California Assemblyman Charles Calderon estimates that people spend over $3,000 every second on adult entertainment and that there is a new adult video produced every 39 minutes.  California lobbyists for the adult entertainment industry estimate that they employ 50,000 people and generate $4 billion a year.  That multiple billion dollar figure reveals a pivotal fact about obscenity and pornography. They’re big bucks and big business.

Of course, we have laws on the books about obscenity and pornography, but, amazingly, obscenity is not taken seriously even by those legally charged with prosecuting offenders.  So, while the Department of Justice is not looking, our homes are being invaded by offensive language, suggestive advertisements, blatantly obscene so-called “entertainment” and movie scenes that make “dirty dancing” seem tame.

Many people defend anyone’s right to produce, distribute and consume obscene materials. They call us prudes when we object to the pornification of our culture. Evidently, they think it’s cute when little children are sexualized. They are blasé at obscenity on television and in movies. They shrug their shoulders at people who have a foul mouth or tell offensive jokes and use crude, vulgar language. 

They just don’t understand the ramifications of cultural disintegration. Yet, those who know the facts understand that small seedlings of the obscene can grow into giant sequoias of criminal sex networks.

Once the predator sees someone as a mere object –– instead of a person worthy of respect and dignity –– that person can be used, and abused, for the personal satisfaction of the predator; then, it is a very easy step to becoming a pimp and using that person as a commercial sexual commodity.

Some people begin their downward spiral into pornography addiction by perusing Playboy or Hustler or some free online adult porn sites. Having entered this gateway, some consumers crave the titillation of more graphic, perverted images to satisfy their desire for stimulation. Some of them need more violent, more sadistic images and, ultimately, they seek them out.

A research study of convicted sex offenders by psychologists at the Federal Bureau of Prisons became available last year; it will certainly disabuse those remaining people who think that obscenity and pornography are harmless indulgences.  The study found that more than 85 percent of prisoners convicted of possessing child pornography admitted to abusing at least one child. 

Obscenity is also used to ensnare women and girls into prostitution and sex trafficking.  So-called “modeling agencies” or “modeling agents” take nude photos of girls and women and then threaten them with the exposure of these photos if they are unwilling to prostitute themselves.

Ultimately, it is a matter of supply and demand. When there is demand, somebody will see this as a profitable opportunity and supply the goods. When there is demand for children to be used sexually, that demand will be met by ruthless traffickers. 

Many pimps and traffickers use pornography to initiate their innocent victims into their new life of sexual slavery.  The victims are shown pornographic films, over and over again for days at a time, so that they get hardened to accept the inevitable and learn what is expected of them.

The pattern of behavior is familiar; it follows the teaching technique of “translating image to action.” Teachers and coaches instruct the student to intensely visualize a desired outcome, act it out in the mind, and then it will become permanently imprinted on the psyche. With that technique, the teachers say, visualization leads to realization.  Continued...