Feb 18, 2007 6:00 AM PST    Text size: 

CP80, which is the group behind the TruthinPorn campaign that seeks to move all adult sites into a single, clean Internet port, released the film at the end of January to coincide with a resolution from the Utah House of Representatives urging the U.S. Congress to do more to curb online porn.

“I can't tell you how many stories I've heard, how many lives I've seen destroyed by pornography,” Rep. Bradley Daw, the resolution’s sponsor, said. “This is an absolute scourge on our society.”

Ralph Yarro, founder of CP80, called the Utah resolution the “shot heard around the world.”

“Utah is standing up and saying, ‘Porn is a problem,’” he said.

Yarro added that Utah is one of seven states with similar resolutions on the table, adding that Oregon legislators will soon debate a measure that would label Internet pornography a public health emergency.

The film details the experiences of Shelley Lubben, a former porn star turned anti-porn activist who used the stage name Roxy, as she battled a drug and alcohol addiction and contracted herpes while working in the adult entertainment industry.

The film also reports that access to pornography by minors is a big problem, with nearly 57 percent of those aged 9 to 19 having viewed adult content online.

An article in the Deseret News reported that The Free Speech Coalition said that figure is closer to 10 percent. However, FSC Executive Director Diane Duke said the trade group had no such data.

Lubben said one adult producer told her that the industry markets to children.

“[One producer told me], ‘We want the children — they’re the next generation of consumers,’” Lubben said. “They actually program their websites to have words that kids search for.”

Although she had not seen the film, Duke told XBIZ she rejected the claims made by Lubben.

“In any business you will be able to find disgruntled past workers willing to disparage their industry,” she said. “In many ways, we are like any other industry. The difference is with our industry is that there are organized groups of moral extremists attempting to put us out of business. These groups use fear and falsehoods to organize communities against the industry. It is up to us to dispel theses myths. We are the adult entertainment industry, we use adult performers, and produce adult products for use by the adult community — period.”