography 102, Boundless, (2001).
278. Mary Anne Layden, director of the Center for Cognitive Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania, said: “If you want sexual violence on campus, you can tutor it using pornographic movies. Movie imagery is massively potent to tutor behaviors.”
Karla Dial, Pornography 102, Boundless, (2001).
279. Among the universities which have offered pornography are Emerson College, New York University, Northwestern University, Arizona State University and several campuses in the University of California system.
David Abel, Porn is Hot on Campus, Boston Globe, (2001, 20 August).
280. Laura Kipnis, a professor of media studies at Northwestern University, argued that pornography, in the right context, is liberating. “It’s about removing the stigma and understanding the taboo,” she said. Constance Penley, a film studies professor, ran a University of California-Santa Barbara Pornography Research Focus Group, attempting to spread understanding of pornography. Constance Penley, head of the film studies department at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said, “Now pornographic film can be seen as a completely normal and necessary part of a film studies curriculum.”
Notes & Comment,” The New Criterion Online, June 1999. David Abel, Porn is Hot on Campus,Boston Globe, (2001, 20 August).
281. ”To not study pornography is to ignore an absolutely pervasive phenomenon in our culture,” said Linda Williams, a film studies professor at the University of California in Berkeley who helped pioneer porn studies with her book, ”Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the Frenzy of the Visible.” Hope Weissman, a women’s studies professor at Wesleyan University, of Middletown, Connecticut, required students in her class, ”Pornography: Writing of Prostitutes,” to produce a work of pornography for their final project. That class was eventually discontinued after several student porn productions were actually made.
David Abel, Porn is Hot on Campus, Boston Globe, (2001, 20 August).
282. University of California-Berkeley professor Fredric Jameson, who taught the class Topics in Film, said: “The visible is essentially pornographic, which is to say that it has its end in rapt, mindless fascination. … Pornographic films are thus only the potentiation of films in general, which ask us to stare at the world as though it were a naked body.” The seminar’s aim was to investigate the history and rhetoric of visual pornographies.
America’s Most Ridiculous College Courses, Accuracy in Academia, (2001).
283. Henry Jenkins, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, directed students in his class to analyze photos from Hustler magazine and clips from pornographic movies, including ”Deep Throat.” Richard Burt, an English professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and host of a provocative website, taught his students about the modern adaptations of Shakespeare, often focusing on a growing number of porn flicks invoking the Bard.
David Abel, Porn is Hot on Campus, Boston Globe, (2001, 20 August).
284. Arizona State University offered a class on pornographic film in 2001, but dropped it from the spring 2002 semester after receiving massive public criticism. Professor Peter Lehman’s course, “Sexuality in Media,” explored media representations of male and female bodies, gay and lesbian sexuality, race and sexuality. Arizona State’s Office of Media Relations and Public Information at first issued a news release defending the course before the university ultimately shut down the course. Provost Milt Glick said the complaints did not cause the cancellation and vowed that the class would be offered again in the future. Campus Safety Committee director David Wright said the university’s administration became extremely concerned over liability when told by a university employee that sex crime frequency is statistically higher in areas where pornography is available.
Porn Class at ASU Canceled after Protests, Arizona Central, (2001, 9 November).
285. “If you want sexual violence on campus,” Dr. Mary Ann Layden (University ofPennsylvania psychologist) states, “you can tutor it using pornographic movies” in class. Pornography teaches dangerous myths, e.g., that women and children like being raped and sodomized. Typical pornographic sex crimes find males, aroused by the films, performing the types of rape just witnessed.
Dr. Judith Reisman, Are Campus Pornography Courses Sexual Abuse? Crossroad, (2003, 21 June).
286. Planned Parenthood held a conference for children that included distribution of a pornographic book. Parents were not permitted to attend the conference, which was limited to children ages 10-14. Children in grades seven through nine received a free copy of the book, “It’s Perfectly Normal.” The book includes detailed explanations on how to perform sexual acts and features sexually explicit line drawings.
Planned Parenthood gives kids ‘porn’ book, World Net Daily, (2004, 17 July).
287. Planned Parenthood Southern Indiana‘s youth outreach program hired a “sexuality educator and trainer/local peer education coordinator” with a background as a former adult book store clerk, “BDSM dungeon monitor” and escort service phone dispatcher. The woman was assigned to oversee Planned Parenthood youth outreach programs.
Susan Jones, Youth Educator Has Sex Industry Background, Group Says, Cybercast News Service, (2004, 18 November).
288. Catharine MacKinnon called pornography “hate literature” which encourages violence against women.
Christopher Finan, CatherineMacKinnon: The Rise of a Feminist Censor, 1983-1993, Media Coalition.
Behavioral Studies
“Those who use pornography have been shown to be more likely to engage in illegal behavior as well. Research indicates and my clinical experience supports that those who use pornography are more likely to go to prostitutes, engage in domestic violence, stranger rape, date rape and incest. These behaviors should not be surprising since pornographic videos containing all of these themes are readily available and the permission-giving beliefs of these pornographic videos reinforced by the orgasm say that all these behaviors are normal, acceptable, common and don’t hurt anyone.”
