{"id":2008655,"date":"2023-08-22T20:11:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-23T00:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-states-unite-to-protect-minors-from-brain-altering-pornography\/"},"modified":"2023-08-22T20:18:34","modified_gmt":"2023-08-23T00:18:34","slug":"in-depth-states-unite-to-protect-minors-from-brain-altering-pornography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-states-unite-to-protect-minors-from-brain-altering-pornography\/","title":{"rendered":"States join forces to safeguard minors from harmful pornography."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fin-depth-states-unite-to-protect-minors-from-brain-altering-pornography%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2008655&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div data-post-content=\"true\" class=\"post_content\" id=\"post_content\">\n<h2>Protecting Children from Harmful Online \u2062Pornography<\/h2>\n<p>Graphic, violent, deviant,\u2063 and harmful online pornography\u200d that\u200b can\u200c permanently affect brain development can be easily accessed by children. And the federal government is doing little to stop it, experts and lawmakers told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>Although showing pornography to \u200cchildren is illegal\u2062 under federal law, federal rules don&#8217;t \u2062require porn websites to verify the age of\u2064 users.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h3>Related \u200bStories<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/ex-boyfriend-of-texas-woman-ordered-to-pay-1-2-billion-in-revenge-porn-case-5468979\">Ex-Boyfriend of Texas Woman \u2062Ordered to Pay $1.2 \u200cBillion in &#8216;Revenge\u200c Porn&#8217; Case<\/a><br \/>\n        <span class=\"text-comp-caption\">8\/16\/2023<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<li>\n        <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/us\/arizona-lawmaker-criticizes-katie-hobbss-veto-of-bill-criminalizing-filming-porn-at-public-schools-5315145\">Arizona Lawmaker Criticizes Katie\u2064 Hobbs&#8217;s Veto of Bill Criminalizing Filming \u2064Porn at Public Schools<\/a><br \/>\n        <span class=\"text-comp-caption\">6\/6\/2023<\/span>\n      <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>But recently, bipartisan efforts in state\u2064 legislatures have intervened \u200bto protect children\u2064 in a handful of\u2064 states.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s \u200bimportant\u2014and urgent\u2014because watching violent porn damages children, therapist \u2062Jon Uhler and psychologist Amy Sousa told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Being shown violence alongside a reward system is incredibly problematic\u2063 because it is sending the \u2062body a signal that \u2062this\u2064 violence is pleasurable,&#8221; Ms. Sousa \u200dsaid.<\/p>\n<div class=\"shortcode\">\n<div class=\"lazyload-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"lazyload-placeholder\"><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By \u200bteaching children\u2063 to associate sexual pleasure with\u2062 pain, she said, pornography can rewire a\u200b viewer&#8217;s brain to want pain or want to inflict\u2062 pain.<\/p>\n<p>This rewiring undoes the body&#8217;s natural \u2064response of feeling distressed \u200bwhen seeing someone get hurt, she explained.<\/p>\n<p>And porn-watching is more common than many might realize.<\/p>\n<p>Porn\u200b gets more yearly &#8220;watch hours&#8221; than all Hollywood, Netflix, and Viacom programming \u200dcombined, Ms.\u200d Sousa said.<\/p>\n<div style=\"margin-left:0;margin-right:0;max-width:1200px\">\n<figure style=\"width:640px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto\" class=\"aligncenter\"><figcaption>Psychologist Amy Sousa speaks at a &#8220;Save Women&#8217;s Sports \u2063event\u2063 in Nashville, Tenn., on \u2063April 27, 2023. \u200b(Jackson Elliott\/The Epoch Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<h2>Normalizing Violence, Creating Psychopaths<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;Eighty-eight percent \u2062of porn videos contain violence against \u2063women, which basically translates to 5.1 billion \u200bof those visits per month,&#8221; Ms.\u2064 Sousa said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Porn \u200brepresents a massive \u200bpropaganda arm that \u200bis normalizing and desensitizing violence against women.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Viewing\u200d pornography teaches men to see women as objects, said Mr. Uhler, who has 15 years of counseling experience and thousands of hours of experience in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/hawley-biden-scotus-pick-ketanji-brown-jackson-has-pattern-of-treating-sex-offenders-leniently\/\" title=\"Hawley: Biden SCOTUS Pick Ketanji Brown Jackson Has Pattern of 'Treating Sex Offenders Leniently'\">treating sex offenders<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Children who admit\u2063 to watching porn also\u2064 admit\u2063 to feeling guilty about it, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Over \u2062time, repeatedly engaging in behavior that violates one&#8217;s conscience\u200b can turn\u200c a person \u2063into a\u200b psychopath, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As you impact conscience, you will negatively \u2063impact remorse and\u2064 empathy,&#8221;\u200c he said.