Posted on 09/10/2013 6:51:50 PM PDT by Morgana
Spetember 10, 2013 (thePublicDiscourse) - A bit more than a year ago, we made public here on Public Discourse a letter we had sent to the chief executive officers of our nation’s largest hotel chains, respectfully asking them to stop offering pornography in their hotel rooms. We said:
We are, respectively, a Christian and a Muslim, but we appeal to you not on the basis of truths revealed in our scriptures but on the basis of a commitment that should be shared by all people of reason and goodwill: a commitment to human dignity and the common good. As teachers and as parents, we seek a society in which young people are encouraged to respect others and themselves—treating no one as an impersonal object or thing. We hope that you share our desire to build such a society.
Pornography is degrading, dehumanizing, and corrupting. It undermines self-respect and respect for others. It reduces persons—creatures bearing profound, inherent, and equal dignity—to the status of objects. It robs a central aspect of our humanity—our sexuality—of its dignity and beauty. It ensnares some in addiction. It deprives others of their sense of self-worth. It teaches our young people to settle for the cheap satisfactions of lust, rather than to do the hard, yet ultimately liberating and fulfilling, work of love. Pornography is degrading, dehumanizing, and corrupting. It undermines self-respect and respect for others.
One hotel chain, Marriott, informed us that they were “phasing out” offerings of pornography in their hotel rooms. Another, Hilton, defended its participation in the pornography business by appealing, dubiously in our view, to libertarian principles. Others, so far as we can tell, have ignored our plea.
We wish to reiterate that plea here, however, by holding up to the American hotel executives the highly laudable actions of Petter Stordalen, owner of Nordic Hotels, one of Scandinavia’s largest chains. Mr. Stordalen, after becoming involved in international efforts to fight the horrific practice of trafficking women and girls into sexual slavery, announced that pornography would no longer be offered to his customers. In a public statement explaining his decision, he said:
The porn industry contributes to trafficking, so I see it as a natural part of having a social responsibility to send out a clear signal that Nordic Hotels doesn't support or condone this.
He’s right. The pornography industry is corrupt through and through—inherently so. It should come as no surprise that it is connected to something as exploitative, degrading, and dehumanizing as human trafficking. Bravo to Petter Stordalen for refusing to continue profiting from peddling the industry’s wares.
Of course, even if trafficking were not part of the reality of the industry, good people should be opposed to pornography and unwilling to profit from it. As we said in our letter to hotel executives:
We beg you to consider the young woman who is depicted as a sexual object in these movies, as nothing but a bundle of raw animal appetites whose sex organs are displayed to the voyeurs of the world and whose body is used in loveless and utterly depersonalized sex acts. Surely we should regard that young woman as we would regard a sister, daughter, or mother. She is a precious member of the human family. You may say that she freely chooses to compromise her dignity in this way, and in some cases that would be true, but that gives you no right to avail yourself of her self-degradation for the sake of financial gain. Would you be willing to profit from her self-degradation if she were your sister? Would you be willing to profit from her self-degradation if she were your own beloved daughter?
The reality is, however, just as Mr. Stordalen depicts it. Human trafficking is part of the reality. And it is time for his fellow hotel executives to face up to that fact.
Indeed, it is time for Mr. Stordalen’s American counterparts to follow his commendable example. If Nordic Hotels can demonstrate this kind of moral and social responsibility, then there is no reason that Hilton Hotels and the other large chains cannot. Let them stop trying to deceive the public—and perhaps even themselves—with rhetoric about respecting or even protecting their customers’ liberty. Pornography is a social plague with horrific real-life consequences for real live people—addicts, spouses, children, communities, girls and women trafficked into sexual servitude.
At this late season of our nation’s experience with the social costs of pornography there is no longer any excuse for supposing that porn is merely a form of harmless naughtiness. Even the socially very liberal nation of Iceland is moving to ban or severely restrict it by law. Whatever one thinks of legal prohibitions or restrictions, everyone should recognize that pornography is a moral and social evil that no decent person would want to profit from or have anything to do with.
Yes. And this is one of the reasons that I loathe and despise Libertarians - a bunch of creepy perverts, whose ideology is an excuse for this garbage.
