Pornography has been recognised as a “public health crisis” by two more US states.
Both Virginia and South Dakota have acknowledged that pornography has hit “crisis” levels.
The Virginia State House voted overwhelmingly to pass a resolution expressing concerns over the damaging effects it has on its users. In South Dakota, there were unanimous votes in both the House and Senate.
Dangers
The resolutions have been welcomed by several anti-pornography organisations – The National Center for Sexual Exploitation noted that they will “pave the way for greater awareness and national dialogue on the issue”, predicting it would lay the groundwork to protect some children “from being unintentionally exposed to pornography”.
A spokesman for Fight the New Drug, an organisation that warns of the dangers of pornography addiction, said it welcomed efforts “to educate the world on the dangers of pornography”.
In 2016, Utah became the first US state to declare pornography to be a “public health crisis”.
UK
Last month, a Scottish rapper warned that pornography can “fundamentally deform our conception of human intimacy” and that access should be severely restricted.
Darren ‘Loki’ McGarvey made the comments in The Scotsman newspaper where he admitted struggling with pornography for ten years.
He said that the explicit images have the potential to “distort the way we think about sex” and make real human intimacy seem “unnatural”.
In a stark warning McGarvey concluded that pornography “creates, in many, a ferocious compulsion which can fundamentally deform our conception of human intimacy.”