January 30, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — Anxiety abounded the days and weeks following the November 8th election. It’s still going on today and may continue for at least the next four years. Some are scared about immigration. Others believe their strongly held beliefs may not be respected in the new administration. One group says it is fighting for its survival. It’s an industry that does not discriminate as to who consumes it. It has no target audience. It’s everybody. It’s porn.
“[A Trump presidency] will have very dramatic consequences,” said Tasha Reign, an adult film performer, speaking about the future of the porn industry in a Vice article. Adult actor Jesse Jackman is also quoted in the publication, “There is concern in the porn industry that future laws may become aggressive, and possibly even draconian, even at the federal level.”
Adult actors’ fear did not start the day after the Nov. 8 election, but rather July 11 in Cleveland. That’s when the GOP amended its platform to say that pornography is a “public health crisis.” Even if Hillary Clinton had won the White House and Democrats had run the table, a bold statement was made that this issue was important enough for a major American political party to recognize it as a priority.
The pervasiveness of porn has saturated our society. In fact, most teens and young adults believe not recycling is worse than watching pornography. They’ve been taught and now believe that porn is not all that bad.
We’re living in a world with the first generation of young people who have had limitless access to high-speed Internet and free hardcore pornography. We are also living in a world with healthy young men who say they are experiencing porn induced erectile dysfunction (PIED). Their stories were chronicled in a front page Time magazine story in 2016.
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Ex-porn star Shelley Lubben said, “The California pornography industry is a destructive, drug infested, abusive and sexually diseased industry which causes severe negative secondary effects on female and male adult industry workers as well as the general public.”
Groups and organizations that oppose pornography with us, including our friends at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, say taking a stand against the adult industry is not a partisan issue, but rather a principle of respecting each other and ourselves as human beings. We are happy to welcome those of any or no political affiliation in the fight for dignity.
Utah led the way in February, introducing and eventually passing a designation of porn as a public health crisis. Neither Utah’s declaration nor the GOP party platform have any enforcement mechanism or appropriation. Neither one bans pornography, but rather seeks to declare the harms of pornography.
It’s yet to be seen if the fears of those in the porn industry are justified based on the GOP’s platform and its victory in November. However, public discussion of porn and its effects on us is a good start to help educate others on how it is not something to be ignored.