Rusty Benson
AFA Journal associate editor
October 2010 – The battle against illegal pornography is a nearly forgotten front in the culture war.
Casualties, including women and children, continue to mount at an unprecedented rate, yet few are willing to come to their rescue.
Why? The answer is remarkably simple and naive, according to one veteran of many anti-porn campaigns: No one – from politicians to prosecutors to average citizens – wants to be seen as a judgmental moralist.
And yet even a cursory glance at the research implies incalculable and devastating consequences for individuals, families and society. Consider these statistics gathered from a number of sources:
▶ Every year the porn industry spits out 11,000 new porn movies, far more than Hollywood’s annual output of 400 mainstream movies.
▶ Every year Americans rent 800 million pornographic videos – that’s 20% of total video rentals.
▶ Every month 66% of men ages 18 to 34 visit one or more of the 40,000-plus porn sites on the Internet.
▶ Every 39 minutes a new pornographic video is being created in the U.S.
▶ Every second $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography.
▶ Every second 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography.
▶ Every second 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines.
▶ Twenty-five percent of women worry their partner’s pornography habit is “out of control.”
▶ Ninety-six percent of juvenile sex offenders have viewed X-rated materials.
▶ Ninety percent of porn is violent, fueling violent sexual crimes.
▶ Hard core porn users are six times more likely to rape.
▶ Eighty-three percent of rapists and sixty-seven percent of child molesters consume hard-core pornography at high rates.
▶ A man using porn nearly doubles the odds he will sexually assault his partner.
For over 20 years, the lives and families that these staggering statistics represent have motivated anti-porn campaigner Patrick Trueman to remain at his post, with only a handful of cohorts.
Trueman is a Washington, D.C., attorney whose work against obscenity began in the criminal division of the Department of Justice. He served as Chief of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section from 1988 to 1993.
He is a recognized expert in all matters related to pornography, child sexual exploitation, sex trafficking and indecency. Trueman has argued anti-porn cases at all levels of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court, and has represented many national and local anti-porn organizations and governmental entities.
More recently, he founded www.pornharms.com. The site is an expansive clearinghouse of information on every dimension of the spread and harm of pornography.
Constantly meeting with lawmakers, doing media interviews and taking care of the countless small, but necessary details of his cause, Trueman is one of a very small group of anti-porn advocates who is pressing the case in the nation’s capital to enforce obscenity laws. Not even the porn syndicates or the ACLU is showing up to speak to lawmakers, he said.
However, Trueman says the lack of such consistent lobbying over the years is one main reason that the government does not prosecute the obscenity laws.
“We have not been fully committed,” he wrote in a recent e-mail to supporters. “Our voices are not heard and our few efforts are easy to ignore. Compare, for example, our voices and our efforts with that of homosexual activists. Which group is getting heard? Now ask why. We need to fight with everything we have if we want to win. This is a war!”
In the interview below, Trueman spoke to AFA Journal about the state of the battle against illegal pornography.
AFA Journal: When you were working in the Justice Department prosecuting obscenity producers and distributors, their product was mostly video tape. Now we are 20 years into the Internet age, how has online porn changed the scope and nature of the fight?
Pat Trueman: Obviously, hardcore porn is now more easily available than ever before. It’s not only produced by the porn syndicates, but by individuals. However, just because it’s on the Internet rather than a video tape it’s still illegal under federal law.
The problem is that Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush hardly prosecuted obscenity, at least no Internet companies. They just downplayed it.
So now we are in a real crisis. The studies indicate that children are getting addicted, women are getting addicted and men are getting addicted. The way the brain science works on pornography, it’s easy to trap a person when he has such a steady diet.
And there are so many terrible consequences. Pornography is impacting family break up in high numbers. There’s a study by divorce lawyers pointing that out. Plus, there are many other effects such as an increase in sex trafficking. This includes both children and adults. The reason for that is that there aren’t enough prostitutes to meet the demand in America. So, human traffickers are bringing in foreigners, as well as enslaving our own teenage children and adults into prostitution. Why is there such a demand? Much of it is fueled by porn.
AFAJ: From watching your presentations, I understand that you are not promoting new obscenity laws, but the enforcement of laws that are already on the books. If current laws are adequate, why aren’t they being enforced?
PT: You have this tension in the federal government. I even saw it in the administration of George W. Bush. They do not want to be seen as moralists.
They don’t understand the consequences of our sexualized, free-for-all culture. That’s why we started PornHarms.com. We want professionals and concerned citizens to be able to go to one place on the Internet for resources that clearly show that pornography is very, very harmful.
AFAJ: Is that the most misunderstood aspect of the issue?
PT: Yes. For so long pornography was thought to be a victimless crime, and men were given great latitude in their use of it. Now we’re understanding more about the brain science of using pornography.
Looking at pornography results in a great excitement which is fueled by dopamine, a chemical in the brain. On the other hand, endorphins produce a sense of satisfaction or well-being. With pornography you only get the excitement part. That results in porn users deviating down to harder and harder material. This phenomenon was true before the Internet, but the progression took much longer. With the prevalence of pornography on the Internet that progression now takes weeks, as opposed to years.
