A few decades ago, porn was promoted through old videotapes and magazines at a very high price. In other words, the actors and purchasers were controllable. But since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the internet created easy access to free porn streams. Apart from the psychological, emotional and spiritual negative effects of porn or porn addiction, there is also the culture of death that is behind porn.
Several popular porn sites are offering free premium subscriptions. Porn videos are downloadable freely in various ways. Statistics show that 64% of young people, ages 13-24, actively seek out pornography weekly or more often. According to WebRoot, 35% of all internet downloads are estimated to be porn-related. And the Pornhub Analytics reported that the “teen” porn category has topped porn site searches for the last seven years. Porn is a global, estimated $ 97 billion industry with about $ 12 of that coming from the U.S., according to NBC News. And in this huge business, child sexual exploitation, also known as child porn, is one of the fastest-growing online businesses. Besides that, porn consumers’ number continue to grow.
Here are some reactions from people seen on Twitter about porn: “Porn doesn’t pay games, porn doesn’t text back slow, porn gives you exactly what you ask”, “I love the happy endings in porn”, “Twitter has become my one stop shop for everything from networking to bitching to porn. What more could a girl want?”. Through those statements, we can feel and understand that porn seeks to fulfill some needs that will never be satisfied in the viewer. We may wonder what these people would think once they understood the facts behind the real harmful effects of porn, and they are no longer a mystery. The science and research have been out for years now, and thousands of people, including former porn actors, have spoken out how porn has seriously damaged their lives and relationships.
“Porn is not reality”. This is what Mia Khalifa, a former adult film performer, said during her Hardtalk interview on BBC last year. Khalifa worked in the industry for just three months in 2015 but is still one of the most highly ranked stars on some adult film sites. Since speaking about her experiences, other people have reached out to her with stories of exploitation or of feeling pressured to do things they did not want to. The young lady confessed that she entered the industry in an unexpected way, basically because of her loss of confidence and self-esteem. With her courage and willingness to speak out, Khalifa considerably contributed to raise voices against the porn industry. Happily there are many organizations and government initiatives that invest in life promotion, in anti-porn programs.
Anti-porn movements have allied disparate social activists in opposition to pornography, from social conservatives to harm reduction advocates. The motivations behind them include religious objections, feminists concerns and claims of harmful effects such as pornography addiction. In the 1980s, a grassroots effort began to mount opposition to pornography in the United States of America. New Right conservatives, a term for various right-wing political groups or policies in different countries, considered pornography indecent, and detrimental to the traditional family. In the United Kingdom, strong opposition to pornography has come from the Christian pressure group Mediawatch-UK. The organisation, which was founded and led by the social activist Mary Whitehouse until 1991, wishes to criminalize possession of pornography. And governments of many countries like Australia are investing millions of dollars to establish the country’s filter scheme, which impose burdensome filtering requirements and provide the population with free access to PC-based Internet filtering software.
However, people are currently debating if pornography is really harmful. A few groups of feminists and some people leading the “my body my choice” movements are stating that pornography is about an individual’s satisfaction, and each person is free of choice of what he or she wants to do or watch. And it is a human rights discussion!
But ultimately, pornography remains harmful for our lives, our children, our families, and our society.
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