Chattanooga, Tennessee- from www.newschannel9.com -Corporate pornography is screwing the world – That’s the title of a lecture held at U-T-C Monday night.

The porn industry makes billions of dollars every year. And while many argue that pornography is an expression of free speech, Monday night’s lecturer says a high number of porn actors have been raped or sexually abused and that people should think critically about their choice to consume pornography.

“Is it something that benefits humanity and feminists and people in general or is it something that is problematic and I maintain it is something that’s problematic and it’s probably a bigger problem than most people would admit,” Mike Jaynes, with UTC’s Women’s Studies Department, says. That’s the basic premise of Jaynes’ lecture.

Jaynes, a self proclaimed feminist, says the United States consumes 89% of the world’s pornography. And he says like it or not, porn is mainstream.
Jaynes says in 2006 25% of total search engine requests were for porn. He also says 11,000 porn films are made every year compared to approximately 400 Hollywood films.

Jaynes says pornography warps expectations of women saying they’re often seen as disposable objects and that’s in legal porn. You don’t even have to leave the Tennessee Valley to see the affects of illegal pornography. A little more than a year ago Federal agents arrested Bart Huskey in Lafayette after he raped a young girl for three years and posted videos on-line. Huskey later plead guilty after spreading the violent child pornography series across the globe.

“The possibility of child pornography existing and maybe benefiting from legal forms of pornography I think then that’s just a stronger case to ethically reject all of pornography,” Jaynes says.

Jaynes says he’s not calling for a legal ban on pornography but for a rejection based on free will.

“Pornography is damaging in my opinion to women and non-dominant humans and the viewing of it and it’s financial support of it should be curbed simply because of the suffering involved,” Jaynes says.

Pornography advocates like Larry Flint say porn needs first amendment protection more than anything else because they say freedom is only important if you’re going to offend someone.