Morality In Media Mounts Anti-Porn Campaign in High Schools

JESUSLAND—Despite Josh Israel's excellent report on Morality in Media's declining revenues, it seems the old censors aren't quite ready to give up the ghost yet—and why would they have to, if ignorant public school officials are still inviting the group to proselytize to students regarding that non-existent "disease," porn addiction? In late September, MiM's sister organization, "Fight The New Drug," sent its "creative director" Kyson Dana to propagandize to about 3,000 students, grades 8 through 12, at four Washington County, Utah high schools—and he started by comparing viewing nudity and sexually explicit content to the physical effects of drugs and alcohol. After admitting that when humans experience "something good and pleasurable," hormones such as dopamine, epinephrine and serotonin are released which make people feel better, Dana segued to the claim that, "Drugs hijack that part of the brain and force the chemicals to be released in unnatural and unhealthy levels so much that your brain can actually gain a change adapter [???] to rewire itself. In order to take in all these chemicals, over time things that you used to enjoy doing, like reading or ballet dancing, can no longer cut it anymore." And what else can "hijack the brain" and cause it "to rewire itself"? Why porn, of course! The fact that there are no scientific studies that have found any significant difference between viewing porn and watching one's favorite TV show or eating a nice thick steak means nothing to zealots like Dana, who "shared videos and stories about drug and pornography addicts." And if all those "addict" videos weren't enough, there's even scientific stuff—like a 1951 study by Nikolaas Tinbergen and D. Magnus, which Dana claimed showed that male butterflies—actually, the study was about bees—could be fooled into being attracted to pictures of female butterflies bees rather than actual female butterflies bees themselves. What Dana didn't mention, of course, was that once the males tried to mate with the pictures, they quickly abandoned them and turned to the real females—just as most humans would rather spend time with people they're attracted to rather than adult movies or photos. But that simple fact means nothing to Dana. "With pornography, everything is fake," Dana said. "It takes three days to shoot [a pornographic film]. Plastic surgery—it is not real. They are going for the cardboard instead of the real, live thing."(Wow! Guess a lot of rich folks and celebrities are going to regret having had those facelifts and tummy-tucks!) And what would an anti-porn lecture be without bringing one of Shelley Lubben's acolytes into the game? "I speak from experience that there are victims and survivors who have been drugged and forced into this ugliness against their wills," said the woman, who refused to be identified or even allow her face to be seen, in a video. "I realize that the statement flies in the face of the mainstream mono-thought, stereotypical mentality that porn is something women choose, or 'she likes it,' 'she asked for it,' 'she chose that'—might be true to some, but most are coerced into it." Needless to say, the Washington County School Board didn't feel any need to allow its students to hear anyone with a different, more factual perspective—someone who, for instance, could "speak from experience" about how her co-workers in porn are all there voluntarily, how many of them actually like having sex, and how well they're paid for such performances. Instead, they got more of the unidentified woman (who may, of course, never actually have set foot on an adult movie set) claim that she was "drugged before each pornographic shooting with amnesic [sic], a paralyzing drug, pain blockers, or a combination of all of them." But lies like those aren't reserved solely for Utah. Washington, D.C.'s WUSA-TV Channel 9 decided to interview another anti-porn zealot, former adult photographer Donny Pauling, fresh from assuring the attendees at the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation 2014 Summit last May that Duke University student Belle Knox couldn't possible be as "empowered" by porn as she claimed to have been. For Pauling, nobody gets into adult entertainment work because he/she really wants to—and that's tantamount to that person being a victim of sex trafficking! "She comes in, she's already spent the money in her mind," Pauling claimed. "She does whatever I ask. Then she has to do more. And do more and do more to keep getting that money. How’s that not sex trafficking?" (Um... because it's not essentially different than a piece-worker in a garment factory who increases her efficiency and turns out more and more garments during her shift so she gets paid more?) It was hard to correlate Pauling's jaundiced view of the adult industry with the reality that industry members are familiar with. "What’s appealing about a girl that’s curled up in a fetal position in a corner sucking her thumb because her mind is so blown by what she’s just done to herself that she doesn’t know how to handle it?" he asked, apparently rhetorically since there was no one present to challenge his fantasy. "Because that’s what porn is." No, Donny, it isn't. Porn is a bunch of people not unlike yourself (though perhaps significantly more honest) who are hired to do a job like millions of others, except that adult industry jobs can involve people engaging in pleasurable sex with each other. And speaking of honesty, guess what Pauling's been doing since he left his adult industry job: "Internet marketing for car dealers"! Way to go, Donny!