LOS ANGELES — The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has announced the release of its annual “Dirty Dozen” list of what it calls “the mainstream contributors to the normalization of sexual exploitation.”
According to NCOSE, since the 1950’s, pornography has become increasingly available and normalized, with fashion magazines, cable television, Internet service providers, popular entertainment, “sexting,” and the local grocery store checkout aisle all contributing to an unacceptable pornification of American culture.
“Pornography users, who often start out as teenagers, grow up to become individuals who work as librarians, law enforcement officers, lawyers, judges, reporters, corporate executives, and Hollywood screen writers, etc.,” an NCOSE spokesperson stated. “Naturally, the amount and type of pornography they consume eventually colors their judgements [sic], values, and beliefs, and for some, becomes a perspective that is superimposed on their relationships, both private and professional, and ultimately culture [at] large.”
NCOSE targets agencies, businesses and groups that it characterizes as among the nation’s worst when it comes to “facilitating and protecting access to pornography, pandering and profiting directly from it, or pushing an agenda that normalizes pornography or other egregious forms of sexual exploitation,” stating that these entities “stand in alliance with pornographers, pimps, and sex buyers.”
“At NCOSE we work for a world where the pornified vision of reality — with its utilitarian and insatiable consumption of human beings for selfish sexual pleasure, its raw, brutal, debasing, violent and hate-filled themes — becomes unacceptable to all people with concern and respect for the dignity and well-being and humanity,” the spokesperson adds. “One way we do this is through the annual ‘Dirty Dozen List,’ which names and shames a range of actors who contribute significantly to the normalization of pornography (or prostitution and sex trafficking).”
So what are these villainous entities bent on destroying American culture and civilization?
For 2016, they include Amazon.com, the American Library Association, Amnesty International, Backpage.com, Cosmopolitan Magazine, The U.S. Department of Justice, HBO, Sexpresso Cafes, Snapchat, Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Verizon, and YouTube.
While NCOSE is intent on “naming and shaming” these entities, porn professionals will note that most of these targets have a long history of hostility towards the business of bawdiness — not only making the entire list and its background agenda suspect, but underscores the extremism of this group that pretends it speaks for the interests of ordinary Americans.
This radical form of self-righteous censorship and corporate blackmail is extremely troubling, especially in an election year. Hopefully, right-thinking observers will note that while NCOSE got the year right when it released this list, the Puritanical attitude it reflects is more in tune with 1016 than with 2016...