Wednesday, April 20th, 2016
Stephan: "In 2009, a
Harvard Business School study found that residents of Utah were the highest per capita purchasers of online adult entertainment in the United States." That's the starting fact. To me the next question should be, Utah is overwhelmingly Mormon, with very particular views about the role of women so why does this conservative patriarchal religious society feel the need to look at porn? The most queried term in Utah by the way is "shemale", which is an interesting insight in itself. Here's a third fact: Mormon women are the per capita highest users of antidepressant medications in the country.
Why is this happening is the obvious question, but it is not the one being asked. In fact no one is asking questions; as this report lays out the impulse is not to understand the sexual dysfunction that pervades the culture but to create a legal prohibition outlawing it, and we all know how prohibitions work don't we? And of course, the red flag to catch the bull's attention is that this is about child porn. In fact porn sites are rigidly controlled and scrupulous about underage participants. Studies show that unless you know sites in the Deep Web child porn is not an issue unless you are yourself sending and receiving it. Is that a particular issue with Mormons? I don't know. The Utah governor and legislature seem to think so.
Do I need to mention that this is all being done by Republicans? Probably not.
Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert signed two pieces of legislation on Tuesday that aim to combat what’s called “a sexually toxic environment” caused by porn.
“Pornography is a public health crisis. Today I signed two bills that will bring its dangers to light. S.C.R. 9 calls for additional research and education so that more individuals and families are aware of the harmful effects of pornography,” said Herbert on the governor’s Facebook page.
One is technically a resolution, and the other one is a bill:
— S.C.R. 9 Concurrent Resolution on the Public Health Crisis.
This resolution declares that pornography is “a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms.”
The resolution claims Utah would be the first state in the nation to make such a declaration.
It […]
What about violence on television??? I haven’t studied the statistics but am persuaded to believe that all the violent movies and regular weekly television shows on the “tube” are responsible for more and more violence in our streets as well as the increasing mass murders we see daily in our lives. This may be a much greater problem than the porn. If I knew how to locate sources of facts on this subject, this is what I would write about and bring to the attention of legislators for them to consider. The sensationalism of violence is, to me, a very bad influence on our children and our society in general.