Like Big Tobacco, Big Porn Peddles Poison to Children

The first time I watched anonymous, naked bodies entangled in sweaty sex was during my junior year of college. My flushed-face was riveted to the screen. The psychology course called "Human Sexuality" was so popular at Virginia Commonwealth University I'd taken the class during summer break. Fall and spring semesters filled too fast. No surprise. Porn flicks were a feature of the curriculum. I had perfect attendance.

This was the 1980s. The internet as we know it was only a figment of Al Gore's genius. But with today's broadband you don't have to go to a lecture hall or a seedy theater on Richmond's West Grace Street to see three-ways, four-ways or other sexually explicit forays. Neither do our kids. Any 14-year-old knows this. With Wi-Fi capable Xbox 360s, PSPs, iPhones, laptops, desktops, whatever, hardcore porn doesn't require college accreditation, cellophane wrapping or proof of age. No credit card, Paypal account or adolescent embarrassment is necessary. Just click the little box on the website that says you're 18 or older (You double promise? I double do) and you're granted instant access. Any time you feel bored, anxious, insecure or lonely (staples of youth) come back for a quick fix. Like the rush? The red light is on 24/7.

Web filters? Sure, they make us parents feel better. But children know enough about search engines, tags, cookies, security overrides and unprotected Wi-Fi hotspots to turn "parental controls" into a misnomer. If your kid doesn't, you can bet (s)he has a friend or a friend of a friend who does. So it's a good chance that before kids have a chance to fully grasp the difference between lust and love and negotiate the impulses of puberty, they're being exposed to sex as defined by its internet acronyms, e.g., BDSM, MILF, BBW, GILF.

Don't know what those mean? Paste any or all into Google. If you want, cut and paste the entire string using Google's strictest "SafeSearch" filter, the setting that declares without a doubt that it will block "web pages containing explicit sexual content."

I'll wait.

OMG!

Yeah, now you know.

Last Monday President Obama signed into law landmark legislation that gives the feds all power to regulate the marketing of tobacco products. In a Rose Garden event decorated with children, Obama told us why the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was better late than never. "One out of every five children in our country are now current smokers by the time they leave high school," he said. "Each day, one thousand young people under age eighteen become new, regular, daily smokers. ... I was one of these teenagers, and so I know how difficult it can be to break this habit."

By all accounts, Big Tobacco crossed the line decades ago when it went after our children with what Obama called "a constant and insidious barrage" of advertising. The nicotine capitalists knew effective marketing. If they could hook us early our lungs (and wallets) might be stained for life. However long and diminished that life might be.

By contrast, internet porn dwarfs tobacco in scope, availability and constant, insidious advertising. Its reach is so broad it cannot be quantified. Riding radio waves through countries that attempt to block it with various filters (e.g., India, China, Cuba, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc.) and those that defer to free speech and the ACLU, it jumps around like live electrical wiring. Any attempt to track it is futile. A YouTube video with 7.7 million views appears to reveal hard facts about it (e.g., every second 28,258 internet users are viewing porn; every second $89 is spent on internet porn; every day 266 new porn sites appear online; 35 percent of internet downloads are porn), but its calculations are drawn from data circa 2005-2007. In the Wild West of the internet that's a generation ago. More telling, the video is a marriage of legit mainstream U.S. media (GOOD Magazine, nominated for two 2008 National Magazine Awards) and a British porn star (Kelle Marie, nominated for the 2009 Adult Video News Best All-Girl Sex Scene).

The best evidence of porn' reach is maybe anecdotal and live. As I type this sentence on Thursday, June 25 at 4:25 p.m. EDT, there are 31,709 viewers spread among the 1,056 webcams of a single, unremarkable website. Most of the webcams are transmitting free, live sex acts (solo, couple, group, straight, gay, shemale) from the homes of the United States, Germany, Israel, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Thailand and beyond. With a web domain listed in Florida, an IP address in Toronto and its owner registration in Amsterdam, the website is an example of modern globalization. And to view it I didn't have to log in, give my name, age, e-mail, phone, credit card, nothing. That's one porn website, not even a highly ranked one when scored by Amazon's internet traffic counter Alexa.com. (No, I will not give you the website's URL. Ask your kid to Google the information I just provided.)

