When Is It Enough?

With the development and wide-spread access to television, the internet, cell-phones, and social media the spread of pornographic images has exploded to infinite proportions!  Social science research has proven that pornographic images have a negative effect on the future relationships children and adolescents develop with others.  Increasingly we are seeing that teenagers, and even young children, who have repeatedly viewed vivid sexual materials have difficulty forming meaningful relationships.  Too often those who view pornography see others as objects instead of people.  

Under the ideology of “freedom of speech” we abhor censorship.  We don’t want to stifle human expression and more importantly to most of us, we don’t want to be told what we can or can’t say, do, or see at any particular time or place. Through the glamorization of smoking cigarettes we addicted several generations. Millions of people were killed before restrictions were placed on their advertisement and sale. When the harm done became too great, regulations were placed upon the advertisement of cigarettes directed toward young children and teenagers.  No longer was the marketing of cigarettes to children a matter of freedom of speech; it was a matter of public safety.

Where will we draw the line and set our limits on the proliferation of pornography?  Is the money made on prime-time broadcasts of soft porn programs or the freedom of creative expression in print and electronic media more important than the adverse effects these have on children and teens?  Do we really want to allow our children’s minds to be infiltrated with insidious evil?  Maybe it’s time to change the way we view the distribution of sexually explicit materials.  Perhaps it’s time we place limits on how, where, and when porn producers poison children!