Dr. Mary Anne Layden testimony at the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, (2004, 18 November).
289. Three of the four reports presented to the 1970 Presidential Report on Obscenity and Pornography were by Kutchinsky and Ben-Veniste, which claimed that the liberalization of pornography’s availability in Denmarkresulted in a decline in sex crimes. However, numerous problems with their methodology have been reported. Among the problems with Kutchinsky’s research were: an alteration in reporting rates, not all sex offenses were included in his data, his figures referred only to a limited range of heterosexual offenses, ambiguous data, and rape figures were only from the City of Copenhagen and not for the nation. Moreover, sadistic and exploitative pornography has become more common since the Kutchinsky and Ben-Veniste studies.
John Court (photo), Pornography & Sex Crimes: A reevaluation in light of recent trends around the world. International Journal of Criminology & Penology 5 (1977): 130-143, 152, 153.
CHART XIV
290. A review of 81 original peer-reviewed research studies (35 using aggressive stimuli and 46 using non-aggressive stimuli), concluded that “the empirical research on the effects of aggressive pornography shows, with fairly impressive consistency, that exposure to these materials has a negative effect on attitudes toward women and the perceived likelihood to rape.”
Lyons, J.S., Anderson, R.L. and Larsen, D., A Systematic Review of the Effects of Aggressive and Nonaggressive Pornography. Cited in: Zillman, Bryant & Huston (eds.), Media, Children & the Family: Social Scientific, Psychodynamic, and Clinical Perpectives, Hillsdale, N.J., J. Erlbaum Associates, 305.
291. High-frequency pornography consumers who were exposed to the nonviolent, dehumanizing pornography (relative to those in the no-exposure condition) were particularly likely to report that they might rape, were more sexually callous, and reported engaging in more acts of sexual aggression. These effects were not apparent for men who reported a very low frequency of habitual pornography consumption. The effects of exposure were strongest and most pervasive in the case of exposure to nonviolent dehumanizing pornography, the type of material that may in fact be most prevalent in mainstream commercial entertainment videos.
Check, J. V. P., & Guloien, T. H., Reported Proclivity for Coercive Sex Following Repeated Exposure to Sexually Violent Pornography, Nonviolent Dehumanizing Pornography, and Erotica, Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (1989): 178, 179.
292. French neuroscientist Serge Stoleru found the “common condition” of impotence and lack of sexual desire among normal, healthy young men is reflecting of continued overexposure to “erotic stimuli” that exhausts their sexual response.
Cited in: Dr. Judith Reisman, The Impotence Pandemic, World Net Daily, (2007, 27 September).
293. Pornography use was significantly related with emerging adult men’s sexual values and behaviors. The more men accepted and used pornography, the more likely they were to be accepting of premarital and casual sexual behavior. The daily users had, on average, nearly five times more lifetime sexual partners than nonusers had, and the majority of nonusers reported that they had not had sexual intercourse. Among emerging adult women, pornography acceptance and use were found to be related to sexual values and sexual behaviors, with pornography acceptance being a stronger correlate of these variables than actual pornography use. Emerging adult women who accepted and used pornography were found to have significantly higher levels of acceptance of casual sexual behavior and to report higher numbers of sexual partners within the last 12 months and across their lifetimes. Emerging adult men and women who were more accepting of pornography were also more accepting of non-marital cohabitation, but only women who accepted pornography were found to be more likely to consider having a child out of wedlock.
Jason Carroll, Laura Padilla-Walker, Larry Nelson, Chad Olson, Carolyn McNamara Barry and Stephanie Madsen, Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults,Journal of Adolescent Research 23 (2008): 19.
294. In laboratory studies, male subjects exposed to sexual violence showed: 1) changes in the perception of a rape victim; 2) changes in the perception of a rapist; 3) greater acceptance of certain “rape myths” and 4) more aggressive behavior toward a female target than control subjects.
Edward Donnerstein and Daniel Linz, Mass Media Sexual Violence and Male Viewers: Current Theory and Research, American Behavioral Science 29 (1986), 601.
295. Estimates of the size of the effect of media violence were typically in the small to moderate range, but this should not mislead people into thinking that the overall impact of media violence on aggressive and violent behavior is small to moderate. Because of the large numbers of youth exposed to many hours of media violence, even a small effect can have extremely large consequences (Abelson, 1985; Rosenthal, 1986). A correlation of .20 can be said to represent a change in the odds of aggressive behavior from 50/50 to 60/40, which is not a trivial change (Rosenthal, 1986). Furthermore, the size of the media-violence effect is equal to or larger than the size of many medical effects that our society deems large, such as the effect of condom use on sexually transmitted HIV, the effect of passive smoking on lung cancer at work and the effect of calcium intake on bone mass (see Bushman & Huesmann, 2001).
Craig Anderson, Leonard Berkowitz, Edward Donnerstein, L.Rowell Huesmann, James Johnson, Daniel Linz, Neil Malamuth and Ellen Wartella, The Influence of Media Violence on Youth, American Psychological Society 4(3), (2003, December): 105.
