Media Critic Highlights Dangers of Mainstreaming Pornography
by Bill Fancher
September 8, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Media critics claim popular culture has thrust pornography into the mainstream of American life. Bob Peters, director of Morality in Media, believes this situation is especially damaging to young men today and is dangerous for all society -- particularly children.Morality in Media, a watchdog group based in New York City, recently commissioned a Harris Poll on attitudes about viewing pornography. According to the survey, 73 percent of Americans think viewing pornography is wrong; but among males age 18 to 34, nearly 50 percent found nothing wrong with looking at porn.
Peters blames the subtle infiltration of porn into pop culture for the fact that many young men see no danger in pornographic images. "You don't see hardcore pornography in popular culture," he says, "but what you see is the imagery of pornography. You see porn stars in popular culture. You see themes about pornography in stripping and dramas and comedies and mainstream films."
Even today's popular music is permeated with the porn mindset, the Morality in Media spokesman says. The ubiquity of porn across the culture and its portrayal in that culture as a commonplace is leading to increasing acceptance of the medium, he contends, and he fully expects the situation to get worse.
"Kids are being bombarded with this stuff in culture," Peters points out. "And added to that, in my opinion, is the fact that never before -- to say the least -- in the history of the human race has pornography been so readily accessible to children," he says.
The media decency advocate points to the Internet as one of the chief dangers to children where pornography is concerned. It is unfortunate, he says, that many parents still do not realize how many opportunities for exploitation there are online, or how many predators are out there in cyberspace, seeking a chance to infect kids with the porn mindset.
For years, Peters notes, children have been stumbling onto and seeking out commercial websites that allow visitors to view porn without cost or proof of age. He says the Supreme Court is partly to blame for this, since it has failed to uphold laws intended to restrict children's access to Internet porn.
Also, Peters says, colleges have also contributed to the "pornification of youth culture" by refusing to take steps to prevent use of school computers to access porn websites. Meanwhile, the media critic adds, the entertainment industry cannot seem to do enough to promote pornography and porn stars. And as porn becomes more and more mainstream, he suggests, it will be increasingly difficult to regulate using criminal obscenity laws.
Bill Fancher, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
