Bill Text: SC H3875 | 2021-2022 | 124th General Assembly | Introduced
Bill Title: Pornography
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 12-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2021-02-11 - Referred to Committee on Judiciary [H3875 Detail]
Download: South_Carolina-2021-H3875-Introduced.html
A HOUSE RESOLUTION
TO RECOGNIZE AND ACKNOWLEDGE THE PUBLIC HEALTH HAZARD OF PORNOGRAPHY WHICH LEADS TO A BROAD SPECTRUM OF INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIETAL HARMS, TO EXPRESS THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE PORNOGRAPHY EPIDEMIC BY ENCOURAGING EDUCATION, PREVENTION, RESEARCH, AND POLICY CHANGES TO ADDRESS THE PROLIFERATION OF PORNOGRAPHY ON THE INTERNET AND TO CALL FOR REGULATION OF PORNOGRAPHY ON THE INTERNET TO ENSURE COMPLIANCE WITH THE OBSCENITY LAWS OF THE STATE.
Whereas, the members of the South Carolina General Assembly recognize that pornography is creating a public health crisis and contributes to the hypersexualization of teens and even prepubescent children in our society; and
Whereas, efforts to prevent pornography exposure and addiction, to educate individuals and families concerning its harmful effects, and to develop recovery programs must be addressed systemically in a manner that holds providers accountable; and
Whereas, due to advances in technology and the universal availability of the Internet, young children are exposed to pornography at an alarming rate and it often serves as their main source of education regarding human sexuality; and
Whereas, twenty-seven percent of young adults between the ages of twenty-five and thirty reported that they first viewed pornography before the onset of puberty; and
Whereas, this early exposure may lead to low self-esteem and body-image disorders, an increase in problematic sexual activity at younger ages, and an increased desire among adolescents to engage in risky sexual behavior; and
Whereas, pornography objectifies women, normalizes violence and the abuse of women and children, and depicts rape and abuse as harmless, which increases the demand for sex trafficking, prostitution, child sexual abuse images, and child pornography; and
Whereas, potential detrimental effects on users of pornography can impact brain development and functioning, contribute to emotional and medical illnesses, shape deviant sexual arousal, and lead to difficulty in forming or maintaining positive, intimate relationships, as well as promote problematic or harmful sexual behaviors and addiction; and
Whereas, recent neurological research indicates that pornography is potentially biologically addictive, which means the user requires more novelty, often in the form of more shocking material, in order to be satisfied; and
Whereas, pornography use is linked to lessening desire in young men to marry, dissatisfaction in marriage, and infidelity and this link demonstrates that pornography has a detrimental effect on the family unit; and
Whereas, it is important to recognize the cancer on society that pornography poses when it is distributed carelessly over the Internet with little regard for the devastating and long-lasting effects that exposure to it can cause, and begin to address the regulation of it to ensure compliance with the state's obscenity laws to protect the State's citizens and youth in particular from such exposure. Now, therefore,
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives:
That the members of the South Carolina House of Representatives, by this resolution, recognize and acknowledge the public health hazard of pornography which leads to a broad spectrum of individual and societal harms, express the need to address the pornography epidemic by encouraging education, prevention, research, and policy changes to address the proliferation of pornography on the Internet and call for regulation of pornography on the Internet to ensure compliance with the obscenity laws of the State.