296. Exposure to both sexually violent pornography and to nonviolent dehumanizing pornography fostered the perception in subjects’ minds that they might rape and force women into unwanted sex acts. More than twice as many men who had been exposed to sexually violent or to nonviolent dehumanizing pornography reported that there was at least some likelihood that they would rape, compared to the men in the no-exposure condition. High pornography users were more accepting of rape myths, had higher reported likelihoods of raping and forcing women into unwanted sex acts and reported actually committing more acts of sexual aggression than did low pornography users.
James Check and Ted Guloien, (1989), Reported Proclivity for Coercive Sex Following Repeated Exposure to Sexually Violent Pornography, Nonviolent Dehumanizing Pornography, and Erotica, Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations; Summary of Effects, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989), 177.
297. Habitual pornography consumption was also associated with a number of antisocial beliefs and self-reported inclinations regarding sexual aggression. High frequency pornography consumers are more anti-social as a result of consuming pornography or they may consume pornography because they are more antisocial individuals to begin with.
James Check and Ted Guloien, (1989), Reported Proclivity for Coercive Sex Following Repeated Exposure to Sexually Violent Pornography, Nonviolent Dehumanizing Pornography, and Erotica, Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations; Summary of Effects, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989), 179.
298. Pornography use is as common as drinking is among college-age men. A sizable number of emerging adult men “binge” on pornography with a similar frequency and intensity that define binge drinking on American college campuses. In fact, the comparison between pornography use and binge drinking may be justified, in that pornography use was found to be moderately correlated with emerging adult men’s frequency of alcohol consumption and their rates of binge drinking.
Jason Carroll, Laura Padilla-Walker, Larry Nelson, Chad Olson, Carolyn McNamara Barry and Stephanie Madsen, Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults,Journal of Adolescent Research 23 (2008): 23.
299. Liberalization of pornography laws corresponded to an increase in rape reports. However, publication of the U.S. Commission on Obscenity and Pornography report strengthened the view that pornography could circulate without causing harm.
John Court, Sex and Violence: A Ripple Effect, Neil Malamuth and Edward Donnerstein (eds.), Pornography and Sexual Aggression, (New York: Academic Press), 158, 164.
300. A study found a direct relationship between the circulation rate of sex magazines and the rape rate. This finding is consistent with the theory that pornography contributes to a cultural climate favorable toward violence against women.
Larry Baron and Murray Straus, Four Theories of Rape in American Society: A State-Level Analysis, Social Problems 34(5) (1987, December): 482.
301. Violent pornography is likely to influence viewers for a number of reasons: the antisocial effects, the imitation of aggressive behavior and desensitization to violence when presented within a sexual context. The coupling of sex and aggression in violent pornography may result in a conditioning process. Aggressive acts become associated with sexual acts in the viewers’ minds. Several researchers believe this conditioning process is responsible for rapist behavior.
Neil Malamuth, The mass media and aggression against women: Research findings and prevention, (1984).
302. Pornography acceptance among women was a stronger correlate with permissive sexuality, alcohol use, binge drinking and cigarette smoking than was actual pornography use. For men, the acceptance of pornography was more highly correlated with their sexual attitudes and family formation values than was pornography use. Men who used pornography and women who accepted pornography were significantly more likely to accept a married person’s having sexual relations with someone other than his or her spouse than were their peers who did not use or accept pornography.
Jason Carroll, Laura Padilla-Walker, Larry Nelson, Chad Olson, Carolyn McNamara Barry and Stephanie Madsen, Generation XXX: Pornography Acceptance and Use Among Emerging Adults,Journal of Adolescent Research 23 (2008): 23.
303. Men began to perceive graphic and violent films differently with repeated viewings. They were becoming desensitized to violence, particularly against women. By the last day of viewing films, men participating in a study rated the movies less graphic and estimated fewer violent scenes than on the first day of viewing. On the last day of viewing graphic violence, men rated the films less debasing and degrading to women, more humorous, more enjoyable and claimed a greater willingness to see this type of film again.
Edward Donnerstein and Daniel Linz, Mass Media Sexual Violence and Male Viewers, American Behavioral Scientist 29(5) (1986, May/June): 609.
304. Men who view violent pornography in which others are enjoying rape might come to expect that they, too, would enjoy rape. Most of the aggressors in violent pornongraphy go unpunished for their actions. Observing a man in a pornographic rape depiction going completely unpunished for his actions might disinhibit an already angry or assault-prone observer’s own rape behavior.
James Check and Neil Malamuth, Pornography and sexual aggression: A social learning theory analysis, (1986). Cited in: M. L. McLaughlin (ed.), Communication Yearbook 9, (Beverly Hills, California: Sage Publications): 181-213.
305. Aggressive pornography may foster the belief that women desire and derive pleasure from sexual assault. Images of women eventually succumbing to and finally enjoying sexual violence may suggest to male viewers that even if a woman seems to be first repelled by a pursuer, she will eventually respond favorably to overpowering, aggressive advances.
Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (New York: Ballantine Publishing Group, 1975). Cited in: Edward Donnerstein, Daniel Linz and Steven Penrod, The Question of Pornography (Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications, 1993).
306. Countries adopting a liberal approach to pornography have, contrary to expectations, experienced major increases in rape reports in the years following the inception of that approach. By contrast those jurisdictions taking a conservative [repressive] stance have experienced only minimal increases.
DianaRussell, Pornography: Towards a Non-sexist Policy, Diana Russell website.
307. A brief survey was completed by 91 women and three men, aged 24-57, who had experienced serious adverse consequences of their partner’s cyber-sex involvement. In 60.6 percent of cases the sexual activities were limited to cyber-sex and did not include offline sex. Although not specifically asked about this, 31 percent of partners volunteered that the cyber-sex activities were a continuation of pre-existing compulsive sexual behaviors. Survey respondents felt hurt, betrayal, rejection, abandonment, devastation, loneliness, shame, isolation, humiliation, jealousy, and anger, as well as loss of self-esteem. Being lied to repeatedly was a major cause of distress. Cyber-sex addiction was a major contributing factor to separation and divorce of couples in this survey: 22.3 percent of the respondents were separated or divorced, and several others were seriously contemplating leaving. Among 68 percent of the couples, one or both had lost interest in relational sex: 52.1 percent of addicts had decreased interest in sex with spouse, as did 34 percent of partners. Some couples had not had relational sex in months or years. Partners overwhelmingly felt that cyber affairs were as emotionally painful to them as live or offline affairs and many believed that virtual affairs were just as much adultery or “cheating” as live affairs.
Dr. Jennifer Schneider, Effects of cybersex addiction on the family: Results of a survey, Sexual Addiction and Compulsivity (2000): 7, 1.
308. Diana Russell outlined four factors linking porn to sexual violence:
- porn predisposes some males to desire rape or intensifies this desire;
- porn undermines some males’ internal inhibitions against acting out rape desires;
- porn undermines some males’ social inhibitions against acting out rape desires; and
- porn undermines some potential victims’ abilities to avoid or resist rape.
Cited in: Gail Dines, Ann Russo and Robert Jensen, Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality (New York: Rutledge, 1995): 102.
309. Among the effects of prolonged consumption of pornography are:
- diminished repulsion,
- decreased enjoyment of frequently consumed material,
- preference for less common forms of sexuality (violence, pseudoviolence),
- altered perception of sexuality,
- acceptance of pre- and extramarital sexuality,
- decreased trust among sexual intimates,
- increased tolerance for violations of sexual exclusivity,
- diminished moral condemnation of sexual improprieties,
- spawns doubts about the value of marriage as an essential societal institution and about its future viability,
- diminished desire for progeny,
- discontent with the physical appearance and the sexual performance of intimate partners,
- insensitivity toward victims of sexual violence,
- trivializes rape and child abuse as criminal offenses,
- promotes men’s belief of having the propensity for forcing particular sex acts on reluctant female partners,
- promotes men’s belief of being capable of committing rape,
- habitual male consumers of common pornography appear to be at greater risk of becoming sexually callous and sexually violent toward women than occasional male consumers
Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations; Summary of Effects, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989), 154-155.
310. Sixty-five percent of rapists used pornography and often mimicked it in their crimes.
Jean Rosenberg, Two New Books on Pornography Effects 2(2) Sexual Assault Report, 31. Cited in: Pornography, Illinois Coalition against Sexual Assault, (1989).
311. A review of literature and research discussed the “sexual callousness” effect associated with standard-fare pornography, noting that: “Enhanced perceptual and behavioral callousness toward women is most apparent following consumption of materials that unambiguously portray women as sexually promiscuous and indiscriminating — a depiction that dominates modern pornography.”
J.B.Weaver, Pornography and Sexual Callousness: The Perceptual and Behavioral Consequences of Exposure to Pornography, in Zillman, Bryant & Huston (eds), Media, Children and the Family: Social Scientific, Psychodynamic, and Clinical Perspectives, (1989): 224. Cited in: Just Harmless Fun? Understanding the Impact of Pornography, Enough is Enough.
CHART XV
312. Promiscuity in both men and women was deemed more natural after prolonged consumption of pornography than without such consumption.
Pornography: Research Advances and Policy Considerations; Summary of Effects, Dolf Zillmann and Jennings Bryant (eds.), (Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1989): 141.
313. The partners of battered women were high consumers of pornography — in the form of both videos and magazines — while the partners of a control group were not.
E.Sommers and James Check, An Empirical Investigation of the Role of Pornography in the Verbal and Physical Abuse of Women, Violence and Victim, 2(3), 189-209. Cited in: Shirley Walters, Senator for Tasmania, Australian Parliament, Pornography and Regulation, Institute of Communication Studies, University of Leeds, United Kingdom, (1987): 6.
314. In interviews with 600 American males and females of high school age, Dr. JenningsBryant found that 91 percent of the males and 82 percent of the females had been exposed to hardcore, X-rated pornography. Two-thirds of the males and 40 percent of the females reported wanting to try out some of the behaviors they had witnessed. Also, 31 percent of males and 18 percent of females reported they had done some of the sexual things they had seen in pornography within a few days of exposure.
