I haven’t jumped on Utah’s Republican-led campaign against pornography, “the new drug,” mostly because I don’t think it’s the proper role of government. There isn’t much a porn czar can do other than proclaim that porn is bad. And the 2016 ceremonial title of “public health crisis” won’t put a dent in the industry’s profits.
The Legislature’s 2016 resolution warned that “this biological addiction leads to increasing themes of risky sexual behaviors, extreme degradation, violence, and child sexual abuse images and child pornography.”
Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune Sen. Todd Weiler, R- Woods Cross, and Rep. Craig Hall, R-West Valley City, left, stand with representatives of anti-pornography groups and Gov. Gary Herbert in the Gold Room at the Utah Capitol Tuesday, April 19, 2016, for a ceremonial signing of two pornography bills, SCR-9 and HB 155. The ceremonial signing of the bills is to show Utah’s resolution declaring porn to be a public health crisis.
Pornography is less about sex and more about fiction and exploitation. And money. There will always be someone willing to pay.
I do find it unfortunate that the government got more involved when victims other than women became noticeable; the immorality of pornography was set aside. Not until it was a “public health crisis” — wherein the entire public is at risk — did the state feel a need to step in and do something.
Does porn sexualize women? Yes. Does it sully something beautiful and even sacred? Yes.
As Pope John Paul II said, “There is no dignity when the human dimension is eliminated from the person. In short, the problem with pornography is not that it shows too much of the person, but that it shows far too little.”
Do I think pornography acts as a gateway drug to other nefarious sex crimes? Sometimes. Pornography displays on a screen the truth behind Margaret Atwood’s famous quote, “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
(Al Hartmann | The Salt Lake Tribune) Brightly colored billboard just north of the 5300 South exit on I-15 northbound claims that Cosmopolitan magazine is pornographic. That ad campaign is central to a move that may revive the long-dormant state office that was popularly called the porn czar.
Do I think looking at pornography can be as addictive as opioid drugs? Again, sometimes. But opioid drugs can kill someone. Pornography, alone, cannot, notwithstanding a person’s spiritual state, which the government really shouldn’t be involved in anyway.
Utah’s close relationship with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which teaches that premarital sex is taboo, makes an objective view of pornography limited, to say the least.
There is one aspect of pornography, though, that can be universally maligned — child porn. Pictures depicting sexual activity involving minor children, who do not and cannot have the capacity to consent, is reprehensible.
Not only does it demean and abuse the children involved in its making, but it perpetuates the abhorrent practice and titillates men (mostly) into imagining such scenarios, even when the pictures use women who are over 18, but who appear unusually young.
Eve Petrie, right, gives her statement next to her parents, Mary Schulz and Eric Petrie, during Larry Nassar's sentencing at Eaton County Circuit Court in Charlotte on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2018. The former Michigan State University sports-medicine and USA Gymnastics doctor is being sentenced for three first-degree criminal sexual abuse charges related to assaults that occurred at Twistars, a gymnastics facility in Dimondale. Nassar has also been sentenced to 60 years in prison for three child pornography charges in federal court and between 40 and 175 years in Ingham County for seven counts of criminal sexual conduct. (Cory Morse /The Grand Rapids Press via AP)
Early in my clerkship at the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, I had to review a case and draft a memo for a child porn case. To prepare, I had to read descriptions of what exactly the defendant had been accused of storing on his computer.
If that weren’t bad enough, I also had to look through every exhibit submitted in briefing or used at trial. It was shockingly vile to my naive, Mormon eyes.
It would be shocking to most people’s eyes.
Which is why the story of an eighth-grade teacher at American Preparatory Academy in West Valley City was so disturbing. A year ago officials accused Michael Scott Hatfield of compiling two scrapbooks of child porn material, bringing them to school and using them to masturbate in his classroom between classes.
(Courtesy Salt Lake County jail) Michael Scott Hatfield
On the classroom camera, school officials watched as Hatfield pulled a black bag out of his desk and covered the camera multiple times. Even though the camera was covered, the microphone was still engaged.
Court records explained that the books contained “collage-style pages which included cutouts and photos of nude girls,” including a picture of children related to him.
Of course the first response is how do these teachers get into the classroom? All teachers, including teachers at charter schools, have to be licensed by the state.
When the school hired Hatfield in 2013, he passed a background check, which included a fingerprint card and a Bureau of Criminal Identification report. He also passed another background check in 2016.
School officials were lucky to catch the guy in this case. The charter school had cameras in every classroom, which other public schools don’t usually have.
So the question becomes, if we can’t limit the pervasiveness of porn, how can we protect against it? I don’t have an answer, but I’m pretty sure it’s not government resolutions.
Unless the government resolves to put cameras in each classroom.
Michelle Quist is an editorial writer for The Salt Lake Tribune whose Mormon background can barely sustain writing about pornography and would rather the whole business just go away.
Follow @MichelleLQuist