Several US anti-porn groups fed up with the number of children and marriages that have been harmed as a result of porn addiction are urging Americans to fight back during a pornography awareness event this week.
During the 20th annual "White Ribbon Against Pornography Week" (WRAP), which runs October 26 to November 2, Americans are being called to speak out on the detrimental effects of pornography and inform others about ways to remove the "garbage" from the lives of families and local communities.
For one week, people are also asked to wear or display a white ribbon in solidarity against pornography.
WRAP Week is being promoted by Morality in Media (MIM), Concerned Women for American (CWA) and American Mothers.
Dr Janice Shaw Crouse, director and senior fellow of CWA's Beverly LaHaye Institute, says the pornography industry has "exploded" in recent years.
In just a few years, internet pornography has grown around 19-fold. In 1998, there were less than 80,000 internet porn sites, notes Crouse. That figure grew to 1.5 million in 2003.
Today, over 15,000 new adult movie titles are released every year, Crouse reports. Furthermore, recent figures reveal 35 million visits to porn sites from American computers every month.
Anti-porn activists say a higher supply of porn means more accessibility and greater exposure to the public, and some of those viewers include children.
Forty-two percent of internet users, aged 10 to 17, said they had seen online pornography within a one-year period, according to a 2007 study by University of New Hampshire. The study also found that over one-third of 16- and 17-year-old boys surveyed said they had intentionally visited X-rated sites in the past year.
"Since pornography is a $5 billion industry annually, it affects us all. It harms women and children, it destroys families, and it weakens communities," says Crouse.
"It is especially a threat to children when 85 per cent of prisoners convicted of possessing child pornography admit to abusing at least one child," she adds.
In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled in California vs Miller that obscene material or hardcore pornography is not protected by the First Amendment.