That’s the reason child porn is so common. It quickly becomes the only thing that excites a porn user. They often end up molesting children or becoming voyeurs or exposing themselves in public because there’s nothing else that excites them.
AFAJ: With so much of this activity happening behind the closed doors of someone’s home, what would effective enforcement look like?
PT: The way to be effective is to target the major producers and distributors of adult illegal pornography, the same thing we did when I was with the Department of Justice.
There is one company, LodgeNet, in South Dakota, that supplies all the porn to Marriott Hotels, Hilton Hotels and all the others. That company is a logical target for prosecution. If that doesn’t stop it, you go after one or two of the hotel chains.
The names of the companies that produce and distribute obscenity are well known. The Justice Department can easily identify them. They begin by putting some of them out of business.
Then you look at cable and satellite TV. Comcast, Verizon and DishNet – they all violate federal law. If you successfully prosecute just one of them, you’ll see the others cave.
AFAJ: So all this really gets down to leaders who don’t want to be seen as self-righteous moralists?
PT: Yes. And then they throw up excuses. I’ve heard the FBI say if they started investigating adult pornography they would have to cut back on child pornography cases.
But why don’t they cut back on investigations into art or jewelry theft? After all, those don’t have a big impact on society. But going after one major Internet company could remove a few thousand web sites.
AFAJ: Any hope in that happening?
PT: I think there is. Years ago Attorney General Eric Holder spoke in favor of prosecuting adult porn cases.
And as part of the work of a new coalition called The War on Pornography, we are alerting Congress every day to the fact that the Obama Administration has dropped the ball on adult porn cases.
In addition, public sentiment is with us. An annual Morality in Media survey asks the public if the Justice Department should prosecute illegal pornographers and distributors. Year after year over 70% of those surveyed say, “Yes.”
AFAJ: How do you respond to critics who say the problem of illegal porn has grown so large, so profitable and so legally complex that the war is not winnable?
PT: I heard that criticism from senior executives at the Justice Department throughout the George W. Bush administration.
Now, Washington seems to have accepted the belief that we cannot win. Of course, they don’t know that until they try. When we began prosecuting porn when I was at the Justice Department, there had been no prosecutions for 20 years. We had a firestorm of opposition from within the department and the media. Nevertheless, in five years we never lost a trial.
AFAJ: What can concerned citizens do to re-sensitize their communities and our nation about obscenity?
PT: First, we have to take every opportunity to educate our communities about the harmful effects of pornography. Too few people have spoken up in the last 10 or 15 years, so porn creeps into a community, through a local drug store or video shop. Everything you need to stay current about the issue can be found at www.pornHarms.com.
Second, encourage your U.S. congressman and senators to prosecute illegal pornography. This is the time of the year when your representatives are looking for your support to get elected and thus most willing to listen to your concerns. Ask if he or she would be willing to write U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to urge enforcement of federal laws against illegal adult pornography. We have a sample letter at pornharms.com.
We must get the Justice Department to prosecute the law. The law is a great teacher. When we don’t prosecute, we are saying it’s all legal. So, we must overwhelm our lawmakers with calls strongly urging them to enforce the law.
Then find out the name of the person on the congressman or senator’s staff who handles the pornography issue and follow up to make sure the letter gets sent and you get a copy.
Third, if the pro-family groups you support have a voters’ guide or candidate questionnaire, ask them to include a question about their support of obscenity prosecution.
Legally speaking …
Obscenity is the legal term for prosecutable pornography. It is defined by the three part test from Miller v. California, 1973.
1. The average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; and
2. The work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state (or federal) law; and
3. The work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.
Obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment. It must be determined by a judge or jury. In other words, any material is protected by the First Amendment until a judge or jury declares it to be obscene.
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WRAP – white ribbon against pornography
Each year Morality in Media (www.moralityinmedia.org) brings attention to the nation’s porn plague through White Ribbon Against Pornography Week. This year WRAP is from Sunday, October 31, through Sunday, November 7. Concerned citizens are encouraged to display white ribbons in support of the public awareness campaign.
Morality in Media
475 Riverside Drive Suite 239
New York, NY 10115
Phone: 212-870-3222
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HELP for pornography addiction
Pure Life Ministries (www.purelifeministries.org) exists to serve Christian individuals and organizations dealing with sexual sin. PLM offers a distinctively biblical approach to counseling, teaching resources and public presentations with the goal of leading Christians to victory over sexual sin through a deeper life in God.
Pure Life Ministries
14 School St.
Dry Ridge, Kentucky 41035
Phone: 1-888-PURELIFE
Proven Men (www.provenmen.org) offers biblical resources aimed at bringing lasting change into lives of men dealing with pornography addiction. Proven Men resources include an intensive 12-week Bible-based study titled Striving for Absolute Purity.
Proven Men Ministries, Ltd.
16011 Chieftain Ave.
Rockville, Maryland 20855
Pure Intimacy (www.pureintimacy.org) is a ministry of Focus on the Family. The Pure Intimacy Web site offers many helpful resources including a number to speak to a Christian counselor: 1-800-232-6459.