Dr. Victor Cline, Pornography’s Effects on Adults and Children, Morality In Media.
315. A study funded by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health found that teens who watched a lot of sexualized programming were twice as likely to engage in sexual intercourse themselves. The study included 1,792 boys and girls ages 12-17: “Watching sex on TV predicts and may hasten adolescent sexual initiation.”
Cited in: Peter Stock, The Harmful Effects on Children of Exposure to Pornography, Canadian Institute for Education on the Family, (2004, November).
316. The main possible effects of televised pornography that concerned clinicians, educators and parents were modeling and imitation of language heard and behaviors observed in televised pornography; negative interference with children’s normal sexual development; emotional reactions such as nightmares and feelings of anxiety, guilt, confusion and/or shame; stimulation of premature sexual activity; development of unrealistic, misleading and/or harmful attitudes toward sex and adult male-female relationships; and undermining of family values with resultant conflict between parents and children.
Dr. Elissa Benedek and Catherine Brown, No excuses: televised pornography harms children,Harvard Review of Psychiatry 7, (1999): 236-240.
317. Psychology Professor Victor Cline conducted a study on the effects of dial-a-porn on children. He said, “With every one of the children we studied, we found an addiction effect in making those calls. In every case, without exception, the children became hooked on his ‘sex by phone’ and kept going back for more and still more. The children did not stop making the calls until they were discovered.”
Peter Stock, The Harmful Effects on Children of Exposure to Pornography, Canadian Institute for Education on the Family, (2004, November).
318. A Harris poll revealed that people in the 18-24 age bracket were often most likely to report negative consequences of pornography. Four in 10 of them believed pornography harms relationships between men and women.
Pamela Paul, Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families, (New York: Times Books, 2005), 199.
DIVIDED OVER PORNOGRAPHY
Feminism
“The First Amendment, it should be noted, belongs to those who can buy it. Men have the economic clout. Pornographers have empires. Women are economically disadvantaged and barely have token access to the media. …The growing power of the pornographers significantly diminishes the likelihood that women will ever experience freedom of anything — certainly not sexual self-determination, certainly not freedom of speech.”
Andrea Dworkin, “For Men, Freedom of Speech; for Women, Silence Please,” in Take Back the Night, Women on Pornography, (New York: William Morrow & Company, 1980): 258.
319. An ideological war on pornography raged between feminists. At the forefront of the feminist anti-pornography movement were two highly educated scholars, Andrea Dworkin and Catherine MacKinnon. Both women asserted that pornography is the theory and rape is the practice.
A. Salazar, Conscious pornography: Riding the new wave of feminism? Boise State’s Independent Student Newspaper, (2004, April 4).
320. “Pro-sex feminists” are defined in the following way: “Pro-Sex feminists believe that pornography can offer women a way to explore and affirm their sexualities … promote sexual autonomy, and encourage female sexual pleasure … experience sexual alternatives, break cultural stereotypes, and empower themselves … We like men. We like sex with men … We like looking sexy and we are not ashamed to do so and we’re feminists.”
A. Salazar, Conscious pornography: Riding the new wave of feminism? Boise State’s Independent Student Newspaper, (2004, April 4).
321. Feminist Gloria Steinem said the message of pornography is “violence, dominance and conquest. It is sex being used to reinforce some inequality, or to create one, or to tell us that pain and humiliation … are really the same as pleasure.”
Gloria Steinem in Take Back the Night, Laura Lederer (ed.). (New York: William Morrow Company, 1980).
322. “[T]he corporate woman-desecrators hire the best legal talent to keep their violence against women on the streets, in the theaters, in the combat zones of every city. They use all the arsenal of weapons available to those with money and position: they use economic pressure against newsstand vendors: if you don’t take these flesh magazines, you can’t have the others you need. They use muscle. They use threats and injunctions and sympathetic or bought judges. They use male intellectuals who consider arousal sacred, no matter whether it is caused by a caress or the sight of a disemboweling. The link between sex and violence must be broken in our generation and broken for good if we are to survive into a future fit for our children to inhabit.”
Marge Piercy, Take Back the Night, Laura Lederer (ed.) (New York: William Morrow Company, 1980).
323. Feminist objection to pornography “is based on our belief that pornography represents hatred of women, that pornography’s intent is to humiliate, degrade and dehumanize the female body for the purpose of erotic stimulation and pleasure. We are unalterably opposed to the presentation of the female body being stripped, bound, raped, tortured, mutilated and murdered in the name of commercial entertainment and free speech.”
Take Back the Night, Laura Lederer (ed.) (New York: William Morrow Company, 1980): 254.
324. “The First Amendment was never intended to protect obscenity. … We are not saying ‘Smash the presses’ or ‘Ban the bad ones,’ but simply ‘Get the stuff out of our sight.’ Let the legislatures decide – using realistic and humane contemporary community standards – what can be displayed and what cannot. The courts, after all, will be the final arbiters.”
