You need to leave the room when the projector begins
by Charles BiggsAbout 25 years ago, one of my best friends was getting married and he invited me to his bachelor party. At the time, he was a student at Oklahoma State University and a member of an OSU fraternity.
I never joined a fraternity, but I had friends in college who were members.
The frat brothers arranged for the party to be at a local hotel. I arrived with my buddy and even though we are both non-drinkers, the frat boys already had beer at the party.
When we arrived, they trotted out an old movie projector and started showing a film.
It was a porno movie.
They thought it was really funny to show a nasty (and at that time illegal) stag film at the bachelor party of an outspoken Christian who doesn’t drink and who doesn’t look at pornography.
It took about 30 seconds for us to realize what kind of movie it was and we left for another room until it was finished.
The last week of October was “National White Ribbon Against Pornography Week in the United States.”
Pornography is a huge problem in our country.
As a man, I understand the allure of pornography. Men are stimulated by sight and women by touch. The porn industry is pointed toward men.
When I was a teen, guys at school would sneak a Playboy into their house or garage and go take a peek. It was very tempting.
There were some dirty movies (X-rated) that were shown in regular theaters. None of my friends (as far as I know) ever went to the sleazy adult theaters to watch the really bad pornography.
When Al Gore invented the Internet, it accelerated pornography’s influence. Now, it seems you have an enormous stream of dirty stuff at your fingertips.
Here are a few statistics:
- Pornography is a $57 billion industry.
- Adult video sales top $20 billion.
- Escort services (prostitution) grosses $11 billion.
- Dirty magazines rake in $7.5 billion.
- Sex clubs make $5 billion a year.
- Phone sex companies make $4.5 billion a year.
- Cable television/pay per view channels rake in $2.5 billion a year.
- DVD sales top $1.5 billion. Oklahoma is fifth in the country in dirty DVD sales.
- Sex novelty sales are over $1 billion.
- Porn revenue tops the combined revenues of all professional football, baseball and basketball.
- Porn revenue tops the combined revenues of ABC, CBS and NBC ($6.2 billion).
- Child pornography generates more than $3 billion annually.
- On the Internet, there are 372 million pornographic pages. In fact, www.whitehouse.com is a porn site. The real site is www.whitehouse.gov.
- Daily pornographic search engine requests top 68 million. That’s more than 20 percent of the entire population.
- There are more than 2.5 billion daily pornographic e-mails (8 percent of the total volume).
- The average number of daily pornographic e-mails is 4.5 per Internet user.
- The monthly pornographic downloads (peer to peer) is more than 1.5 billion.
- The Daily Gnutella gets 116,000 daily requests for child pornography.
- More than 100,000 websites offer illegal child pornography.
- In chat rooms, 89 percent of the youths participating have been solicited for sex.
- Seventy two million people visit porn websites daily around the world.
These statistics came from Dr. Harry Schaumburg (www.restoringsexualpurity.org).
Our kids don’t have Internet access in their rooms. The only computer they can use with Internet access is in the living room next to the door to the kitchen. Hopefully, this keeps them from accessing anything too nasty.
This is the path that cultures take when they slide into oblivion.
They de-emphasize God and abandon true worship.
They turn toward hedonism and idolatry. That is a direction pointed toward adultery, fornication and all kinds of activity outside ordained marriage.
And it’s not that pornography affects non-Christians but not Christians. Across the nation, Christian pastors admit that accessing pornography on the Internet is a serious challenge to their morality.
We know that pornography is a gateway to crime. How many mass murderers started down the wrong path by getting involved in porn? I have never heard of one who didn’t.
This is a serious problem. It’s getting worse. We have an amoral administration that will do nothing to slow this down.
All we can do is flee the room when the projector starts.
• Funny Signs, Part I
At a Santa Fe gas station: “We will sell gasoline to anyone in a glass container.”
In a New York restaurant: “Customers who consider our waitresses uncivil ought to see the manager.”
On the wall of a Baltimore estate: “Trespassers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. –Sisters of Mercy”
On a long-established New Mexico dry cleaners: “38 years on the same spot.”
In a Los Angeles dance hall: “Good clean dancing every night but Sunday.”
In a Florida maternity ward: “No children allowed.”
In a New York drugstore: “We dispense with accuracy.”
In the offices of a loan company: “Ask about our plans for owning your home.”
In a New York medical building: “Mental Health Prevention Center”
On a New York convalescent home: “For the sick and tired of the Episcopal Church.”
On a Maine shop: “Our motto is to give our customers the lowest possible prices, and workmanship.”
At a number of military bases: “Restricted to unauthorized personnel.”
On a display of “I love you only” Valentine cards: “Now available in multi-packs.”
In the window of a Kentucky appliance store: “Don’t kill your wife. Let our washing machine do the dirty work.”
In a funeral parlor: “Ask about our layaway plan.”
In a clothing store: “Wonderful bargains for men with 16 and 17 necks.”
In a Tacoma, Washington men’s clothing store: “15 men’s wool suits, $100. They won’t last an hour!”
On a shopping mall marquee: “Archery Tournament — Ears pierced”
Outside a country shop: “We buy junk and sell antiques.”
In the window of an Oregon store: “Why go elsewhere and be cheated when you can come here?”
In a Maine restaurant: “Open 7 days a week and weekends.”
In the vestry of a New England church: “Will the last person to leave please see that the perpetual light is extinguished.”
In a Pennsylvania cemetery: “Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves.”
On a roller coaster: “Watch your head.”
On the grounds of a public school: “No trespassing without permission.”
On a Tennessee highway: “When this sign is under water, this road is impassable.”