\u2062 &#8220;Those three things are the basis of psychopathy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>And this, he said, can open the gateway to becoming\u200c a sexual predator.<\/p>\n<p>In counseling\u200b thousands of sexual predators, \u200dMr. Uhler has seen a pattern. For all of his patients, the road to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-depth-states-unite-to-protect-minors-from-brain-altering-pornography\/\" title=\"States join forces to safeguard minors from harmful pornography.\">sexual deviancy involved viewing porn<\/a>, he \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width:250px\" class=\"alignright\"><figcaption>Jon Uhler, a therapist who interviews sex offenders in prison. (Courtesy of\u2063 Mr. \u2064Uhler)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&#8220;A lot of good researchers have looked at\u200b the effects that pornography has \u2062on\u200b the brain,&#8221; Mr. Uhler said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s identical\u2063 to \u2062drugs, literally in terms of the impact on the structure itself\u200d and the \u2062way it processes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>With\u2062 an unprecedented number of boys watching violent porn, Mr. Uhler said, the \u2062future will likely yield a \u200cmassive crop of men who have learned from childhood to defy their conscience.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u2064 are in uncharted territory.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Conflicting Views on Restrictions<\/h2>\n<p>Despite\u200d these \u2063dangers,\u200d the federal government has done little to \u2063prevent children from accessing online porn, Sousa, Uhler, and lawmakers said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The federal law [banning pornography access for children] is not enforced,&#8221; Utah state Sen. Todd Weiler, a Republican, told The Epoch Times.<\/p>\n<p>Ian Andrews, a spokesman for Pornhub, told The Epoch Times that the company supports measures to\u2064 restrict children from viewing porn by verifying\u200d the age of users.\u200b But he doubts new laws requiring \u2062age verification of users will \u200chelp protect minors. Pornhub is the world&#8217;s 12th-most-visited website, with more than 2.5 billion visitors yearly, according to the consumer \u200dresearch firm Similarweb.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Andrews\u2062 argued that the laws may have the opposite effect.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We hypothesized for years that, if only certain platforms were forced to verify user age, or if\u200d a\u200d law is not regulated properly, the results would see users flocking to the \u200dplatforms \u200cthat \u200ddo not verify age,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is no \u200dlonger hypothetical. Since we became one\u2062 of the few platforms in Louisiana to comply with the law\u2063 and institute mandatory age verification, \u200cwe have \u200cseen an approximately 80 percent drop in our traffic\u2063 in the state.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h2>Amping Up\u200b Laws<\/h2>\n<p>Lawmakers in some states are determined\u200b to \u200bamend state laws to block children from viewing porn.<\/p>\n<p>In May, \u200dUtah <a href=\"https:\/\/le.utah.gov\/~2023\/bills\/static\/SB0287.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">passed<\/a> a law \u200drequiring pornographic websites \u2063to verify that users from that state\u200c are at least\u2063 18. Louisiana, which enacted a similar law in 2022, was the first state to demand age-verification measures to access pornographic websites, Mr. Weiler said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We\u200d made a\u2064 few minor tweaks, but we basically copied <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legis.la.gov\/legis\/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1289498\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Louisiana&#8217;s<\/a>&#8221; law in Utah,\u200d he\u200d said.<\/p>\n<p>The Louisiana\u200c law demands that porn websites perform &#8220;reasonable \u2063age-verification methods&#8221;\u2064 for \u2064Louisiana users.<\/p>\n<p>For\u200d Mr. Weiler, the \u200dfight to protect children from porn websites began in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I ran the\u2063 first resolution in the country to declare \u2062pornography to\u200d be a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/oregon-governor-encourages-people-to-call-police-on-neighbors-violating-covid-orders\/\" title=\"Oregon Governor Encourages People To Call Police On Neighbors Violating COVID Orders\">public health crisis<\/a>,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">While the resolution \u2062 <a style=\"color: #000000;\" href=\"https:\/\/le.utah.gov\/~2016\/bills\/static\/SCR009.