The "Pornography Is Harmless" Myth

I heard the emergency call over the hospital PA. I ran to ER via the back entrance. A young soldier was on the verge of losing self-control, in a room to the left—his Major was with him. I stayed for awhile, trying to calm him from the horror he had just witnessed. A young sergeant had just shot a young female soldier in the head and then shot himself in the head. When the psychiatric social worker arrived, I left him and stopped outside ER, where a nurse pointed me to the sergeant's wife in the lobby. She told me that she wanted to see her husband. After she assured me that she could handle it, I left her with a nurse who escorted her into the ER. The young female soldier had accused the young male soldier of rape earlier that week. I was an Army Reserve Chaplain on active duty at the Post Hospital.

As an active duty Army Chaplain, I had seen firsthand the stress separation places on marriages. In Vietnam, I visited orphan homes of GI babies. We all know the awful hardship that these children have had to endure. I saw a Vietnamese woman agonize in prayer at the chapel altar. Her live-in boyfriend had left her with a baby and gone home to the US.

As a Texas Army National Guard Chaplain, I had no problem getting my commander's permission to remove pornographic literature from the North Fort Hood PX. It was satisfying to push a shopping cart through the PX and remove pornographic literature for the time that our armor unit was on active duty. What the PX did after we left, I do not know. Young soldiers' hormones are raging without additional external stimulation. Not only should pornographic material be removed from military bases, but also the Provost Marshall should declare some off post establishments off limits. The Military Police should patrol these areas and enforce the off limits ban.

If anyone has trouble deciding what material is pornographic, I will gladly lend my professional expertise. The main problem is that pornography addicts and those who exploit people for profit, want to "muddy the water" in order to make money and gratify their evil desires. The "free speech" plea is a sham.

Ted Bundy, who sexually abused and murdered 24 young women and children, was addicted to pornography. Shortly before he was executed, Psychologist James Dobson interviewed him. In his interview he made a plea to halt pornography. Knowing that he would be dead within a few hours, his testimony was credible. Bundy was quite articulate:

I tell you that I am not blaming pornography. I am not saying it caused me to go out and do certain things. And I take full responsibility for whatever I have done. That's not the question here. The question and the issue is how this kind of literature contributed and helped mold and shape the kinds of violent behavior. . . .

Once you become addicted to pornography, and I look at this as a kind of addiction like other kinds of addiction, I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. . . .

I have lived in prison for a long time now and I've met a lot of men who were motivated to violence just like me. And without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography, without question, without exception, deeply influenced and consumed by an addiction. The FBI's own study on serial homicide shows that the most common interest among serial killers is pornography. . . .

There are loose in the towns and in their communities, people like me, whose dangerous impulses are being fueled day in, day out, by violence in the media—particularly sexual violence.   . . .and it's coming to the present now because what I am talking about happened 20, 30 years ago in my formative state. And what scares me, Dr. Dobson, is when I see some of the movies that come into homes today, the stuff that they wouldn't show in X-rated theaters 30 years ago. (Donald E. Wildmon, Ed., AFA Journal. Tupelo, MS: American Family Association, March 1989, p. 1).

In the truthful words of a dying man, Ted Bundy relates how pornography helped form him into a pedophile, rapist, and serial killer.

The scientific work of Dr. Victor Cline shows that Ted Bundy is not an exception, but an illustration of a common pattern of progression with many pornography users. His research revealed the following steps in degeneracy:

Addiction to hard core pornography, Escalation in the need for more shocking material, Desensitization toward initially shocking material and Increased Tendency to "act out" sexual activities seen in pornography. ("It's Obscene," pamphlet by Coalition Against Pornography. Kansas City; 318 East 55th Street, Kansas City, MO 64113).

1. Pornography is an 8 billion-dollar industry 85 percent controlled by organized crime.
2. There are more "adult" bookstores than McDonalds.
3. Over 250 of the 450 different pornographic magazines are child pornography. Most readers of pornography are between the ages of 12-17. Pedophiles break down the resistance of children by showing them the magazines.
4. Hard core pornography incites violent sexual assult and child molestation.

Organized crime hires slick lawyers who rationalize away the destructiveness of their product in the court room. Some who are hooked on pornography and pornography publishers join their notorious organized crime conspirators in attempting to defend this national pestilence. Their interest in the contest is obvious.

Pornography incites lust, which leads to promiscuous sex. Promiscuous sex produces pregancy, which leads to abortion. Promiscuous sex transmits STD, some of which are incurable. AIDS leads to a horrible death.

The Supreme Court has ruled that pornography is not protected by the first amendment. However, the attempt to define pornography by geographical relativism thwarts the decision.

The former First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, issued the following strong statement about pornography. First a pertinent question by Dotson Rader, then her answer:

In homes with cable TV, very young children can turn on channels showing R-rated and even X-rated films containing extremely graphic sex and violence—films that it is illegal for them to pay to see in a theater. How can you defend the culture of a country that allows a child access to hard-core pornography and extreme violence?

I can't defend it! It's wrong, and I wish it would go away, because I think it's so destructive to children and adults to have that kind of material shown. I don't think there's anything wrong with parents' groups or other groups calling for people to boycott certain kinds of entertainment. That's advocacy, education and choice. (Dotson Rader, "Hillary Rodham Clinton: When It Comes to Family Values ... I Worry About Television," Parade, April 11, 1993, p. 10).

This writer has participated in national boycotts against companies that support violence and pornography on television. If enough of us heed the former First Lady, television programming will change!

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