Missouri Family E-News

March 19, 2019

                                                   
Companies Targeted for Marketing Porn Access    
 
The nation's leading anti-pornography organization has targeted a dozen entities that the group claims are "major, mainstream facilitators of sexual exploitation."
 
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has announced their annual Dirty Dozen List for 2019.
 
"No company should profit from or facilitate sexual exploitation," says Haley Halverson, Vice-President of Advocacy and Outreach at NCOSE.
 
"Unfortunately, many well-established brands, companies, and organizations in America do just that.  We publish the Dirty Dozen List to name and shame these players, who promote pornography, sexual violence, sex trafficking, and sexual objectification."
 
Here are the entities that made the Dirty Dozen List this year:
 
Amazon, for marketing eroticized material featuring children or with childlike features.
 
EBSCO, for furnishing online library resources with links to pornographic websites.
 
Google, for providing pornographic images and videos through Google Images and YouTube.
 
HBO, for programming that regularly includes graphic sex scenes and eroticized rape incidents.
 
Massage Envy, for failing to take actions to prevent sexual harassment of clients.
 
Netflix, for producing programming targeted to teens with graphic and violent sexual content.
 
The State of Nevada, for promoting itself as a safe haven for prostitution tourists and sex traffickers.
 
Roku, for facilitating hardcore pornography channels.
 
Sports Illustrated, for its annual swimsuit issue that declares that women's bodies are for public ogling in every supermarket.
 
Steam, for distributing online video games with sexually graphic content.
 
Twitter, for hosting vast quantities of hardcore pornographic material.
 
United Airlines, for its cavalier attitude to the online viewing of pornography by customers on its flights. 
 
You can learn more about the Dirty Dozen List and NCOSE by clicking this link:
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 Proposals Would Ban
Online Porn Access
  To Children Under 18   
 
Two legislators have introduced bills during this session of the Missouri General Assembly which would block access to pornographic websites by minors.  The legislation is known as the "Safer Internet for Children Act," and has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Ed Emery of Lamar and in the House by Representative Kenneth Wilson of  Smithville.
 
Under the terms of the bills, internet service providers would be required to block obscene websites unless a person has obtained a password to obtain access to such sites.  Passwords would only be available to individuals who could demonstrate that they are eighteen years of age or older.
 
Individuals who seek to access a website deemed obscene would be redirected to a webpage where they would enter their password no matter how often they have visited the website  before.  They would also be required to change that password every three months.  
 
The bills define obscenity as material which contains child pornography, explicit sexual material, sexual conduct, sexual performances, sexual abuse, or any state of nudity or semi-nudity.   
 
"Pornography is a disturbing and invasive social evil," says Senator Emery.  "The pornography industry is going to continue to try to get to our children and families.  We have to look at what we can do to address the needs of families who want to be protected."
 
The proposal stipulates that an internet service provider (ISP) must create a method to evaluate whether a site meets the definition of obscenity.  An ISP must establish a website where individuals can report websites that they believe should be blocked for access by minors. 
 
The Missouri Attorney General's office is also required to maintain a website where individuals can register objections to decisions by internet service providers as to whether a website should or should not be blocked.  After review, the Attorney General's office would inform the ISP as to whether they believe the website should be accessible to minors or not.  
While many libertarian critics may view these bills as an unworkable and futile crusade to impose scrupulous moral standards, even permissive societies are recognizing that the unmitigated flood of pornographic content is contributing to damaging social consequences for children who are regular consumers, let alone adults who are addicted to such content.

The United Kingdom recently adopted a law that requires pornographic websites to use an independent online verification system that ensures that users who access their websites are eighteen years of age or older.  Pornsites that fail to comply with the process may be subject to a fine of as much as $330,000, and what is called a "blanket block" by all internet service providers in the United Kingdom.

Psychiatrists contend that pornography has a highly addictive effect on the human brain similar to narcotics.  It results in increased tolerance over time, compulsive and abnormal social behavior, major withdrawal symptoms, and difficulty forming genuine relationships.

"With the advent of the computer, the delivery system for this addictive stimulus has become nearly resistance-free," says Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, a former fellow in psychiatry at Yale.  "It is as though we have devised a form of heroin 100 times more powerful than before, usable in the privacy of one's own home and injected directly into the brain through the eyes.  It's now available in unlimited supply through a self-replicating distribution network, glorified as art and protected by the Constitution."

Studies show that the average age at which a child is exposed to pornography is 11, with 96% of young adults having acceptable or neutral views toward pornography use.  Approximately two-thirds of teens have received a sexually explicit image through texting or various social media networks.

A recent report out of Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City revealed a spiraling trend of sexual assaults on children by other children.  The jarring statistics came out of the hospital's Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program.

"As we were collecting the data, it was shocking to us that almost half of our perpetrators are minors," says Heidi Olsen, SANE Coordinator.  "This sort of sexual assault is a learned behavior.  Nurses are finding more and more that pornography is playing a role in these cases."  The Children's Mercy study showed that most of the perpetrators were 11 to 15 years old, and most of the victims were girls aged 4 to 8 years old.

You can read more about pornography's damaging effect on individuals, relationships, and society from the organization Fight the New Drug at their website at this link:

Senator Emery's bill is Senate Bill 382.  Representative Wilson's bill is House Bill 885.

You can contact your state senator to express your support by using this link:

You can contact your state representative by using this link:

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