When the pioneers arrived in Utah, they probably wouldn’t have guessed this unknown desert would soon become an international landmark.
Before the Olympics hit Salt Lake City in 2002, the state was synonymous with terms such as Mormons, skiing and John Stockton. In 2009, Utah gained another claim to fame8212;or infamy, by ranking first in the nation with searches for “pornography” according to Google trends, which analyzes and breaks down search terms by a given region. Utah ranked second in the world in this category, behind Delhi, India.
For those who would question the Google trends statistics, there is more evidence. According to a recent study by professor Benjamin Edelman of the Harvard Business School, Utah ranked as the biggest online porn consumer in the nation. The study, published this winter in the Journal of Economic Perspectives, shows that 5.47 out of every 1000 Utah broadband users are subscribing to adult content. Even more surprising in the study, eight of the top 10 pornography-consuming states, such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and North Dakota, toed the conservative line and voted Republican in last year’s presidential election. The study at least showed that churchgoers respect Sunday, with porn use at a much lower level than during the week. But even with this slow day, Family Safe Media estimates that more than $3,000 is being spent every second on pornography, generating yearly revenue of more than $13 billion dollars. The same group estimates that 89 percent of porn is created here in the United States.
OK, so maybe Americans and Utahns crave porn to fulfill their inner human cravings. Could it be that Utahns need tips on proper sex techniques? They need tips from the pros? Whatever the real reason, all this revenue seems to only benefit the CEOs and select few within the porn industry.
Even one family or marriage torn apart by porn is reason enough to ask what steps should be taken to curb this explosion of porn on the Internet. Pornography demeans not only women, but love and marriage. We know that sex sells, but why should only a few benefit and leave society tied down?
Some politicians, such as Gov. David Paterson of New York, Rep. Mark Miloscia of Seattle, and others, are asking whether or not this industry should pay higher state taxes. And why not take advantage of the porn industry? They exploit us in every way possible. Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler, and Joe Francis, producer of Girls Gone Wild, even tried to get a portion of the bailout money, arguing that they benefit society.
With Web sites containing banners such as “cheating wives” or “promiscuous sex affairs,” can they really benefit society? This seducing industry pushes its product on everyone through advertisements in newspaper and magazine racks, Internet Web sites, YouTube videos and television. Watch Spike TV or FX after 9 p.m. and you might think you walked into a sex club.
With few regulations, it might be time to address the future of the porn industry here at home. The U monitors only peer-to-peer sharing on their computers, so as long as you don’t share a Rascal Flatts song at the same time, you’re OK to view all the child, grandma and crazy porn without the risk of being monitored. The Attorneys General’s Web site explains that law enforcement agencies “interpret silence (the lack of complaints) as community approval.”
There needs to be a step taken, be it taxes or monitoring of computers on campus, to curb this debilitating habit.
Alan Monsen
