Something struck me reading that New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has been accused of violent physical and verbal assaults against several women. He choked and slapped them and made racist comments during sex. (He claimed that is was all sexual play but the women tell a much different story.)
It wasn’t just the hypocrisy of Schneiderman that struck me – he had been a vocal advocate of the #MeToo movement and was using his office to sue Harvey Weinstein for conduct in which he himself was engaged.
No, it was something more that moved me. As I was reading the article about Schneiderman I felt I was reading the porn film offerings from the cable TV companies. Those offerings by mainstream cable companies like Verizon feature hardcore sex with humiliation, violence, and racial stereotypes. In fact, these are some of the MOST popular themes of porn movies and porn websites today.
Eric Schneiderman didn’t become a serial abuser of women because of what he studied in his constitutional law class at Harvard. No, there can be no doubt that he was schooled by the porn industry and its promoters, like Verizon and like Game of Thrones and The Deuce on HBO, and by Twitter and Facebook porn so easily accessible to all, and by Instagram and Snapchat photo collections, hotel/motel porn, 50 Shades of Gray books and movies, etc. etc. – all the targets of the Dirty Dozen List here at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation year after year.
How do I know this? Because his is a story we hear every day from the wives and girlfriends of the Eric Schneidermans all across the U.S. and beyond. The potent power of porn destroys countless men, women, and children every day. It’s no secret.
The #MeToo cultural phenomenon will likely soon fade but will the results be measured merely by the number of boorish and criminal-minded men who have been removed from office or will we see an authentic, positive change in culture? That change can only come about when we as a society face the fact that there is a seamless connection between all forms of sexual exploitation and that connection is PORNOGRAPHY. You can see this in the attached research summary on the public health harms of pornography.
I am thankful to report that because of your support we are making a difference.
