Both Oars In An Industry We Can Do Without

Jul 10, 2009

For national and international news, I read the New York Times. In the interest of full disclosure, I am also a shareholder in the New York Times Company. Fearing the demise of yet another newspaper, I was moved to buy stock in the Times when its share price fell below the newsstand price for the Sunday edition. Unfortunately, that bargain is back. I take a bit of heat from some of my friends when I admit to reading the Times. But, I also read the Wall Street Journal. I like a balanced diet.

Obviously, I disagree with the editorial point of view of the Times a lot of the time. After all, I am a Catholic deacon. However, on Wednesday [7/8], my disagreement started long before I got to the editorial page. In fact, I didn’t make it past page one. Just below a story on Health Care reform and President Obama’s visit to Russia, I was shocked to find a story on the pornographic film industry’s decision to move away from plot driven films. Right on page one!

When I realized what the article was about, I impulsively gasped, "What are they thinking?" To be clear, I was not asking, "What are the pornographic film directors thinking?" I was wondering what the Times editors were thinking. How is this news? Since when does a reputable journalist admit he or she even knows, let alone take the time to report, that an artistic shift [This has to be the loosest this term has ever been used.] has occurred in the approach to making films that objectify humans and denigrate human intimacy? Script or no script, these films are trash. "Wow!" is all I can say.

Not to be outdone, CNBC will air a special report on the pornography industry on July 15th. While I have hopes that they will be covering the negatives of the industry, their lead-up advertising has been worrisome as well. Just the title, "Porn: Business of Pleasure," and the promise of interviews with the industry’s biggest stars suggest a lack of moral discernment on the part of CNBC. Porn is perversion, not pleasure. Its workers are exploited men and women, not celebrities.

Regrettably the industry is a money maker. The core business is estimated by several sources, including CNBC, to be over $13 billion a year—that is in the U.S. alone. This does not include web-based individual profits and international sales. For perspective: $13 billion is roughly the amount of money that many world relief organizations believe would be required to end world hunger, especially among the hungry children of the world—nearly six million of whom die each year for lack of nutrition.

No longer isolated to a few magazines sold in dark alley stores, pornography has moved into mainstream advertising thanks to our desensitized society. The shift worthy of serious reporting is not the move back to limited dialogue in pornographic films, but how selling sex has paved the way to using sex to sell. The flood gates have opened in terms of what prurient material is acceptable for the sake of a sale. Cosmopolitan and Vogue cannot seem to create a single cover without mentioning sex explicitly. Abercrombie & Fitch uses a faceless, pant-waist-open, shirtless male model to sell shirts—go figure. Sport Illustrated’s swimsuit edition is the number one selling single issue of a magazine. The issue has never been about fashion. This year’s cover title, "Bikini or Nothing," says it all. Even the public highways are not immune. My trips to the Charlotte airport are punctuated with the horrific billboard of an eviscerated woman advertising bed time stories no child or man should read or see.

Verbal pornography is not new, but it is far more ubiquitous today. In the modern era, both men and women are singing about illicit sex. Today’s teen-preferred music styles, Rap and Pop, are filled with direct references to sexual acts. Forget innuendo, the lyrics are so overtly sexual that CD’s carry warning labels like those on movies. Obviously, I cannot give an example here. Suffice to say, the lyrics speak directly about male and female organs. But, it is the unabashed praise for violent exploitation that is most appalling and alarming.

The only reporting that needs to be done on the porn industry is that it is one industry we can do without. Any suggestion that it is an acceptable line of work or form of entertainment is at best immature. Pornography is morally depraved. Society does not need to be saturated with filth. A nation that can afford to offer tax breaks for clunkers to help the ailing auto industry get back on its feet should be able to create a program to entice those who earn a living producing pornography to make a career change.