appropriately-inappropriate:

Let’s say that there’s an industry out there.

Let’s say that the annual revenue of this industry in the United States alone is about $13.3 billion dollars. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the NFL, NBA and MLB combined. That’s a net worth higher than NBC, CBS, and ABC. Combined.



Let’s say that there’s an industry with more annual revenue than Google, Microsoft, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple and Netflix combined (and that should make you very, very afraid, incidentally).



The global market power of this industry is $97 billion, incidentally, just in case 13.3 billion wasn’t scary enough. To put that in perspective? The United Arab Emiraes (where oil is literally cheaper than water), has a GDP of 71.2 billion. If this industry was a country, they’d be able to BUY Egypt. Or Venezuela.

If this industry was a country, they’d be ranked 36th in the world.

Now let’s say that this industry is almost entirely unregulated. There are no unions. There are no oversight committees, no major industry watchdogs. There’s no government oversight whatsoever.



Let’s say that they happen to have their fingers in every possible pie, and that their revenue is only expected to increase as the years progress.



Now let’s say that this unregulated, free-market industry has the following statistic:



The average life expectancy of workers in this industry is 36.2 years.



That’s less than half of what the average American lifespan is (78.6 years).

Now, let’s say that within this industry, a full 66% of workers have communicable diseases that can substantially lower the quality of life, and roughly 1 in 10 have a disease that is, ultimately, a death sentence (HIV).

Now let’s say that there are no mandatory checks and balances in place to ensure that these diseases don’t spread through the working population; only volunteer screenings happening at intermittent times—and are all at a cost to the worker. We also know that 70% of these infections occur in women (typically women in age ranges of 18-26), a rate 10x higher than in the general population.

Now, let’s say that this was an industry that basically re-writes your brain; it affects how you view others and yourself.

Now, let’s call the industry what it is.



It’s porn.

Now, I’m no Holy Roller. I don’t object on religious grounds—I object to porn on humanist, realist grounds. I can’t, ethically, support an industry that literally hijacks the way your brain processes sexual arousal for its own benefit.



For example: six hours of non-violent pornography viewing starts markedly affecting an individual’s desire for physical intimacy (weirdly enough, it lowers it). Apparently, it seems that rather than encouraging healthy sexual activity, porn actually lowers your capacity to engage in it.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, of the 50 best-selling adult videos (amounting to 304 scenes), 90% included physical violence against the talent; additional analysis revealed that of that 88%, 94% of the violent acts were committed against women.

Additionally, research shows that 9 in 10 men consume pornography. The largest viewing group of online pornography (the fastest growing market segment) is males 12-17, which means that boys who can’t even drive cars are re-writing the topography of their brains and exposing themselves to media in which it’s totally acceptable to spit, sperm and beat on a woman.

As a matter of fact, a 2005 study by Zillman and Bryant examining the links between pornography use and aggression resulted in such clear proof that the study, by ethical regulations, can’t be reproduced due to the inevitability of harming their research subjects.



Let’s repeat that:

Porn is so harmful, so conclusively detrimental, that the study proving the links was never again cleared for approval. That puts it in the same category of harm as the Stanford Prison Experiment, which nearly resulted in the death of the research subjects.



Another study, titled “Pornography’s Effects on Interpersonal Relationships” by Ana Bridges at the University of Arkansas, noted that men who viewed ANY amount of porn were more likely to:

Report decreased empathy for rape victims Believe that a woman who dresses “provovatively” deserves to be raped Report anger at women who flirt but refuse to have sex Experience substantially decreased interest in their partners Report increased interest in coercing partners into unwanted sex acts

(“Pornography’s Effects on Interpersonal Relationships,” 2006, by Ana J. Bridges, University of Arkansas)

That last one, incidentally, is also known by the street term “rape”. You know, just so we’re all on the same page.



If that doesn’t pucker your sphincter, there’s nothing that will.

What makes it absolutely worse is that, of all market segments of porn, child pornography is one of the fastest growing, with 60% of domains hosted in the US. In 2008 alone, the Internet Watch Foundation found 1540 individual child pornography domains—and it’s expected that many more domains are hidden on Usenet or “Deep Web” sites not accessible to the average search engine.

Incidentally, child pornography amounted to 82% of the growth in the industry from 1994 to 2006, implying that not only was access becoming more common, but that the percentage of people accessing it had skyrocketed so quickly that even law enforcement officers are left wondering what the fuck’s in the water these days.

Incidentally, just in case someone tries to go “b-b-b-but pornography is an outlet for paedophiles so they won’t go rape children irl”, sit the fuck down, you’re wrong.

According to Michael Bourke, Chief Psychologist for the U.S Federal Marshals (and so, the dude in the know), 85% of men arrested for possession of child pornography had sexually exploited a child. 80% of purchasers were active abusers—that is, they were, at the time of arrest, actively abusing children.

