The Porn Industry Blows...My Mind

I think I want to go into the porn industry. If you know me, it's a long shot. I possess none of the attributes of a typical porn star -- my milky skin tone and big nose are not necessarily desirable. My motives, however, are not egotistical. They are strictly financial.

Recently, I found that the porn industry brings in $3,075 every second on purchases for porn, which seems crazy because people can get their porn for free on the Internet. Every second 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography, 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines, and every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the United States. Those statistics are staggering, right? They're making over $14 billion annually and the demand doesn't seem to be waning. So why not go into the porn industry?

Well, there are plenty of reasons for ME not to go into the porn industry. I'll spare you the details. So, as opposed to entering the porn industry, I'm just going to ask them to give 1% of the 14 billion they make each year to help end hunger around the world. That's 140 million dollars.

According to the World Health Organization, hunger is the greatest, and gravest, single threat to the world's public health. Each year, over one billion people are affected by malnutrition and starvation. Let's put that into context: There are just over six billion people on earth. That means one out of every people is dying from hunger. If we were to make it so that all the starving and malnourished people were spread out evenly across the globe, that would mean every time you went to watch your favorite football team, nine players would be disabled due to malnourishment or starvation. Every time you went to see a boy band, one member would be struggling to dance and sing. Every time you sat down to dinner with your family, your mother, father, sister or brother would be visibly crippled -- their organs failing, their cognitive skills diminishing, their skin hanging from their bones.

But the reality is that the starving and malnourished people are not spread evenly across the globe. They're predominantly in third world countries where people like us don't have to really and truly deal with them on a daily basis. So we don't see them on the street, we don't see them at our jobs, and we surely don't see them at our kitchen table. They're not performing when we go to games or concerts. They exist only in a world far away.

In my travels to Africa, I ran across many people suffering from malnutrition and starvation. One of these people was a young girl named Gloria. She is two years old and has the darkest, most beautiful brown eyes you've ever seen. Her smile travels from ear to ear. And she wears a red bracelet that would be beautiful, if it didn't stand for something so devastating. The bracelet works on the same color scale as the terrorist threat level chart or traffic lights. Green is good to go, but everything in between is a warning sign. Yellow and orange are increasingly dangerous, and there is little hope for those that wear red. Gloria is on the brink of not coming back. Her bone-thin arms easily fit the red bracelet and her frame is smaller than that of a newborn.

Ideally, we would give Gloria food over the next three weeks that would push her into the green. This therapeutic food is the only thing capable of hitting the mark on her peanut-sized stomach to restore Gloria's life. But that food costs money. Forty-nine dollars for three weeks to be precise. If we don't give her this Mother Administered Nutritive Aid (MANA) she will die. So we have the cure, we just don't have the money. Unless, of course, the porn industry steps up... So what do you say pornographers?! If you gave 1% of your abundant profits, you could restore life to just under three million people. Not a bad deal, right?

But, just in case they don't ante up, we've got a few other thing up our sleeve. Stay tuned, and together we will end hunger.

Comments

[dinglebe]

I'm willing to bet that people in the porn industry would be more willing to help the less fortunate than our bankers would.

[EasyCheese]

Ah yes...lets take more of other peoples money...their obscene profits are immoral!

[andycan]

Given the hunger for porn in North America, one may safely deduce that North Americans are extremely frustrated sexually, which is a result of the Puritan roots of Canada and the USA.

The porn industry compensates for poor interpersonal contact, for loneliness, inhibition, frustration.

[Whatathought]

I agree also, excellent comment.

[Matt Osborne - Huffpost Blogger]

A tax upon them. The liberal in me enjoys the concept.

[RevBookburn]

I like this creative and positive thinking, plus I love porn. Here's an idea. Let's cut 5% of the military budget, which would do wonders to fix the problems of the world. Rev. Bookburn - Radio Volta

[RButler]

Sex is, by design, a pleasurable activity or humans wouldn't bother doing it. Why should watching it, paying for it, engaging in it all be condemned in one way or another. Who do we thank for making sex a bad thing?

[bbriani3842]

. . .if it's not a pleasurable activity, then get a new partner. . .

