First of all, we know from the violence that is perpetrated because of the use of pornography.... One of the leading causes of oral cancer today among youth is the HPV virus, which is caused by oral sex. We know that's one of the biggest growing groups for all cancer in adolescent girls. We know that for anal injuries, all kinds of injuries end up in the medical system.
We know that a good percentage of men who were studied have put it between 40% to 70% of men access pornography at work. What does that do to the workplace in terms of sexual harassment when you go in to have a meeting with maybe your male boss or your male colleague, and he has just been masturbating to pornography? How is he going to see you?
We also know that it causes depression and anxiety. As a college professor, my students come into class at 18, and they are so tired, exhausted, and depressed from having to deal with the porn culture. I want to specifically talk about girls because we've focused on boys. This is a key issue of gender equality. Are we going to allow our boys access to images that tell them women are nothing more than orifices to be pounded away, and that they have no rights to arrive at equality, integrity, and equal pay? All the things that women want, which is really a life of dignity, and a life to be free from fear of poverty and violence.
The questions we want to ask are what kind of men are we going to bring up, and what is going to be the cost to the women and the children of having to deal with these men? It is going to be profound. My Ph.D. is in sociology and communication, and it's very important to say there is no way—and you can pick any type of effect you want—that any male who masturbates to pornography will walk away unchanged. The question is how is he going to change? We have enough data to know that it's a continuum of effects. That is, anything from seeing her more as a sex object to wanting rough pounding anal sex, right through to rape and murder.
I want us to focus a little more on the issue of gender equity and not just around boys.