American women today pay a high price for success.
It’s no secret that women are graduating college in higher numbers than men. In fact, according to the Journal of American Enterprise Institute, “The Census Bureau predicts that 'more women than men are expected to occupy professions such as doctors, lawyers and college professors as they represent approximately 58 percent of young adults, age 25 to 29, who hold an advanced degree.' ”
Young girls born today will grow up benefiting from opportunities that their grandmothers never dreamed of. But this new level of power has shocking pitfalls.
Ironically, there is a direct relationship between a woman’s level of success and her loss of femininity. As women continue to overcome the gender gap, usurping men on the corporate ladder and staving off having children into their early forties, men begin to treat them as peers and become immune to their femininity. As a woman’s gentle exterior starts to fade, a man ignores past protocols or acts of chivalry, possibly justified by the fear of treating her differently than his male co-workers.
Hence, although young girls will grow up with a heightened level of opportunity, they will face a world much more attuned to a masculine-approved perception of obscenities, including the proliferation and acceptance of pornography.
According to the Internet Filter Software Review, an online site that ranks filtering software programs by providing side-by-side comparisons, the porn industry in 2006 grossed 13.3 billion dollars in the United States. The industry currently has larger revenues than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, Apple and Netflix combined. The Internet Filter Review also revealed that 10 percent of adults admitted to Internet sexual addiction; 72 percent of those were men. ComScore Media Metrix, as proclaimed on their site, is one of the most preferred online audience measurement and media planning solutions which top publishers and advertising agencies rely on for measuring audience composition and performance within key user segments. Their current data shows that on average, 70 percent of men from ages of 18 to 34 visit a pornographic site per month.
Aside from its negative effects on women, this addiction is destroying American families. According to a Focus on the Family, a global Christian ministry that helps families and couples build healthy marriages, 47 percent of families said pornography is a problem in their home. Moreover, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers said the Internet was a significant factor in two out of three divorces that same year.
The sanctity of marriage is eroded when spoues frequently view erotic and obscene graphics or videos. Porn is an easy and readily available outlet for sexual urges, much like prostitution; only more pervasive because the Internet has made it free and is within the home. Porn turns what was once a passionate and romantic bond shared exclusively with one's life partner into a selfish need and home-wrecking fetish. It degrades sex and makes it more about the “you” than the “us.”
This phenomenon is also tarnishing our youth. The average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11-years-old, according to the Internet Filter Review. The largest consumer of Internet pornography is the 12-17-year-olds age group. Nine out of 10 children aged 8-16 have viewed pornography on the Internet, according to a 2002 report by the London School of Economics.
Porn taints a child’s views of sex; it distorts reality. It displays sex without marital bonds and void of love. This shows children that sex is a sport rather than an empathic act rooted in love and devotion. Sex portrayed in this light is a lie that can permanently embed itself in the hearts and minds of the young. They then believe this is what sex really is -- and cannot cope with the reality when confronted with a partner. This is not fair to their future spouses, and it is not fair for those who believe and expect their marriage to be “unadulterated.” The Internet is a quick fix; the easy satisfaction of lustful urges without consequences—but only in the short term.
Many argue that laws punishing pornographers violate freedom of expression. In 1998, the Supreme Court voted 5-4, with a majority supporting a lower court’s decision to block passage of an online porn law which would have punished pornographers. The law was considered muzzling the free speech of pornographers.
Since such laws exist that help the proliferation of pornography, it is up to individuals and families to use their free choice to avoid such smut. For example, online-filtering software programs allow parents and couples to take control of what can be accessed through the Internet.
America’s freedoms come with consequences. It is up to parents to raise their children with the moral compass the Internet does not provide. Ultimately, a child’s solid upbringing will be more effective in avoiding the pitfalls of pornography than federal laws limiting choice.
As for adults, Internet porn is the new and destructive fifth column within the home. Every spouse ought to enact the same vigilance against this as in previous generations of men and women rallied against another lover in their marital bed. This is adultery in another time, with another name—and it remains one of the seven deadly sins.
-Robyn Wethington is an outreach coordinator for The Edmund Burke Institute. She is also a student at the University of Missouri's School of Journalism where she is majoring in Strategic Communications with a minor in Political Science.
