Pornography and our Youth
by A L SANDERS
T he other day, while riding the bus to work, I couldn’t help noticing a rather sickening scene as we stopped for what seemed to be an unusually long red light. A poor disheveled looking man was stoop ing into a garbage can, seeking some of the moldy, corrupting fragments th a t were to be taken to the dump. To see the filth on which he was feeding was enough to tu rn one’s stomach. I’m sure the other passeng ers, who noticed the derelict, felt the same way. I wish th a t I could have reached him to w arn of what such habits m ight bring. And yet, I won der if you realize th a t almost all of us are subjected to sim ilar mental diets each day. How many thousands of people there are who let their eyes feed and feast on the filth and degradation th a t seems so prevalent on every hand: obscenity masquerad ing in the name of art or advertising. Dr. W illiam W. McKibben re ported in the May 1960 issue of a well-known medical journal, “By ex posing immature youngsters or even adults to pictures of men and women in suggestive poses, the filth m er chants lay the seed for maladjust- m e n t , delinquency, prostitution, homosexuality, and other depravi ties.” Pornography, the new black plague, must be stamped out. The word “porno” from the Greek means “pros titute.” “Graphe,” from the Greek means “w riting.” Funk & Wagnalls College Standard D ictionary defines pornography as, “the expression or suggestion of the obscene in speak ing, w riting, etc; licentious art or literature.”
Pornography appears in this coun try in many forms ranging from the somewhat mild suggestive advertis ing in national magazines to the downright base and ugly types ex hibited in a multitude of ways. Most of us are fam iliar w ith the former, for it appears on our news stands even in the most popular mediums; but the latter type is distributed through devious channels. You may say, “Well, you don’t know our home. We have one of the finest in the city. Everything is clean and neat and in its place. Our chil dren regularly attend one of the fin est churches in the community, and they’re involved in wholesome Chris tian activities.” W hat you say may be entirely correct, and you can be
both the federal government and the states. Uniform ly they present illicit sexual relations in an attractive m an n e r to the youth. By adultery and prostitution they present infidelity as the accepted way of life; they hold in contempt the marriage relationship and the sanctity of the home; and they create disrespect for religious ideals and religious leaders. Recently, after a distraught mother had discovered a num ber of these pornographic books underneath her boy’s bed, she went to her minister. The minister, in turn, seeking to know if the condition was prevalent, bought comic books bu t found noth ing comic about them. They con tained blueprints for rape, muggings, and murder. They advertised love potions, books on sex, correspondence clubs, pictures of nude women, and sexual perversion. The m inister also went to the police and through their cooperation he heard disquieting stories about teenagers involved in sex bouts and drinking parties. One young boy adm itted th a t he and his friend met a t a g irl’s house to view a dirty movie and then attacked their young hostess. The latest gimmick on the market he discovered was long playing records th a t hid their obscene discussions under the guise of psy chiatric analysis. These discs sell for $15 and $20 each. One of the most popular men’s magazines showed a nude girl in bed talking over the phone to a friend and her words were symbolic of the poison used on our young people. She was saying, “Last nigh t I lived as nature intended, not being dictated to by our hypocritical society and refusing to bow to a set of outmoded rules by false morali ties.” J. Edgar Hoover said publicly, “It seems to me th a t the person who corrupts our children’s minds in this
thankful for it, if it is; bu t I say to you, even w ith all of this, our young people are not immune. W hat about the hours th a t your children are in school, or on the playgrounds, or on their way home? W hat about the times they aré w ith com panions you don’t even know, th a t yoü’ve never met? You cannot, it is impossible, to be w ith them every moment of the day. Listen to what a medical doctor has to say on the subject.
Dr. Benjamin Karpman, Chief Psy chotherapist at St. Elizabeth’s hospi tal in Washington, D.C.: “You can take perfectly healthy boys and girls and by exposing them to abnormali ties, you can virtually crystallize their habits for the rest of their lives. This pernicious infection, I m ight say, leads to greater and greater anti social behaviour. It is a known fact th a t hardened criminals, now in our biggest jails, often started a life of crime w ith nothing more than porno graphic magazines and pictures as a steady diet in youth. This is on file in confessions in our state prisons. Sexual lusts, evil, and perversion are just the ground floor for the upper stories of our state penitentiaries.” At least fifty magazines and a num ber of paper back books in general circulation today are so pornographic in cartoons, pictures, and text that they are in violation of the laws of
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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