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Joseph Perkins [pictured] writes at www.ocregister.com – A ginormous billboard along the I-405 near Costa Mesa informs motorists that Adultcon begins today at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The three-day convention promises “more porn stars than you can handle.”

The Adultcon website has a list of rules for the expected 10,000 or so visitors to its annual sextravaganza. They include:
Article Tab: image1-Joseph Perkins: Porn not a harmless vice

“No nudity of any type (including but not limited to flashing); No bodily fluid exchanges allowed; No blood play (including but not limited to cutting, needle play, extreme whipping that leads to broken skin); any person who appears to be under the influence of alcoholic beverages or drugs will be denied entry; and flammable liquids of any kind are not permitted in the venue.”

Now, I know the producers of Adultcon have the putative right to hold their annual pornfest. But just because they have the “right,” insofar as the law is concerned, doesn’t make it right, in the eyes of this social conservative.

Indeed, I count myself among the two-thirds of Americans who consider pornography “morally wrong,” according to a Gallup poll published last year.

I also am persuaded by the substantial body of research that pornography is not a harmless vice, as some of my libertarian friends maintain, but a depravity that exacts a social cost far worse than, say, tobacco or guns.

Indeed, a 2003 survey of divorce lawyers by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found that nearly 60 percent of broken marriages were the result of a spouse looking at excessive amounts of Internet pornography.

A 2009 study published in the Journal of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association suggested that juvenile sex offenders were “more vulnerable and likely to experience more damaging effects from pornography use,” including “aggressive behaviors.”

It gets darker.

A 2007 study by psychologists at the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed a link between child pornography and child molestation. It surveyed men convicted of downloading child pornography. Of those, 85 percent admitted to sexually abusing kids.

And an FBI study of serial killers found that the most common trait among them was an affinity for pornography. In fact, 81 percent listed porn as their foremost interest.

Yes, there are studies suggesting that women somehow benefit from pornography. Like the survey published by an outfit called the Archives of Sexual Behavior, which claims that 80 percent of women watch pornography.

“Porn may teach women new sexual knowledge, get them to experiment more and potentially increase their sexual arousal and ability to fantasize,” said Gert Martin Hald, the study’s lead author, a sexologist at Copenhagen University Hospital.

Mr. Hald’s survey results are featured on the Adultcon website. What doesn’t appear on the site, not surprisingly, is the data pertaining to the pitiable women who actually appear in adult films; the porn stars who will be on display for the perverse pleasure of the mostly male attendees of Adultcon.

Twenty-six porn stars died of AIDS, drugs, suicide or homicide between 2007 and 2010, according to The Pink Cross Foundation, a faith-based organization – co-founded by former porn star Shelley Lubben – that reaches out to women trying to break free from the seedy adult entertainment business.

Clearly, pornography is not the harmless vice its defenders suggest.

And the reason it continues to thrive, despite its tremendous cost, is because of the long reach of what I call the pornography-industrial complex.

A CNBC documentary last year described it, euphemistically, as “the $13 billion business of pleasure.” Indeed, porn is ubiquitous. It is found at the magazine stand, in the video store, on regular and pay-per-view cable and all over the Internet.

What troubles me most is not the unabashed purveyors of pornography – the adult film industry (of which L.A. County is the world capital), adult bookstores or even porn-related events like Adultcon.

It’s corporate America’s continued silent profiteering from pornography. That includes such “mainstream” publicly traded companies as Comcast, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Barnes & Noble, and Safeway, all of which market porn to their subscribers, guests, customers and shoppers in some form or another.

In 2010, the Witherspoon Institute released a monograph, “The Social Costs of Pornography: A Statement of Findings and Recommendations,” which grew out of a conference at Princeton University that included some 54 scholars across a host of disciplines.

They collectively lamented the “pornogrification” of American culture. They made the case that the First Amendment does not, in fact, protect hard-core pornography. And they called for the Justice Department to resume its previous enforcement of obscenity law.

I absolutely agree with Witherspoon. And I suspect most Americans do, as well.