Take Back the Night, Laura Lederer (ed.) (New York: William Morrow Company, 1980): 255.
325. In 1982, Catherine MacKinnon condemned Playboy as a force that oppressed women: “I think that gender defines the status of women, that forced sex defines gender, that pornography eroticizes and thereby legitimizes forced sex, and that Playboy is pornography and makes pornography legitimate.”
Christopher Finan, Catherine A. MacKinnon: The Rise of a Feminist Censor, 1983-1993, Media Coalition.
326. Anti-porn feminists emphasize that pornography depicts women as whores or prostitutes, and thus as receptacles for any sexual indignity, including rape and torture. According to this perspective, women are dehumanized by being presented as sexual objects; in postures of sexual submission or in scenarios of degradation; as enjoying pain or humiliation or experiencing sexual pleasure at being raped; or in scenarios of injury and torture in a content that makes these conditions sexual. This normative theory assumes that pornography is a powerful socializing agent that promotes sexual abuse of individual women and the social subordination of women as a class.
Daniel Linz and Neil Malamuth, Pornography (Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications, 1993): 44.
PROPONENTS OF PORNOGRAPHY
The American Civil Liberties Union
“No institution or organization in America works harder to protect the rights of pornographers than the ACLU. In return for that protection, the ACLU receives a significant amount of its financial support from the pornography industry.”
The Abominable ACLU, Geocities.
327. Federal agents arrested Charles Rust-Tierney, the former president of the Virginia chapter of the ACLU, for allegedly possessing child pornography. According to a criminal complaint obtained by ABC News, Rust-Tierney allegedly used his e-mail address and credit card to subscribe to and access a child pornography website. Rust-Tierney once argued that Internet filters in libraries that limited children’s access to pornography would interfere with their ability to learn and communicate.
ACLU exec busted for child porn in court today, World Net Daily, (2007, 28 February).
328. Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, said there’s no reason pornography should be less protected than other forms of expression under the First Amendment. “Not only does [censorship] violate free speech, but it undermines the fight for women’s rights. Censoring pornography will do more harm than good.” Her speech at theUniversity of Minnesota Law School — “Defending Pornography: Free Speech, Sex and the Fight for Women’s Rights” – was also the title of her book.
Terry Collins, Censoring pornography Undermines’ women’s rights, ACLU leader, Minneapolis Star Tribune, (2001, 3 April).
329. “The American Civil Liberties Union has fought censorship from the time of its founding in 1920. In our early days, we defended sex educator/activists Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett against criminal obscenity charges. Today, we continue to defend the free speech rights of all expression, including sexual expression. We believe that the suppression of “pornography” is not only damaging to the First Amendment, but also impedes the struggle for women’s rights.”
Why the ACLU Opposes Censorship of Pornography, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
330. “The First Amendment absolutely forbids the suppression of ideas or images based on their content alone. Moreover, a basic tenet of U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence is that laws must be “viewpoint” neutral. And even though the Court has carved out a narrow exception to the First Amendment for a category of sexually explicit material deemed ‘legally obscene,’ the term ‘pornography’ has no legal significance at all.”
Why the ACLU Opposes Censorship of Pornography, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
331. “… [H]istory teaches that censorship is a dangerous weapon in the hands of government. Inevitably, it is used against those who want to change society, be they feminists, civil rights demonstrators or gay liberationists. Obscenity laws, especially, have been used to suppress information and art dealing with female sexuality and reproduction. Thus, the growing influence of anti-pornography feminism threatens to undermine long- established principles of free speech.”
Why the ACLU Opposes Censorship of Pornography, Electronic Frontier Foundation.
332. The following excerpts are taken directly from ACLU Policy 4:
(a) “The ACLU opposes any restraint on the right to create, publish or distribute materials to adults . . . on the basis of obscenity . . .”
(b) “Laws which punish the distribution or exposure of such materials [i.e. including obscenity] to minors violate the First Amendment . . .”
(d) “The ACLU believes that . . . all limitations of expression on the ground of obscenity . . . are unconstitutional.”
(g) “The ACLU opposes on First Amendment grounds laws that restrict the production and distribution of any . . . materials even when some of the producers of those materials are punishable under criminal law.”
Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace; Appendix I: ACLU Policy Number 4: Censorship Obscenity, Pornography, and Indecency, Protecting Children in Cyberspace.
333. The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah complained that a new policy requiring Cache County, Utah sheriff’s deputies to document pornography at crime scenes and during arrests violated the First Amendment. The sheriff’s office instituted the policy in order to gather statistics that will help police determine a “cause and effect” between pornography and crime. Police had seen a “steady increase” of porn at crime scenes in recent years.
Leigh Dethman, ACLU protests linkage on porn: 
Cache deputies will collect data at crime scenes,Deseret Morning News, (2004, 18 October).
334. The ACLU has received funding from the Playboy Foundation.
Dukakis: A Card Carrying ACLU member, Media House International.
335. In Policy Number 18, the ACLU opposes the “restrictive impact on the marketplace of ideas” brought on by the motion picture rating system – including X-rated films. The ACLU prefers to see the rating code completely eliminated.
