If there is an industry that has directly profited from the decline in morality and values in America, the purveyors of pornography have to be at the top of the list. At the beginning of the nineties, just over a thousand pornographic films were being made annually. By the end of the decade, that number was more than 10,000, with the U.S. sex industry collecting an estimated profit of $13.3 billion in 2006. The rapid growth of the Internet, a stunning lack of enforcement of obscenity laws by the government and a mainstreaming of sex by Hollywood have all contributed to this explosion and the consequences are very serious.
Studies now prove that pornography and other sexualized media have the capacity to alter drastically the user’s brain chemistry and functionality, sometimes leading to addiction. Even if a person does not become addicted, they are impacted by the mental, emotional, and spiritual effects of viewing pornography. These effects can lead to marital strain or divorce for married adults, relationship and intimacy problems and, for children, a permanently warped view of women and sexual intimacy.
Massachusetts Family Institute recognizes the destructive attitudes and behaviors promoted by pornography and calls on law enforcement to prosecute obscenity forcefully. Graphic pornography has been linked to criminal sexual behavior, including rape and child molestation, and therefore poses a public health threat to men, women and children. MFI rejects the notion of pornography as a legitimate form of “entertainment” and seeks to advance the public’s understanding of the dangers of pornography and to protect children from its damaging, prurient content.
Citizens must be informed that obscenity, or hardcore pornography, is not protected by the First Amendment, and is banned at the federal level and in over 40 states, including Massachusetts.