According to former senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum there is a growing “pandemic” in our nation. No, it’s not the Swine Flu, HIV, or HPV… it’s pornography.
Santorum is letting us know that he is very well-educated in the world of pornography. He is also letting us know that he plans to ban it all if he becomes president.
On Rick Santorum’s campaign website, he lists off several reasons why pornography should be banned. He says that, “The average age of first exposure to hard-core, Internet pornography is now 11. Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking.” Yes, you read that correctly. Your 11-year-old is watching porn, it screws up relationships, and it’s harmful to women. First of all, since when did Santorum start caring about women? He’s made it quite clear that he wants to control their uterus and health care, and by health care I mean not allowing them to seek it. As far as screwing up relationships, I don’t see how that is possible. It’s a video, not an actual person, and the act of cheating is all in the eye of the beholder. Many couples use porn as a stimulant, which can prove to be very beneficial to a marriage. When it comes to the 11-year-old watching porn, maybe parents should keep an eye on what their kids are watching… end of story.
What I think Santorum is trying to say is that he doesn’t want pornography around, he deems it harmful, and he apparently doesn’t trust men to discern fantasy from reality. So what is the problem here? Is it the sex for entertainment part? OR is it the you can’t trust men part? Because according to the statements made by former Senator Santorum it’s what porn can lead to rather than the porn itself.
Santorum also goes on to say on his website that, “A wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences.” Okay, where is this research? Who did the research? Maybe it just changed your brain, and you are fearful it may change others. Who knows? You didn’t link the statement, so I can only assume you made this line up.
I think that biggest thing we need to let Rick Santorum know is that sex happens, and it’s going to happen whether he writes laws to ban as much of it as he can or not. He has come out against homosexuality, he has come out against women’s reproductive health, he has come out against pornography, and he has come out against sex education. You can’t simply legislate sex away for good. It’s not going to happen.
The best thing we need to do as a nation is provide proper sex education to help children and adults develop an understanding of the benefits and consequences to sexual behavior. It is important to teach our children how to stay safe, not blind fold them so that when they encounter sex later in life they are open to misconduct and disease. It’s not pornography that causes violence against women, it’s the people doing the harm that causes the violence against women, and it can be up to us to properly teach individuals how to treat one another with respect, not just ignore the issue in hopes that it will go away. The best way to stop bad things from happening, or things you don’t agree with from happening is by educating people.
Someone needs to let Rick Santorum know that we live in a free society, and if people want to record their sexual encounters that is their freedom to do so. It is up to the individual to allow it in their lives or not. Republicans are the party of individual freedom, correct? There should of course be exceptions, where if actual violence is being recorded, it should be eliminated and reported to the authorities, but otherwise Santorum needs to keep his personal beliefs and opinions out of other people’s bedrooms and back into his own.
I have never in my life seen someone so obsessed with other people having sex, and all coming from a man who wants to ban porn.
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Sarah Wood is also known in the blogging world as the Opinionated Democrat, and is the Editor-in-Chief of both the political opinion blog Political Shake and the satirical news publication, Free Wood Post.