I’ll just quote the following passage in its entirety, because they say it better than I ever could.

According to the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children:

In a study of arrested child pornography possessors, 40% had both sexually victimized children and were in possession of child pornography. Of those arrested between 2000 and 2001, 83% had images involving children between the ages 6 and 12; 39% had images of children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3 (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings from the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study, 2005).

It’s impossible to separate the “Adult Entertainment Industry” from child sexual exploitation, given that both operate under the same framework and eventually target the same market.

If you don’t believe me, research a process called “desensitization”.

It argues that the more you see something, and the more familiar you are with it, the more bored you become. It’s the idea behind “gate-way drugs”, except that in this case, you start out with “adult” porn, eventually progress to “BARELY LEGAL TEENS SPRING BREAK!!1!1!!1!1 awwww yeah”, and from there, its apparently just a small hop, skip and ass over tea-kettle tumble into the land of “felony child predation” and bunking with Bubba.

Which, if you ask me, is just about what they deserve. But your mileage may vary on that.

So let’s get back to this industry, and let’s pretend that pornographers aren’t routinely fucking children for a profit. Let’s look at how the porn industry influences the adult talent involved:

Let’s look at what Belladonna, one of the biggest names in porn (ranked by CNBC as one of the 12 most popular stars in porn), has to say about her experiences:

“I like to hide — hide everything, you know?… And I’m not happy… I don’t like myself at all… My whole entire body feels it when I’m doing it and… I feel so — so gross.”

It should also be noted that, during a 2003 interview with Diane Sawyer for Primetime, Belladonna broke down in tears. When Sawyer asked her, “You keep describing these awful things that happened to you. Yet, you keep smiling. Why?” Belladonna’s smile wavered and her eyes watered up. “It’s so I don’t start crying,”

Oh, damn. That’s not very positive. And this is a woman who is what the industry calls “Contract”; that is to say, she has one. As a name brand, she has a bit more leeway over who she shoots with, and what those scenes entail.

It should also be noted that Belladonna has refused to do any further interviews with ABC, following some strong objections to her commends from leading execs in the porn industry.

Another big-name star, Jenna Jameson, has gone on the record with:

“”Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch. And these girls, some of whom have the potential to become major stars in the industry, go home afterward and pledge never to do it again because it was such a terrible experience.””

The last quote—and possibly the most horrific—comes from Linda Lovelace, the first “modern porn star”. Known for the film Deep Throat, Linda Lovelace is credited with creating the porn industry as we know it. However, the experience left her scarred and, as she recounts in her own words:

“When in response to his suggestions I let him know I would not become involved in prostitution in any way and told him I intended to leave, [Traynor] beat me up physically and the constant mental abuse began. I literally became a prisoner, I was not allowed out of his sight, not even to use the bathroom, where he watched me through a hole in… the door. He slept on top of me at night, he listened to my telephone calls with a .45 automatic eight shot pointed at me. I was beaten physically and suffered mental abuse each and every day thereafter. He undermined my ties with other people and forced me to marry him on advice from his lawyer.”

Another quote, equally as disturbing, documents her first porn video experience:

"My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn’t go through with it. I had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed. The lives of my family were threatened.”

Now, what most people don’t know is that this is hardly the worst thing Lovelace experienced. For a glimpse of true horror, we have to look at the video so horrific she refused to acknowledge she’d performed in it at all, until a copy was unearthed and conclusive proof provided.

It’s called “Dog Fucker” and as is probably pretty self-explanatory, Linda Lovelace is forced to be penetrated by a dog, on camera, against her will. She was forced to perform after her agent/husband/abuser/rapist pointed a gun at her and gave her two options: film the movie, or eat a bullet. I won’t go into any more detail, but suffice it to say, this sort of abuse has been part and parcel of the porn scene since its modern inception in the 1970s.

Now, this is getting on to like, 2,000 words, so I’ll leave off here with the following thought:

If this was any other industry, any other profession, with these testimonials and those statistics, would anyone defend it? Would it even be considered defensible?

Shit, people have boycotted WalMart for far less.



Porn, however, seems to be left untouched; sex-positive proponents argue that it’s a healthy manifestation of adult sexuality recorded for the sexual pleasure of other adults—but the fact of the matter is that the statistics prove otherwise, and conclusively show that not only does porn negatively influence the sexual lives of individuals, but it directly influences the way that people view (and treat) others for the worse.

Sources cited:



http://gaildines.com/

“Pornland”, Gail Dines

http://stoppornculture.org/facts-and-figures/

https://www.shelleylubben.com

http://www.internetsafety101.org/Pornographystatistics.htm

“Pornography’s Effects on Interpersonal Relationships,” 2006, by Ana J. Bridges, University of Arkansas