When an underage minor goes to view sexually explicit images, do they check out books on the shelves of their school libraries? Or do they pull up NakedGifs.com on their cellphones?
That was the question Idaho Families Inc. posed to 160 participants in the organization’s online discussion group. Why ask such a question?
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) just released shocking data on teenage girl victims of sexual assault — showing a 25 percent jump in two years, from 850,000 cases in 2019, to over a million in 2021.
Debra Houry, M.D., the CDC’s chief medical officer, said it is heartbreaking to see these results, but she is not necessarily shocked. "Sexual violence has been a pervasive problem among girls for quite some time. We aren’t making the progress we need to."
Young girls are the victims, but almost as surprising are the emerging new perpetrators: slightly older teenage boys. Social peers now account for 47.7 percent of sexual assaults, compared to the previously leading culprits, male family members at 29 percent.
The CDC points to two possible causes: 1) during COVID-19, many students started spending more time online and interacting with a smaller circle of friends; and 2) a dearth of parent- or educator-provided instruction to prepare teens for the physical and emotional turmoil of puberty.
Professionals at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) tie these two causes together. Their recent studies conclude that “exposure to pornography has been identified as a significant contributing factor to children acting in sexually harmful ways toward other children.”
Recent reports in Psychology Today sustain that view, revealing that adolescent pornography exposure has now been linked to “permissive sexual attitudes, dominant or aggressive sexual behaviors, and self-objectification and body comparison.”
In other words, what the CDC sees as a “lack of good information” could be the opposite: a prevalence of highly addictive, medically harmful, misogynistic and abuse-prone propaganda: aka porn.
Where are teenagers accessing such destructive content? That brings us back to the Idaho Families Inc. survey. Our first poll came in with 99 percent saying on cellphones, 1 percent answering “school library.”
As administrator of the poll, I saw who answered “libraries.” Out of curiosity I asked the responder for more explanation. “Because libraries often have the best Wi-Fi, but poor porn filters” was the answer.
I explained that the question meant “go to the library to check out pornographic literature,” not to access faster internet. “In that case, the question is absurd” was the reply.
“Checking out a pornographic library book leaves a trail discoverable to parents and library staff,” they explained. “Few teenagers will ogle obscene pictures in a public place. Who says library books rank anywhere as a major source of obscenity bombarding our kids' eyeballs?”
Good question. A quick search of scholarly articles found none citing “libraries” as a significant source of pornography by underage youth.
But you wouldn’t know this considering the time, money and attention dedicated to these issues during the 2023 Idaho Legislature.
House Bill 314 sought to ban minors from checking out “pornographic” books from their local library. The library, itself, could be sued $2,500 if parents find “objectionable” material brought home by their child. The bill was debated extensively in both the House and Senate, sent to the governor, vetoed for being excessively “ambiguous,” and re-debated before failing a veto override vote.
In the same session, Sen. Kevin Cook of Idaho Falls worked with NCOSE to advance legislation setting porn filters “on” as a default for smartphones and tablets given to underage children. While his proposal, Senate Bill 1163, was favorably reported out of the Senate State Affairs Committee, it was killed when libertarian Republicans and Democrats joined forces against it.
We call this “straining at the gnat and cheerfully swallowing the camel.” It’s what happens when you legislate for ratings and hot button “likes,” but couldn’t care less about reducing assault on young girls.