[iamjones]

yes! love this idea, would it, could it only happen.....but then, why couldn't it? a non-profit fund could be established where porn dollars (or pennies on each dollar) are automatically fed every time there is a purchase - brilliant! hire a small staff to manage the distribution of funds - done!

even better, take Bobby's idea and combine it with Sarah Silverman's idea to "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World" and there you go - bob's your uncle! world hunger solved!

[bushitbrain]

Right On, BugsBonzai !

Another child crusader, out to attack porn. Lousy target, obvious ulterior motives....

How about the 6 largest grocery chains, instead of writing off meat that won't
sell as a tax loss, and throwing it into the dumpster, offer it to homeless people, shelters,
community orgs, etc. I'll bet these MultiBillion $$ grocery chains would howl
like stuck pigs, rather than give up their tax break to feed the hungry. Why not show real
community compassion & spirit instead of greed ?

I have a better idea on how to instantly feedback GAZILLIONS of $$$ into our society.
50 states, each with state lotteries that draw for 1-10 Million dollars roughly per week. Why not increase the chances of winning, with the reqt. that the winners donate 1/2 their winnings to charity to avoid their 1/2 being taxed ?
This is particularly powerful with the national powerball lottery delivering 20 times that amount.
The simple math gives a stunning example of how we could feedback wealth into our society.
Rather than a few individuals once per year, lets get LOTS of people, if not wealthy, at least
well-to-do, and rechannel part of that money back into society. The number of channels are
simply unlimited.

"Greed is NOT Good", to paraphrase Gordy Gecko. Nor is it rational, ethical, or intelligent.

[AngelaQuattrano]

"Porn industry" is an easy target. I notice you didn't say exactly who the taxes will be levied on. I daresay the majority of workers in adult entertainment are just scraping by. I presume you will have no qualms about taking 1% of the income of a woman who makes $150 a week doing phone sex for an exploitative company, right?

[SoCalDaveO]

Porn Stars are going to feed people?

What are they gonna feed 'em, Bobby?

[J G H]

The top 25 hedge fund managers about $12 billion this year, more than the all the Presidents, VPs, Cabinet Members, Supreme Court Justices, Senators and Representatives combined in our entire history. That works out o about $4000 for every man woman and child in the US.
Which industry do Americans spend too much on again?
Porn Star vs Hedge Fund Manager - which is more objectionable?

[Liberterna]

The problem with feeding the hungry in the third world is that once well fed they make more babies (agrarian societies value large families)

Let's teach them (if they wish to learn from us, and only if they want our help) how to grow food successfully.

And watch your porn to get aroused as it was intended, don't think about starving children while watching porn; that just seems wrong on so many levels!

[VagabondSaint]

I agree with you about teaching them to grow food. . .the problem is that many of these regions are in areas that are very poor for farming - deserts, drought-stricken regions, et cetera. An obvious solution to that would be developing geneticall­y-modified crops that will grow in such regions, and helping invest in water management systems to provide water to more people and irrigation for crops.

However, geneticall­y-modified crops are very controversial (the British are encountering problem in trying to fund them - http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-10-21-voa30.cfm ) and some object to to them on religious grounds( http://www.cec-kek.org/English/Gmfood-print.htm ), meaning their implementation is unlikely to occur anytime soon.

Aside from that, the scarcity of arable farmland and natural resources keep third-world countries embroiled in civil wars and tribal clashes. This is only good news for gun makers, who would lose much of their revenue if peace broke out in war-torn areas, and for countries that depend on the best and brightest people fleeing these areas to be productive, underpaid workers somewhere else.

It's a simple issue. . .and yet, greed and human failings make it unnecessarily complex.

[bugsbonzai]

Forget porn. If we raise taxes on millionaires by 1/4 of a percent, we could solve the hunger problem tenfold. I think the point is that politicians doing the right thing is about as likely as porn moguls feeding the poor.

[JoeTheProgrammer]

Tax millionaires... That's always the answer for liberals. No consideration for the job losses it will cause. Give the government the money, they'll be good stewards of it and spend it wisely. NOT!

[Omegaomni]

Ok, we'll use 1% of porn profits in return you stop the Prosecutor led witch hunts, the censorship, and vague draconian obscenity laws with idiotic terms like "community standards". We'll feed the world, more customers amirite?