We need not argue about what constitutes "porn" or "addiction." Both are moot points here. Every hour and day that children spend engrossed in the "mature" websites yielded by Google "SafeSearch" is one more habit-forming hour or day. In the short term, grades, athletics, friendships and talents are diminished. Long term, it could be their family life, careers and overall potential.

In the April/May issue of Policy Review, Hoover Institution fellow Mary Eberstadt compares today's general ambivalence toward porn to our long-ago indifference to tobacco. Different products, stark similarities. Consumers of pornography like consumers of tobacco, she points out, explain their habits with near-identical, flawed rationalization:

"Everybody does it." "At least I'm not consuming something worse." "I'm not affecting anyone but myself."

Eberstadt writes, "Just as secondhand smoke finally shattered the 'so-what?' social consensus about tobacco, so might the potential harms to others  marriages, jobs, and relationships disrupted; loved ones and children inadvertently exposed  ultimately threaten to deep-six the current 'so-what?' consensus about pornography."

When the naked greed of Big Tobacco was belatedly called to task by Capitol Hill in the 1990s its CEOs flaunted corporate wealth. As Obama said last Monday, they spent "millions upon millions" to lobby Congress and attempt to polish tobacco's public image. In ads and testimony the lies and denials were emphatic. Heavens no, children were not a target of tobacco marketing. No, nicotine is not addictive. Oh, it is? No, we did not know it was addictive. On and on. The root of all evil knows no shame.

Today, like R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris before it, Big Porn peddles more than product. It wields influence. Corporate heavyweights such as General Motors, AT&T, AOL Time-Warner, Comcast Cable, and hotel chains Marriott, Sheraton and the Hilton have in the past or do now get their cut of porn's mind-boggling profits. By extension, so do stockholders.

Federal legislation intended to shorten porn's internet reach has been repeatedly knocked down on constitutional grounds. Billed as a tool to keep minors from being exposed to explicit sexuality, the failed Child Online Protection Act would've made it illegal for anyone to display or broadcast porn on a website that didn't require an access code or proof of age. Supreme Court justices thought the law overreached and that the same objective could be accomplished by good parenting and web filters. The ACLU argued that the law would be useless anyhow. It didn't have the authority to regulate the content of foreign-based websites. So eleven years after President Clinton championed it and President Bush attempted to resurrect it, the law has never been enforced. In January it died when the Supreme Court refused to hear further appeals.

Eberstadt, for one, is not hopeful that Obama will pick up the sword. Obama's deputy attorney general is David Ogden, a fellow Harvard Law School alum who has won censorship cases in favor of Big Porn and who unsuccessfully argued against the web filters required by law for computers in public schools and libraries.

Of the poison that Big Tobacco peddled unchecked to our kids, Obama said on Monday, "We've known about this for decades, but despite the best efforts and good progress made by so many leaders and advocates ... the tobacco industry and its special interest lobbying have generally won the day up on the Hill."

Finally, the Hill has fought back.

Heaven help us if it takes as long to defeat Big Porn.

Follow Greg Barrett on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Greg_Barrett

Comments

[Skepticat]

Politicians especially some of the current rogues in office are the very last people on the planet with the credibility to regulate the sexual morality of anybody. They are however quite adept at using whatever mechanism of censorship is available to prevent other embarrassing information from getting out if they have the opportunity. Don't give it to them. What is needed is not empowering some remote entitity to determine what you may or may not see but to be an active parent and provide some guidance, direction and positive values for your kids instead of abandoning them to internet babysitting for hours a day without any parental involvement.

[Malkin71]

I am 100% against every single thing you said.

Sorry, I have to say FORGET the kids.

If you have kids, keep them away from porn, just as you keep them away from crime and drugs and other bad influences.

Adults have rights, too.

Also, first they come for your porn, THEN they come for your Huff Po, then they come for you....

NEVER EVER give up your rights to the govt. and definitely don't write articles asking if you could.

If your kids are WORKING THAT HARD to get porn, guess what? They'll get it.

[mrsteveman1]

Lets consider the 4 "points" the Eberstadt paper mentions as evidence of harm.

1. Businesses fire people for viewing porn at work.

Wasting time at work, may jeopardize your chances of remaining employed. Bravo, very insightful.