Dukakis: A Card Carrying ACLU member, (17 August 1987), New York Magazine.
336. There is a clear link between ACLU Policy Issues and the “Communist Goals for America” relating to pornography, as explained by A. S. Herlong Jr. on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. The Communist Goal for America No. 24 — “Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them ‘censorship’ and a violation of free speech and free press” – directly parallels the ACLU’s Policy 4 – “the defense of all pornography, including child porn, as ‘free speech.’” The ACLU’s opposition to a rating system for music and movies (Policy 18) parallels the Communist Goals for America’s 25th goal – “break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.”
Congressional Record–Appendix, A34-A35 1. on 1963, 10 January. ACLU Goals Compared to Communism, Stop the ACLU Coalition, (2005, 13 February).
Commission on Obscenity and Pornography
337. Congress requested that the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography address itself to a “matter of national concern.” However, the Commission concluded that obscenity and pornography were not matters of public concern at all.
The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (New York: Random House, 1970).
338. “Credit the American public with enough common sense to know that one who wallows in filth is going to get dirty.”
Charles H. Keating Jr., member of the 1970 Commission on Pornography and founder of Citizens for Decent Literature, Introduction, The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (New York: Random House, 1970).
339. Although most states banned the production or sale of “obscene” material, the growing acceptance of sexually explicit material suggested to Charles Rembar, an attorney who had fought some of the most important First Amendment cases, that the end of obscenity was in sight. Some believed that the 1970 report of the President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography would be the final nail in the coffin of the anti-pornography movement. The commission had been created by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 to determine whether sexually explicit material is harmful. In carrying out its task, the commission worked for two years and spent $2 million. Because there was little basic research on the question, the commission paid for experiments. It concluded that there was no evidence that sexually explicit material caused violence against women and called for the repeal of laws that criminalized the purchase of this material by adults.
Christopher Finan, Catherine A. MacKinnon: The Rise of a Feminist Censor, 1983-1993, Media Coalition.
340. Of the 18 commission members, 12 voted for the basic recommendation: “Federal, state and local legislation prohibiting the sale, exhibition and distribution of sexual materials to consenting adults should be repealed.” Five commissioners dissented and one abstained from voting on the recommendation. Four commissioners issued separate opinions.
The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (New York: Random House, 1970).
341. Commissioners Edward Greenwood and Morris Lipton said: “We find it (pornography) to be a nuisance rather than an evil.” Commissioners Larsen and Wolfgang would have repealed all existing federal, state and local statutes regarding obscenity and would not preclude the distribution of pornographic materials to juveniles.
The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography (New York: Random House, 1970).
342. In response to the Commission’s report, scientific interest in pornography increased enormously over the following decade. The increase in research was prompted by criticism of the Commission’s summary conclusion and by arguments that the new sex and violence trend may affect negatively attitudes and behavior toward women. Ensuing studies focused on sex and aggression. Evidence suggested that violent pornography increases males’ acceptance of interpersonal violence toward women and facility subsequent aggression by them.
Maurice Yaffe and Edward Nelson, (eds.), The Influence of Porn on Behavior (Academic Press: London, 1982): xiv.
343. Few studies were conducted by the 1970 commission on the effects of aggressive behavior in the laboratory.
Daniel Linz and Neil Malamuth, Pornography (Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications, 1993): 35.
344. Marvin Wolfgang, a prominent sociologist and one of the authors of The Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography, later changed his assessment of pornography’s effects. He said “the weight of the evidence (now) suggests that the portrayal of violence tends to encourage the use of physical aggression among people who are exposed to it.”
Take Back the Night, Laura Lederer (ed.) (New York: William Morrow Co., Inc., 1980): 237.
345. The Commission concluded that empirical research has found no evidence to date that exposure to explicit sexual materials plays a significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behavior among youths or adults or causes social or individual harms. Victor Cline, an expert on the topic, said the commission conducted no longitudinal studies, did not explore masochism, used only volunteers and inaccurately represented other factors involved.
Donal MacNamara and Edward Sagarin, Sex, Crime and the Law (New York: The Free Press, 1977): 209.
346. The President’s Commission on Obscenity and Pornography concluded in its 1970 report that there was no evidence to support contentions that pornography has antisocial effects. However, at that time, aggressive pornographic materials were relatively infrequent. This may explain why the Commission’s studies almost without exception did not include stimuli that involved rape or other forms of coercive rapists.
Neil Malamuth, The Mass Media and Aggression against Women: Research Findings and Prevention, Rape and Sexual Assault: A Research Handbook, Ann Wolbert Burgess (ed.) (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1985): 395-396.
347. Repeated exposure to sexual violence may lead to desensitization toward violence against women and greater acceptance of rape myths. In this sense, the “no effects” conclusion of the 1970 commission must be revised.
Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, Jennings Bryant and Dolf Zillmann (eds.) (Hillsale, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994): 267.
HEALTHY SEXUALITY
What Constitutes Healthy Sexuality?
