What Effect Does Adult Entertainment
Have on Our Culture?
Adult entertainment has real world consequences. Have you associated certain news stories with it?
We have recently seen two familiar headlines. One involves men in positions of power behaving badly. The other consists of female teachers engaged in sexual relationships with students. But the inappropriate sex-crazed thirst is much greater than those issues. Is there a correlation to adult entertainment? Moreover, is the problem much greater than we realize?
Aside from the realities of sex slavery worldwide, I am talking about the emotional deprivation and abuse suffered by men and women who accept the myth that adult entertainment will stimulate their sex life without suffering negative consequences.
The industry has re-labeled pornography as “adult entertainment” in order to present it as a marketable option to the mainstream consumer. Some think, Good for them … it’s their First Amendment right. While others mourn their success due to the personal tragedies related to porn. Moreover, much of it is no longer identified as pornography.
The stigma of pornography has been nearly eliminated. In the early 2000s when the Internet went crazy, some in the social sciences predicted porn would become the “secret drug” for millions of men. They have been proven correct, although it isn’t secret any longer. Adult entertainment is nearly mainstream and people are popping porn like it’s aspirin. Furthermore, it is discussed in many circles like we previously analyzed “Wide World of Sports.”
Regardless of the moral perspective, I simply hope readers will consider the social ramifications.
There are three elements that are typically present in the production of adult entertainment. Clothes are removed to engage in a forbidden relationship for the purpose of sexual gratification.
Has the publication and distribution of this material had an eroding effect on healthy, human relationships?
Ironically, only one of the three elements of production violates even the strictest moral values. That would be the “forbidden relationship” aspect. As a result, our culture has also embraced sexual-relationships that have been traditionally forbidden. Yet the cultural effect in the distribution of the material is my focus.
As a result, I’ve compiled a short list of consequences, which include:
- Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)
- Unwanted pregnancies
- Abortions
- Unrealistic sexual expectations placed on intimate relationships
- Destructive behaviors
- Addictive behaviors
- Criminal behaviors
- Exploiting behaviors
- Neglecting behaviors
- GUILT, GUILT, GUILT (unless you are a relativist, and even then you need to convince yourself the guilt is not real rather than an internal barometer of right and wrong)
- Family fights and broken homes
- Nexus to drug and alcohol abuse
For the skeptic, Law Enforcement Today has covered stories in the past few months that highlight these behaviors. I have categorized each one according to the predominate storyline, and provided opening details from each report, along with a link to the article.
Teachers/Educators
A Florida teacher was arrested after she was accused of having a sexual relationship with a female student. The woman had a two-month relationship with a 15-year-old female student last year.
A married science teacher in Oklahoma was arrested after being accused of having a sexual relationship with an underage student.
A 44-year-old Pennsylvania high school teacher was charged by state police with having sexual intercourse with a male student.
A married teacher is accused of disrobing in a “man cave” before luring a student upstairs to a sexual encounter.
A Texas elementary school counselor was arrested Wednesday for allegedly having an improper relationship with two students.
For years a Kentucky principal covertly searched the confiscated student cell phones of teenage girls for nude photos, saving them to thumb drives to be viewed, uploaded and traded on the Internet.
A Milwaukee judge is hoping a lengthy prison sentence for a former prep school teacher who had sexual contact with an 11-year-old student is enough to warn educators and others not to go down the same path.
A former high school teacher in Arkansas is accused of sleeping with four different students — two of them in the same night.
A former Alabama high school teacher-sex offender who pleaded guilty in 2014 to sending sexual text messages to a teenage male student has been locked up again.
We could continue with stories regarding educators having sex with students, but for the sake of redundancy we’ll move to other categories.
Other Crimes Related to Sexual Deviance
An Arkansas man is accused of having sex with a family’s pet donkey on multiple occasions, authorities say.
A man promising porn stardom has been busted for multiple rapes that reportedly occurred during casting calls.
A newlywed couple honeymooning in Florida is accused of kidnap and rape of a woman at a motel. The debaucherous couple was captured the following day as they visited a nearby convenience store naked.
Police in New York are on the hunt for a rampant subway masturbator. The man was reportedly caught fondling himself in two separate incidents in one week. And his public display of lascivious conduct isn’t new to him, according to law enforcement authorities.
A topless woman from the town of Sandwich is facing multiple charges after reportedly assaulting an off-duty police officer during a road rage incident.
The painted nude panhandlers in Times Square are flipping the finger at Mayor deBlasio and the hands of NYPD are tied.
Revealing nude images and a private video of a congressional delegate from the Virgin Islands were stolen and posted to the Internet by one of the delegate’s former staffers.
A Texas man was arrested for raping a young girl. Evidence of the crime was discovered in the “deleted” folder on an electronic device.
A naked tirade at a hotel lands a model in jail.
A leading young Democrat and deBlasio administration employee has a secret taste for sickening child pornography that involves baby girls as young as 6 months old, court papers revealed.
A Michigan couple kept a special needs woman in a vacant shed and sold her online for sex.
Strippers/Murder/Love Triangles and Child Neglect
The murder of a man in a love triangle has led to an arrest, but a second suspect is sought.
Florida authorities have made an arrest in the killer-clown cold case homicide from 27 years ago. And it has its’ origin in a love triangle.
A U.S. Army combat medic was arrested. He has been charged in connection with the rape and murder of one of his 9-month-old twin daughters.
In a complicated, sordid case investigated by the Anaheim Police Department and Orange County District Attorney’s Office, a Phoenix, Az. woman has been charged with falsely reporting crimes, false imprisonment and other charges in an alleged attempt to frame her husband’s ex-fiancée.
