By Baruch Okpulor
I Got It All Wrong
There has been a controversy over the relationship between pornography and violent crimes including sexually related crimes as rape, assault, serial murder, child sexual abuse, bondage sex, et cetera.
Several proponents of pornography have raised few arguments to support pornography and on why it should not be banned or regulated by the government. These include the producers, sellers and viewers or
consumers.
One of the reasons behind these arguments lies on the amount of money spent to produce these materials and the huge annual income generated in return for this venom sold to the public.
Kerby Anderson wrote that pornography is an $8 billion-a-year business with close ties to organized crime. This runs into several billions of naira especially with the advent of the internet and its services available to the developing nations. The vendors of porn reap huge profits through sales in so-called adult bookstores and through the viewing of films and live acts at theaters and clubs.
Porn industry is rapidly growing the largest market and consumers all over the world. LaRue in May 2005 wrote that by the end of 2004, there were 420 million pages of pornography, and it is believed that the majority of these websites are owned by less than 50 companies.
This volume does not include books, magazines, and movies. It simply follows that the public is to contend with 1,150685 pages of pornography per day on the internet.
The Nielsen/Net Ratings in September 2003 published a report that more than 32 million unique individuals visited a porn website in September 2003.
Nearly 22.8 million of them were male (71%), while 9.4 million adult site visitors were female (29%). Which one product would be patronized by over 32 million different people in just one month? A big reason why the production of such "product" must be defended by those involved.
A product that charms and wets the sexual appetite of men, women and even teens. The Family Safe Media on December 15, 2005 in her statistics published a report that the largest viewers of internet porn are children between the ages 12 and 17.
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to children on August 10, 2003 informed the public that more than 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the internet every week. This means that 1,040,000 images of child porn would be on the net in a year.
The above report supported another report released in 2005 by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which reported that of those arrested in the U.S. for the possession of child pornography between 2000 and 2001, 83% had images involving children between the ages 6 and 12 while 39% had images involving children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3.
It is a common sight to see young men who spend the whole night for several days on the internet in cyber cafes surfing pornographic materials in a world of fantasy and perversion. A major reason for the defense of pornography by the purveyors is the huge return on their investment.
Family Safe Media on January 10, 2006, reported that the internet pornography industry generates $12 billion dollars in annual revenue – larger than the combined annual revenues of three industries combined – ABC, NBC and CBS. National Research Council Report of 2002 showed that the cyber sex industry, which is an arm of internet pornography, generates approximately $1billion yearly and is expected to grow to $5 – 7 billion over the next 5 years, barring unforeseen change.
The total porn industry – estimates from $4 billion to $10 billion. It is, therefore, difficult for the producers of porn to see any evil in it since they are constantly patronized by sexually inquisitive men, women and children.
One of the arguments raised by the producers of porn is that there is no conclusive scientific proof that porn causes sex crimes. T
his argument is flawed for two reasons. One, is evil or crime condemned or justified only by the availability of scientific evidence? We all accept verdicts which condemn people for arson, manslaughter, even when these offences are committed under provocation.
These people face the gallows or jailed by the availability of confessional statements and human witnesses and evidences without scientific proofs. Why then do we need scientific proof before porn is regulated or banned?
Two, several confessional statements made by the offenders which are correlated with the evidences by the investigation officers confirm a strong link between viewing porn and violent sexual crimes.
Raymond Pierce, a retired detective in a response to an interview on Porn and Sex-Related Homicide wrote that in an FBI study of 36 serial killers conducted in the 1980s, revealed that 29 of these killers were attracted to pornography and incorporated it into their criminal sexual activity, including serial rape and murder.
One of these cases involved a serial killer who was killing prostitutes. Once he completed the sex act, he stripped and tortured them for hours.
The significance of fantasy in this case was graphically revealed when detectives went into the killer's home and retrieved a number of items, including one pornography videotape. The tape contained a number of scenes that were similar to what the offender was doing to his victims.
The Knoxville Journal, February 27, 1989 reported a case of an engineer who assaulted three girls, killing one of them and assaulting four others. When police searched his rented storage unit, they found 935 pornographic books and magazines showing sexual bondage, horror scenes and nakedness.
They also found books about the serial killer. Associated Press in October 30, 2002 reported of the case of a Colonel who was sentenced for beating and strangling his wife to death over an argument about his use of the internet to view pornography. One of the vivid reports that has linked porn to sexual assaults, incest, pedophiliac crimes and bondage sex and lust murders, is the one presented.
By Robert H. Macy in a July 23, 1991 hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary to address the Pornography's Victims' Compensation Act of 1991. He testified as follows: "Back in 1984, I was contacted by citizens in Oklahoma Country wanting to do something about the sex crime problem and pornography. Up until that time, I was truly a Doubting Thomas as to the correlation between sex crimes and pornography….
However, we put together a strategy to try to as much as we could eliminate pornography or obscenity and sex-oriented businesses in Oklahoma country.
We did it rather quietly, but we went out and systematically closed 12 out of 13 porn bookstores, 11 peep show operations. We had the porno films taken off of cable TV. With the help of a city ordinance, we closed 75 topless and bottomless bars. We shut down 21 houses of prostitution and eliminated 3 hardcore porn theatres.
But to give you an idea of what happened when we cracked down. Between 1984 and 1989, rape cases reduced from 565 in 1984 to 427 in 1989. So, in 5 years, the number of rapes dropped by 138, or almost 25% and the only thing we did was the crack down on obscenity and sex oriented businesses". If You Object It, Don't Patronize It Another argument used by the printed page and media houses to promote pornography is "if you object to it, don't patronize it".
One thing that flaws this argument is that it is selfish. It considers only the people who use pornography. It is evident that porn has a multiplier effect and by extension affects the spouses and children of the consumers and the public who become victims when they act out their sadistic fantasies. T
he performers, many of them are under 21, are physically and emotionally abused in the production of hardcore pornography and acquire sexually transmitted diseases and sexually transmitted infections. Several children have been abused sexually and murdered by grandfather, father and kidnappers who feed on porn to sexually arouse themselves and to entice, desensitize and instruct their child victims.
Children have been abused by their fellow children who imitate what they view in hardcore pornography robbing them of the opportunity to develop healthy sexual orientation and behaviour.
Most ladies are harassed at their work place by porn addicts and spouses live in depression because of the secret porn life of their husbands. How many people are expected to be destroyed emotionally, physically, financially, and spiritually before porn is considered abnormal and dangerous to the society and home?
Another argument raised by viewers and producers of porn has to do with personal rights. Our generation has become that of Epicureans when it comes to pleasure, happiness and personal rights.
Our world believes that human and personal rights remove all restraints upon the individual as regards morality, ethics and accountability. These hedonists believe that pleasure and passion must be the aim of life. They promote this by the slogan "It's your life, express it".
However, God, the Creator of man warns that though man is a free moral agent, he must be held responsible and accountable for any thought, imagination, decision and action taken about his/her life.
This axiom makes it mandatory for man to be guided by an objective standard of authority – God's Word. In this case, man has not an absolute but relative liberty dependent on that which is useful and purposeful in his life.
There must be what is seen as immoral, unethical and antisocial as not all things that give pleasure are goo.
It is unfortunate that those who preach the concept of personal rights in defense of porn have been enslaved by same act of porn.
If we accept the universal belief that good films, dramas, books improve the mind, develop character and enrich the human personality, how can we deny the belief that immoral and sexually explicit books, magazines and movies would debase the mind, destroy character and distort human personality?
Pornography has no good fro man.
