Fighting Porn Addiction: Should Porn be Against the Law?

Even if they do not talk about the problem in terms of porn addiction, many countries are concerned about the mushrooming consumption of porn and are making moves in the direction of criminalizing internet pornography.  A number of countries already have.  The concern is not only about child porn but all hardcore online porn.

Whether governments should ban porn or not is a complicated matter that is debated on many levels.  But there is also a debate about whether it is actually possible to stop the flow of porn onto the internet. 

Let’s look at these two questions separately.

Should countries prohibit hardcore adult porn?

A number of countries are either attempting to enforce existing laws against pornography by blocking internet porn sites and/or by prosecuting those responsible for the porn sites.  A number of other countries are in the process of trying to make online porn content illegal.

Hardcore pornographic content is already being blocked in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Gaza Strip, Indonesia and Pakistan and there is a complicated regulatory structure in Australia.   (See the Wikipedia catalog of countries and their existing porn laws.)

In other countries there is heated debate and movement toward the banning of internet porn, such as India, Egypt and Iceland.  And in the UK and the US there is controversy about and resistance to making or enforcing laws that criminalize the posting or viewing of hardcore adult pornographic content.

Some of the main arguments for making anti-porn laws (or for enforcing laws that may be on the books) are:

-Porn is socially unjust in that it is oppressive toward women (Iceland),

-Porn is causing violence against women (India)

-Porn is socially and morally corrosive (China, Egypt and others)

-Porn addiction is a problem for many adults (US, UK)

-children can be inadvertently exposed to harmful content (US, UK, Iceland and others)

The arguments against criminalizing adult hardcore porn are mainly that such laws would violate freedom of expression, that porn is personal and is something that should not be controlled by governments and that there are legitimate positive uses for pornographic content.

Is it possible to outlaw internet porn?

A 2011 International Herald Tribune headline states: “Over 1,000 porn sites blocked in Pakistan.”  Although at that time Pakistan was continuing to find and block sites, the article goes on to say that there was a list of over 170,000 websites that might be banned.  The article says:

“Blocking 170,000 sites is not feasible for any operator.  The screening time on a per request basis will essentially slow the internet down to make it unusable.”

The International Business Times last month had an article on China’s anti-porn ban which reported that the creator of China’s biggest porn site was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2005, and that movie producers and film studios creating erotic films can potentially lose their licenses to make movies.

But the article goes on to state:

“Still, with constantly developing technology, and the demand for pornography, Internet users are still able to access pornographic material.”

Last month the L.A. Times reported that following anti-porn demonstrations, Egypt now has a plan to implement a court-ordered ban on porn websites.  The plan is to target each individual website and will cost about $4 million.  This is a big and controversial expense for a country that is under pressure economically.  This seems like a never ending if not impossible task for any government to attempt.  And if porn cannot be interdicted at the level of the website or the internet service provider it seems like a hard sell to prosecute individuals for watching the material that is currently flooding the web.

I am convinced that porn addiction is a growing problem and that the epidemic of porn consumption around the globe shows no sign of slowing.  The process of getting the product to the customer via the internet is extremely sophisticated and difficult to regulate.

Yet we do regulate some products that are addictive and/or damaging such as cigarettes, alcohol and even the sexual content of movies.  People need to find a way to agree on some basic ideas about what content should be regulated, especially as regards children.  The problem of implement regulations on internet content, like the problem of combating porn addiction, will probably be a long and difficult process combining the efforts of research, technology, public heath and advocacy.