“It is essential to cultivate a sense of romance if intimacy is to flourish in a marriage. But romance between a husband and wife is precarious. Like the flame of a lone candle burning in the wind, it can easily flicker and die. Your ‘flame’ must be tended with the greatest of care — on Valentine’s Day and every other day of the year.”
Dr. James Dobson, Romance and Lifelong Intimacy, Focus on the Family.
348. Healthy sexuality involves the recognition that we are all sexual beings who celebrate the ways that our sexuality benefits us physically, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Healthy sexuality is positive and enriches our lives. Healthy sexuality allows us to enjoy and control our sexual and reproductive behavior without guilt, fear or shame. Sexual expression is a form of communication through which we give and receive pleasure and emotion.
What is Healthy Sexuality? McKinley Health Center, University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign.
349. Author, social worker and sex therapist Wendy Maltz describes health sexuality with the acronym CERTS:
- Consent,
- Equality,
- Respect,
- Trust, and
- Safety.
What is Healthy Sexuality? McKinley Health Center, University of Illinois atUrbana-Champaign.
350. Among the many characteristics of healthy sexuality are: controllable energy, a choice, a natural drive, nurturing, healing, private, respectful, honest, mutual, intimate, responsible, safe, empowering and enhances self-esteem.
Wendy Maltz, Healthy Sex Comparison Chart, Healthy Sex.com.
351. Sexual energy is a powerful, very natural force in our lives. But like any natural
force we encounter — be it wind, sun, rain, or our own laughter — our sexual energy has the potential to be channeled and experienced in either destructive or life-affirming ways. Healthy sex involves the conscious, positive expression of our sexual energy in ways that enhance self-esteem, physical health, and emotional relationship. It is mutually beneficial and harms no one.
Wendy Maltz, Healthy Sex.com
352. Among the considerations that contribute to healthy sexuality are the following:
- Treat your spouse as if you’re dating
- Romance your spouse outside the bedroom
- Plan date nights
- Talk with your spouse
- Listen to your spouse
- Understand your spouse’s sexual needs and desires
- Stay physically fit and attractive for your spouse
- Resolve any underlying conflicts that may spillover into the bedroom
- Have fun and engage in foreplay
Christopher Gearon, Marriage and Sex, Health Discovery.
Resources
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a federally funded nonprofit organization, serves as a national resource center for information related to crimes against children. Its mission is to find missing children and prevent child victimization.
CleanHotels.com provides a directory of lodging facilities that do not offer in-room pornographic pay-per-view movies. Citizens can also contact CleanHotels.com to report lodging facilities that do show pornography programming, thereby helping others avoid booking those facilities.
Helpful Tips for Home Internet Use
Top 10 Internet Filtering Software Programs
- Net Nanny
- CYBERsitter
- CyberPatrol
- MaxProtect
- FilterPak
- Netmop
- Safe Eyes
- WiseChoice.Net
- Cyber Sentinel
10. McAfee Parental Controls
Source: wiredsafety.org
Safety Rules and Software Tools
Implement both safety rules and software tools to protect your children online. One without the other is ineffective.
Rule: Teach your children to never give personal information over the Internet, such as name, address, telephone number, password, parents’ names, the name of any club or team he/she is involved in, name of his/her school or after-school job.
Rule: Disallow children’s use of chat rooms/Recognize that chat rooms are the playground of today’s sexual predator.
Rule: Limit your child’s Instant Messaging to a parental-approved buddy list. Regularly check your child’s buddy list to ensure that it has not been altered.
Rule: Place your computer in an area of your home where you can easily supervise your child’s Internet activity. If you allow your child to have a webcam, place it in a public area of your house.
Rule: Know your kids’ online activities and friends. Regularly ask your kids about their online friends and activities. Role play with your children various dangerous scenarios that they could encounter online.
Tool: Use parental controls/filtering or monitoring technology which block access to dangerous sites and activities.
Rule: Establish online rules and an agreement with your children about Internet use at home and outside of the home (i.e., at a friend’s house, at school, at the library, etc).
Rule: Spend time online alongside your children and establish an atmosphere of trust regarding computer usage and online activities.
Rule: Monitor the amount of time your children spends on the Internet, and at what times of day. Excessive time online, especially at night, may indicate a problem. Remind your children that Internet use is a privilege, not a right.
Rule: Do not permit your children to have an online profile containing personally identifiable information or pictures of themselves (i.e., My space.com, AOL profiles, etc.).
Rule: Check with your children’s school to see if student projects, artwork or photos are being put on school websites. Schools need to be reminded of that risk and encouraged to allow access to student activities posted on the school’s website by password only.
Rule: Instruct your kids never to plan a face-to-face meeting with someone that they have met online.
Rule: Report any content or activity that you suspect as illegal or criminal to local law enforcement and to Cybertipline at 1 (800) 843-5678.
Source: Protecting children in cyberspace, Protectkids.com
In addition, monitor your children’s cell phones. Pornography is now available via cell phone.
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©2001 – 2007 United Families International. All rights reserved. No content, images, or other information may be used from this site without prior written consent of United Families International or original authors.
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