A 24-year-old male stripper is accused of killing his partner thinking he was a cannibal.
A Texas woman who works as a stripper was convicted of intoxication manslaughter after a crash that killed a Pearland police officer.
A Florida man chose a lap dance at a local strip club over making sure his two kids were safe, according to law enforcement authorities. One child was merely 3-months-old and left upside down in his car seat. His screaming cries brought attention to the youngsters.
Prostitution/Human Trafficking
Officers rescued three human trafficking victims and arrested two Chinese nationals for human trafficking and pimping.
Large numbers of condoms clogging and destroying a sewage pipeline exposed a prostitution ring operating out of an Austin massage parlor.
A member of the Baylor University athletics department was arrested in a prostitution sting.
Pastor
A well-known Tallahassee pastor was forced to flee naked after a husband came home early and found him having sex with the man’s wife.
Cops Are Not Immune
In a case of pizza-porn, a male off-duty police officer, answered the door naked when a female pizza delivery person arrived at the door with his order.
Two NYPD officers have been indicted for an on-duty rape. It has been classified rape in the first-degree. They have been accused of having sex with a handcuffed 18-year-old woman inside their police van in Brooklyn.
An off-duty Secret Service agent was arrested for a suspected prostitution charge at a Maryland hotel, two law enforcement sources confirmed.
A former Cleveland cop set to go to trial for reportedly kidnapping, raping and assaulting a woman is now on the run.
A female county probation counselor in Northern California was arrested. She is accused of having sex with two teenage boys who were incarcerated at a juvenile detention center while employed by the county.
Protect, serve and … engage in trysts with your co-workers? There have been six cops busted having on duty sex.
A former dominatrix appears doomed in law enforcement. The newly sworn-in sheriff’s officer is fighting to keep her job after her department learned that she previously appeared in bondage films as a dominatrix.
Who executed Mike Edwards, one of the proud officers from LAPD? Some of the best homicide detectives have been trying to answer the question for decades. It appears to be connected to a love triangle.
Florida law enforcement authorities arrested 277 people, including many professionals, during a weeklong undercover sex sting operation. One of those arrested was a sergeant from the sheriff’s department.
Sexual Deviants
Sexual deviants have been around as long as recorded history, so I’m not trying to blame all of these problems on the porn industry. However, with the documentation available in the news everyday, one cannot rationally, or objectively ignore the correlation. Furthermore, I have volunteered as a lay-counselor in law enforcement and various church related ministries. In this role I have heard the personal stories of hundreds of men struggling with the addiction of pornography.
Adult Entertainment and Porn Is Prevalent
Beyond volunteering in various ministries, I worked undercover narcotic enforcement for 10 years during my 30-year career in law enforcement. During that time I participated in the search of thousands of homes. During those searches we found as many stashes of porn as we did narcotics, if not more. They were everywhere. I would estimate that hardcore pornography was present in 95 percent of the residential environments involved in narcotic trafficking … and that number might be conservative.
Ironically, porn stashes are no longer necessary with the advent of electronic devices. Any person is just a click away from viewing their favorite fetish in pics or video.
So am I being a prude? I’m sure some think so. That’s all right; I’m not trying to provide a persuasive argument. I’m simply offering facts and think the reader should come to his or her own conclusion.
Self-Control
However, one thing is undeniable. Whether the aforementioned cases have a correlation to adult entertainment or not, the people involved lacked SELF-CONTROL.
While I may not be able say with absolute certainty what percentage of these issues would disappear if people avoided adult entertainment, I know with 100 percent certainly that porn triggers a lack of self-control in people.
Sadly, the message of purity and faithfulness to your spouse has been lost. Yet people demand answers to what ails us. Consequently, the inability to exercise self-control is a major factor in our social erosion.
So just because people lose self-control does not mean we should justify behavior that embraces it. And yes, we have embraced a variety of behaviors that lack self-control. Interestingly enough politics embrace some as individual expression while others are castigated.
We created laws to warn smokers that cigarettes may cause cancer. But we offer no such admonition for addictive behavior (adult entertainment—porn) that is socially AND morally destructive.
Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy was a serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, burglar and necrophile—sex with a corpse. The man had a twisted mind. As a result, he assaulted and murdered numerous young women and girls during the 1970s, and possibly earlier. Shortly before his execution—after more than a decade of denials—he confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. The true victim count remains unknown, and could be much higher. In 1989 he was executed by electric chair in the state of Florida. However, just prior to his execution he submitted to an interview. It was during his pre-execution confessional that he openly acknowledged the impact that pornography played in his development as a serial killer.
I am not insinuating that people regularly watching porn will become serial killers. If that were true we might all be dead. This is simply the strongest personal account making the correlation between porn and deviant sex crimes. To deny the connection is being intellectually dishonest.
Porn is to sex crimes what alcohol is to DUI. There are plenty of people who drink without getting arrested for drunk driving. Naturally, there are plenty of people who find pleasure with adult entertainment without developing criminal tendencies. But alcohol and drugs are chemicals that lead to a DUI arrest, and porn is typically present when deviant sex crimes (or worse) occur.
Bundy’s words are far more powerful than anything I can write.
What Would Peter Say?
While I simply hope readers will consider the social ramifications of the adult entertainment/porn industry, I believe every worthy discipline in life involves self-control. As a result, the apostle Peter offers sound advice.
His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:3-11)
Finally, Peter provides some worthy instruction from God. Do we ignore his advice while claiming unhappiness with the headlines, or embrace it as we insulate ourself from the muck around us?
– Jim McNeff, editor-in-chief, Law Enforcement Today