The Accidental Addiction

Pornographic material is becoming more common with the expansion of the internet. Before the internet, it was your choice if you wanted to view such material; you had to go out and buy the magazines or view the movies with your own consent. But now, the choice seems to be slipping out of our hands. With the use of the internet, pornography is just a click away. However, most of the time that click isn’t intended for porn, but porn is what pops-up on the screen. Accidental viewing is getting quite common; and accidental viewing is the start of an addiction. To avoid the innocent minds being exposed to pornographic material on the internet, the government needs to intervene. They should change the URL address so that porn is its own category. Government sites have the URL of ".gov," organizations have ".org," education systems have ".edu," so why shouldn’t pornographic sites have ".xxx?" It seems to be a simple solution to a large problem.

Today, pornography has become an increasingly large problem in the world because morals seem to be slipping. Some may point out that pornography has been around since the beginning of time. "It is well established that sex was among the earliest subjects of art...Long before the establishment of the Roman Empire, every acceptable and unacceptable sexual practice that we know today...had been sketched, painted, carved, or sculpted countless times" (Malamuth & Donnerstein 2). However, about the time of the Reformation, religious bodies began to respond to these works on moral grounds. Their assumption was that these activities were immoral. "Exposure to sexual stimuli was to be avoided because of the dangers involved in inciting impure thoughts, initiating improper desires, and motivating sinful behavior. Thus, the creators of erotica were guilty of corrupting the morals of the innocent" (3).

Since then, the battles have continued. In 1708, one of the first recorded instances of the attempt to invoke pornography occurred in England. While in this war there was no final victory, by the beginning of the 1900's "legal battles were fought [over and over again], and very gradually it became possible to produce books, magazines, photographs and films that were as unrestricted in content as was true of the ‘pornographers’ of antiquity" (3). More and more states battled censorship, and slowly more and more was allowed to be shown. People are becoming desensitized to pornographic material. Porn has become acceptable in our everyday lives. In a recent trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, I noticed that I couldn’t even walk down the main streets without being exposed to porn. Every hotel had an advertisement with a half naked women to entice people to stay with them or visit their casino. However, this exposure is no longer a problem only in the streets of big cities; it has become an issue in the safety of our own home.

Since the birth of the internet, there seems to be an endless growth of users. In 1996, "about 40 million people used the Internet...a number that [was] expected to mushroom to 200 million by 1999" (Harrison & Gilbert 20). Since this growth, the number of pornographic web sites has also grown over the years. According to the "Internet Filter Review" website, the sad statistic is that 12% of web sites (4.2 million) are porn related. That’s 372 million pornographic pages. Yet there seems to be a demand for this increase of porn cites. Sixty-eight million daily search engine requests are for pornography, there are 1.5 billion monthly pornographic downloads, and there are 72 million world-wide visitors to porn web sites annually. With all these people accessing these sites, there is extreme amounts of money is being made. The US porn revenue is a staggering 12 billion dollars, which exceeds the revenue of ABC, CBS, and NBC put together (revenue of 6.2 billion). Of that, 2.5 billion is from the porn found on line. With all this success, more and more pages are created, and it gets harder to block it on our computer.

There are many devices out there that claim they can prevent porn from appearing on the computer. These blocks are often found useful, yet they can never completely prevent material from showing up. Some may argue that one doesn’t need blocks on their computer. If they trust their kids and any others who might be using their internet, pornographic sites would not be looked up. But we’re not just talking about sites being looked up. What about the things that just pop-up and are viewed accidentally? In Obscenity and Pornography Decisions of the United States Supreme Court, "The District Court found that the risk of encountering indecent material by accident is remote because a series of affirmative steps is required to access specific material" (30). Therefore blocks shouldn’t be needed. But, we need to keep in mind that pornography isn’t just pictures:

Sexually explicit material on the Internet includes text, pictures, and chat and "extends from the modestly titillating, to the hardest-core." These files are created, named, and posed in the same manner as material that is not sexually explicit, and may be accessed either deliberately or unintentionally during the course of an imprecise search. ‘Once a provider posts its content on the Internet, it cannot prevent that content from entering any community’ (23). Pornography comes in through chat rooms or even "junk" email, and the user might not realize it’s there.