2. Porn is harmful because clergy cites it as a cause of marital breakup.

Ignoring your spouse, is harmful to your marriage. Ditto if your spouse has ideologically based opposition to porn and thus it is going to be a point of contention regardless of whether or not it is actually harmful.

3. Some people will go out of their way to avoid encountering pornography

People block things they don't want to see, that does not imply harm, it implies that they don't want to see it. HGTV is blocked on my cable box, because i don't want to see it. I also avoid baseball games, large shopping malls, screaming children, and the theater. We can clearly infer those things are harmful from my avoidance of them.

4. porn is harmful because the industry behind it, defends itself by denying harm, and is therefor biased, and therefor we can infer that their product is harmful

This one is truly absurd even at face value. I can dig up other papers urging caution on other topics and make it look like the subject of the paper is harmful because once upon a time, similar arguments were used to defend tobacco. The author looks biased or stupid basing calls for regulation on this foundation of crap.

[noamjunior]

newsflash- lots of naughty sex in the 60's and 70's - no internet

[drkazmd65]

I remember the first porn I ever saw,.... a set of pornographic playing cards one of my friends had back about 4th grade,... that would have been about 1974-75?

My first video,... on Beta VHS I think,... about 1981. Deep Throat I think.

There has been porn as long as there has been a bored & horny man or woman with time to kill.

[TomTheAlmostUgly]

China wants to censor Google. Does China say, "We want to block sites that criticize the government?" No, they yell and scream about "pornograp­hy."

When Alberto Gonzales wanted to wiretap the internet, did he say "I want to spy on Democrats?" No, he carried on and on about "child pornograph­y."

But cheer up, when the RIAA and MPAA get the laws passed to spy on whether your little Precious is uploading music, you can ask Washington to add a rider making it illegal to download porn.

[e4phil]

What happen to parents actually being parents? who cares if your 16 year old is watching porn?!! if he wasn't something would be wrong.. bringing this up to your kids guarantees that they will look up porn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pay attention to what going on in your children s lives, its your job as a parentt

[humanbeinghuman]

happy to see a lot of adults standing up to the author of this article.

[ignoranceequalsfear]

OMG! Sex is dirty hysteria..­..

Maybe parents should monitor what their kids do on the computer, like they should monitor what they watch on TV. Password protect logging on the internet and they can't look at porn when you are not home.

You really can't be serious with the tobacco analogy. Even if it holds water, parents are still responsible if their kids smoke. And often they do no matter what parents do or say. That's the reality of human existence.

If we weren't so uptight and puritanical about sex, kids and adults wouldn't be so obsessed with the "forbidden fruit" of it.


And "kinky" sex is just as common as good old missionary sex. Get a grip!

[Malkin71]

No one seems to understand very basic human psychology.

If you tell people they aren't allowed to _________, they will really really really want to __________.

You want kids to not watch porn? It's easy....

Tell kids they have to make their bed, fold their laundry, and watch some porn before they can get dessert.

[RobinSeattle]

Ah, another acolyte of porn hysteric Ed Meese wasting everybody's time. Get in line, buddy. Right behind James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and all the other repressed wackjobs.

Since you seem to think you're smarter than Supreme Court justices who can't define porn, what would you file under it? James Joyce Ulysses? Ads for feminine hygiene products? Lolita by Nabokov? Erica Jong's works? Playboy? Hustler?

John Ashcroft had a nude statue adorned with drapery over the naughty bits. I wish I was kidding. So no Michelangelo's David for us Americans? Or books about how couples can have better sex? The Kama Sutra? Ukiyoe prints, which are very explicit, even showing penetration?

If you personally don't like porn, fine, don't look at it. But don't keep those of us who are reasonable human beings who want to engage in a little vicarious sexual escape in the privacy of our own homes from doing what we want to. It's none of your business. And stop using children as tools of your repressive agenda, which is the real obscenity here.

[Cimms]

"the failed Child Online Protection Act would've made it illegal for anyone to display or broadcast porn on a website that didn't require an access code or proof of age. Supreme Court justices thought the law overreached and that the same objective could be accomplished by good parenting and web filters."