Well, first I don’t understand the muslim saying anything about pornography or would they be happier is it were kiddy porn.
Just don’t order it, if you don’t want to watch.
I mean good grief, you have to order it and pay extra, just don’t.
It is amusing that Marriott the mormon chain still sells porn.
“It is amusing that Marriott the mormon chain still sells porn.”
I’m shocked the Mormon chain ever did in the first place!!! Hey I’m not exactly “down” with the Book of Mormon but it’s beats porn any day, and as long as they have a Gideon bible beside it in the rooms I’m cool.
Let's promote gun control while we're at it too?
We definitely need people who know better to tell us what we can see. For too long people have been free to make this decision for themselves. It’s time our betters took on the responsibility of deciding what we can see, read, hear and, it’s hoped, think.
Marriott owns very few properties, but the franchisees were able to negotiate cable TV, movie and “extras”.
For many years, the studios locked up movie rights to PPV or to the cable TV/satellite partners. A hotel never saw but a small percentage of any revenue off a “normal” movie. Pr0n was the only thing that moved the $$ needle to breakeven for the major chains, and hotels are very cost sensitive.
Marriott no longer offers porn in any of their cable TV/sat TV packages, and I have been told that franchisees that cut their own deals must abide with the new rules.
Some hotels put bandwidth limiters on their Internet, but it does not discriminate between Netflix and Foxyflix.
Not affiliated with Marriott in any way except that I spend 150+ nights in one of their brands somewhere in the US each year.
While I agree that porn is a destructive pastime, there is no good definition of what it actually is, and no measure if it is more harmful than other viewing. Is late night cinemax porn? Baywatch re-runs? Why or why not? Are there more legitimate uses for erotic entertainment?
Would you be more concerned if your son was entertained and inspired by watching hot women, or stimulated by watching MSNBC? If there is no appeal to moral absolutes then the made up ethics of exploitation and dehumanization are as true of the IRS as they are of porn and the NFL. If there are no absolute standards, if the goal is moral rigorousness then it must be defined. Otherwise maybe the best you can hope for is not turn on the TV yourself.
Uhh, 10 years ago I traveled a lot on business. 90% or so of hotels had the PPV porn channels.
Don’t travel as much now, but when I do few hotels have porn channels. I assume people are getting their porn online rather than over the TV.
Hotels need Bibles in the rooms not porn.
Why would anyone pay for hotel porn when they can get it free over the internet?
No, and you clearly didn’t read the article. No one has to be “forced” when the moral climate presents it as normal and ok - people just fall into it because it’s easily available and there’s no judgement attached. That’s the whole point. As to “evil” - if the shoe fits....
You apparently don't understand free market economics. Porn is big business, unfortunately. As long as there are consumers paying for it, it isn't going away.
So why not sell little children to f**k? There’s a market for that? Or live babies to eat - a market could be developed.
"That's a big dollar. We've done research - huge market. "
Worth repeating.
These are already against the law, and most of us "liberaltarians" support such laws.
I think he understands that there are laws against such things. I think he is calling you (i.e., libertarians) a hypocrite for accepting those laws when you get so indignant about others.
Libertarians will say they accept such laws now the same way homosexuals just want tolerance, until they get some power and push things even farther. The age of consent is not in the Constitution and the libertarians are wanting to abolish it.
I have had debates with them. I am not even talking about fringe libertarians, they see kids as little adults with all the same rights as adults. The right to sex, drugs and everything else. Of course kids are very impressionable and open to coercion and this does not bother them, only ‘consent” matters.
Libertarians like Glenn Beck totally support the destruction of the institute of marriage - the bedrock of civilization - by legalizing gay marriage. Why would libertarians be in favor of state sanctioned same sex marriage? Same reason as the homo’s. To destroy marriage of course.
Some libertarians pretend otherwise (like when homo’s said they only want tolerance) because they want to sound palatable to the mainstream but they really do want these things.
Not a responsive answer, nor a good one. You contradict yourself.
Being “against the law” is a mutable condition - it could be legalized tomorrow, and the market for child rape is eager and waiting.
I don’t give a monkey’s about what so-called libertarians - aka amoral perverts - “support”, since it’s not about them, it’s about right and wrong.
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