I am a witness to accidental viewing. Not only has it happened to me from advertisements and such popping-up, but it has also happened to a number of my friends. Lincoln and Michelle were simply trying to look up examples of exercise routines to try out. When the web site opened, not only did it show them some exercises, but it gave them a porn virus. Obscene pictures kept popping up, and every time they tried to close out of it, another picture came around. Eventually they just pulled the plug on their computer. Thinking the problem would go away with their computer unplugged for a couple days, they hooked their computer back up and turned it on. While no pornographic pictures popped up, they still got a surprise. Right underneath the task toolbar was a toolbar set aside for porn itself. Not knowing how to remove this from their computer, they had to pay a lot of money to send it in to some professional computer technicians.

This problem is not uncommon. Being adults, Lincoln and Michelle knew how to act, not wanting to view such material against their choice. They simply turned off the computer. But what if this would have happened to a child? Would they have known what to do? Pornography is often viewed at no fault of the child. In the article "Keep Your Kids Safe" from PC Magazine, Sebastian Rupley tells a story of how a man named John Zuccarini was arrested because he "registered and used more than 3,000 misleading domain names, many of which directed children to hard-core porn sites and graphic depictions of young people engaged in sex acts." Some of the domain names he used were similar to childrens cartoons, such as, "www.bobthebiulder.com" or "www.teltubbies.com," leaving out or switching a couple letters. And, Zuccarini is not alone. Every year they find more and more people like this, soliciting sex sites onto unexpected onlookers. It is a problem even though the law states that it "...prohibits the knowing transmission of obscene or indecent messages to any recipient under 18 years of age." (Harrison & Gilbert 26). However, "The National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families" (NCPCE) states that "one in five children ages 10-17 [has] received a sexual solicitation over the internet. Three million of the visitors to adult web sites in September 2000 were age 17 or younger." How are the children going to protect themselves if these blocks don’t work?

Pornographic material has managed to come through no matter what laws have been passed. In 1992, in an effort to protect children from viewing obscene broadcasts on public cable, a law was passed that the material would be found on a single channel, blocked from the regular channels unless one ordered it. On top of that, the material also showed later at night when most kids might be in bed (Harrison & Gilbert 43). Yet they can view it on the internet, often times at no fault of their own.

California also enacted an Obscenity Law saying that, "anyone distributing prohibited sexually explicit materials to unwilling recipients, persons who had in no way indicated any desire to receive such material [through the mail], could be charged with a crime" (137). Yet there is no law that says anything about email. Daily pornographic emails is 8% of total emails (2.5 billion). That averages out to be 4.5 daily pornographic emails per Internet user. (Internet Filter Review). If it is sent to our very own email, nonetheless five times a day, it is no wonder that kids are viewing it and possibly getting addicted to it.

This problem "grows increasingly worse. It is like a raging storm, destroying individuals and families, utterly ruining what was once wholesome and beautiful. I speak of pornography and all of its manifestations." Gordon B. Hinckley, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, recently warned about the affects of pornography. He went on to say, "...all who are involved become victims. Children are exploited and their lives are severely damaged. The minds of youth become warped with false concepts. Continued exposure leads to addiction that is almost impossible to break." But, with the help of the government, we can arm ourselves against it. I’m not saying ban pornography all together; people have the right to display it and see it under the First Amendment. However, I also have the right not to see such material. So what I suggest is simply make it illegal for Internet porn sites to have a common URL such as ".com." Instead, the government needs to make it so their URL is simply ".xxx" so that those who choose to view it can, and those who don’t choose to view it won’t be bombarded with accidental pop-ups that may actually lead to an addiction.