AFA of PA ACTION ALERTxxx

May 11, 2016

Issue

May is Victims of Pornography Month

Details

Many say pornography has no victims, but the untold ruined lives that lie in its wake tell a different tale.

How safe is your neighborhood?  Does your municipality have ordinances to regulate sexually oriented businesses?  How many convenience stores in your neighborhood sell pornography?  How many x-rated DVDs are in the video store down the street?  How about your local library – your child’s school library — do they have filters on their computers?  Did you know there’s government money that can help school libraries buy filters for their computers?

Dr. Victor Cline, a clinical psychologist, explains porn addiction this way:

FIRST STEP – ADDICTION
The first change that happened was an addiction-effect. The porn-consumers got hooked. Once involved in pornographic materials, they kept coming back for more and still more. The material seemed to provide a very powerful sexual stimulant or aphrodisiac effect, followed by sexual release, most often through masturbation…

SECOND STEP – ESCALATION
The second phase was an escalation-effect. With the passage of time, the addicted person required rougher, more explicit, more deviant, and “kinky” kinds of sexual material to get their “highs” and “sexual turn-ons.” It was reminiscent of individuals afflicted with drug addictions. Over time there is nearly always an increasing need for more of the stimulant to get the same initial effect…

THIRD PHASE – DESENSITIZATION
The third phase was desensitization.  Material…which was originally perceived as shocking, taboo-breaking, illegal, repulsive, or immoral, in time came to be seen as acceptable and commonplace. The sexual activity depicted in the pornography (no matter how anti-social or deviant) became legitimized. There was an increasing sense that “everybody does it” and this gave them permission to also do it, even though the activity was possibly illegal and contrary to their previous moral beliefs and personal standards…

FOURTH PHASE – ACTING OUT SEXUALLY
The fourth phase was an increasing tendency to act out sexually the behaviors viewed in the pornography, including compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, group sex, voyeurism, frequenting massage parlors, having sex with minor children, rape, and inflicting pain on themselves or a partner during sex. This behavior frequently grew into a sexual addiction which they found themselves locked into and unable to change or reverse—no matter what the negative consequences were in their life…

Did you know:

  •   Perpetrators use adult pornography to groom their victims.
  •   For many perpetrators there is a progression from viewing
    adult pornography to viewing child pornography.
  • Johns act out what they view in adult pornography with child prostitutes and pimps use adult pornography to instruct child prostitutes.
  • Children imitate behavior they view in adult pornography with other children.
  • Perpetrators use adult pornography to sexually arouse themselves.
  • Addiction to adult pornography destroys marriages, and children raised in one-parent households are more likely to be sexually exploited.
  • There’s not been one federal obscenity prosecution in the last eight years?
  • Have you noticed there’s been increased reports of child pornography use? That’s because as illegal adult pornography (obscenity) has not been prosecuted those users have been allowed to reach their maximum “high” through viewing obscenity and now need even harder porn in order to reach the “high” they seek.  The next step up in escalation is child porn!  There is a direct correlation between the lack of federal obscenity prosecution and the increased number of child porn cases!

Action Steps

Check out our newly updated “Tools to Fight Porn” page.

Check out our fact sheet on sexually oriented businesses.   If you would like to approach your municipality about passing a zoning and/or licensing ordinance, please contact the AFA of PA for a copy of model ordinances.  These should be passed BEFORE such a business locates in your community.  Owners of such businesses look for municipalities that don’t have these ordinances. 

Conduct a survey of your community using the AFA Pornography Awareness Survey   

Check out our recent interview with Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.

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