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">declared<\/a> that child viewing of pornography \u2062was a\u2063 public \u2062health crisis, resolutions don&#8217;t have\u200b the \u2064force of law or any law \u200benforcement effects.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And since that time, \u2062about \u206315 other\u2062 states have basically copied&#8221; the\u200c resolution, Mr. Weiler said.<\/p>\n<div>\n<figure style=\"width:250px\" class=\"alignright\"><figcaption>Utah State \u200bSen. Todd Weiler. (Courtesy of Mr.\u2062 Weiler)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Five states have joined Utah and Louisiana in going farther.<\/p>\n<p>Virginia, Mississippi,\u200c Texas, Montana, and \u2062Arkansas have added\u2064 age-verification\u2064 laws for pornography websites.<\/p>\n<p>Arizona, California, \u2063South Carolina, Minnesota, and New Jersey all have bills for age verification under consideration, according to\u200d data gathered by the Free\u2062 Speech Coalition (FSC).<\/p>\n<p>Support for the bills is largely bipartisan, Mr. Weiler said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is not just a Republican issue,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I\u2064 think many Democrats agree that children \u2063shouldn&#8217;t be viewing this content.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, \u2064South \u2063Dakota, West Virginia, Missouri, Alabama, and Tennessee have considered bills requiring age verification for porn users,\u200d but they failed to pass, according \u200cto FSC.<\/p>\n<h2>Relying on Honest Answers<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/criminal-ceos\/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-obscenity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">According to federal law,<\/a> the crime\u2064 of &#8220;knowingly&#8221; using computer services to display obscenity to \u2064minors is punishable with imprisonment, fines, and \u2062sex \u200boffender registration.<\/p>\n<p>But\u2064 the word &#8220;knowingly&#8221; provides a loophole, Mr. Uhler said.<\/p>\n<p>Under federal law, if a\u200c teen lies about his or her age to access porn, porn distributors can&#8217;t\u200b be blamed for believing the age \u2062verification information provided by the child, \u200che said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Like a kid who wants to access porn is going \u2064to be\u2064 honest,&#8221;\u2064 Mr. Uhler \u200csaid wryly.<\/p>\n<p>This\u2064 system\u2063 puts the responsibility on minors to be truthful, rather than on\u200d porn website operators to ascertain the truth, Mr. Weiler said.<\/p>\n<p>Companies\u200c have &#8220;taken \u200bsteps to make sure \u200bthat 14-year-old girls in Topeka, Kansas, aren&#8217;t accessing \u200conline gambling sites,&#8221; he said. &#8220;They&#8217;ve taken steps\u200d to make sure that 14-year-old girls in Topeka, Kansas, aren&#8217;t buying vaping and \u200cnicotine products \u2064online. And those companies are not directly shipping wine to 14-year-old girls.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But\u2063 the porn industry hasn&#8217;t received the same regulatory pressure to protect children from its products, \u2062he said.<\/p>\n<p>Any company actually interested in blocking minors from\u2062 accessing the porn it offers could use a third-party company to screen users before they&#8217;re allowed\u2062 to access the site.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The technology&#8217;s there,&#8221; Mr. Weiler\u2064 said. &#8220;It would take about\u200b 30 seconds&#8221; to verify a would-be \u2063user&#8217;s identity and age.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Utah&#8217;s \u2064laws<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Experts and lawmakers have expressed concern over the accessibility of graphic, violent, deviant, and harmful online pornography to children. The federal government&#8217;s lack of action in addressing this issue has been criticized. While it is illegal to show pornography to children, there are no federal regulations mandating age verification on porn websites.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":2008656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2008655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2008655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2008655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2008656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2008655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2008655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2008655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}