**********­**********­**

Even if this did pass, it would do no good. Do you think all porn sites are in America where the developer has to follow our laws or be sent to jail? That would be like going to Amsterdam and trying to arrest people there for smoking pot. Like it or not, porn and just about anything else you have a desire to see or read is available to you via the net.

[Henry]

Greg,
It seems like you'll have to take this battle one hill at a time. The constitution seems to be a beloved document to the citizens of this country. Remember the older politician who stated that he could not define pornography but he could recognize it when he saw it? Not to belittle the subject, but if political bribes are protected by our constitution then you've set yourself out on a tough row to hoe. Maybe if you could entice some of these fallen republican officials to get into the frey you might further your cause. But I'm guessing you already have figured out who they are. Have you ever wondered why other countries refer to us a decadent?

[Gidster]

It's not the porn I'll tell you that! Besides, only Islamic Clerics, and American pastors call us decadent. Most of the world ridiculed us over the kerfuffle the Clinton/Lewinski affair caused!

If we did not teach kids that sex is dirty and something nasty to be ashamed of.

If we gave our teens good, non religious based sex education, gave them all tools to make informed decisions based on their upbringing and moral compass, we would be more open sexually, yet less dangerously promiscuous!

Maybe even the teen pregnancy rate and the abortion rate would go down!

[faithnj]

Oh, come on.......p­orn is not some type of "good, clean fun." Teaching kids that sex is healthy, wholesome and normal is not the answer to demystifying the freak show that is the porn industry. If adults want to wile away their lives sitting glued to the internet searching for this stuff, then so be it. But let's not pretend that porn ought to be the stuff of childhood, and that it wouldn't have a negative effect on kids if kids realized sex is healthy and natural. Kids imitate this garbage, and the stuff that is seen in most porn is simply not comprised of any helpful information children ought to have about sex.

[marxmarv]

If we did all that, there would be no new attraction and hence no new market for mainstream vanilla porn, whose whole premise is not far from tabloid-class judgmental outrage. Can't have that, now can we?

[mrsteveman1]

This sentiment is a continuation of the culture of repressed sexuality, and this article is written as if we all agree porn is as bad as tobacco. We don't.

Porn, in stark contrast to tobacco, is not the problem itself but the outlet, which you and your quoted experts appear to have failed to understand. Sex is the "problem", which isn't even a real problem. It is a biological drive that is nearly universal by the age of puberty.

Under the sort of logic we see here, referring to time spent viewing porn as one more "habit-forming hour or day", even sex qualifies as an addiction. Massive amounts of time are spent thinking about it, planning for it, trying to have sex, and attempting to hide it from friends and family. Are we going to regulate sex itself too? Or sexual thoughts?

You speak of porn as if it is an unchecked evil we need to address, it isn't. This is the sort of crap i expect to see on right wing nutcase attack blogs and Dobson propaganda, not HuffPost.

[Malkin71]

This guy is one of the biggest ______ I have ever read in my life.

[el donaldo]

To compare pornography to tobacco is facile and silly. There is no "Big Porn." Any large corporations of pornographers (Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, etc.) are remnants of magazine culture trying desperately to catch the wave of a decentralized, highly mobile, demand-driven world of individuals and small groups throwing up content that ranges from hastily assembled to astonishingly canny and gripping. In other words, if it's not you, then it's your next-door neighbor. Pointless moralizing about evildoing pornographers attempting to ensnare our kids does nothing, understands nothing.

If you want to make a difference, leave the pornographers alone and have a frank, honest discussion with your child about sexuality. And then enjoy your particular brand and flavor or internet pornography in private. Or not. Nobody really minds either way, nor should they.

[ADunafraid]

This sounds a lot like the violence on tv argument ruining our society. Sex and violence have been mainstays in human culture since the beginning. Stop trying to pretend like we used to live in pure society that has recently become corrupted by sex and violence. If you are a parent and you are concerned you child is viewing sexually explicit images, smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, doing drugs, watching violence, etc. you should start speaking to them about it. It is all part of life in this world.

[marxmarv]

They may sound alike, but you can make a far better case for violence in the media being harmful than you can for sex in the media being harmful. I say with almost no tongue in cheek that sufficiently realistic, respectful BDSM erotica might do the world good. (At the very least it'll provide models for the theocrats to act out their domination fantasies in their own bedrooms rather than in public office!)