By Burke Jensen
Pornography has grown into a $10 billion business - bigger than the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball combined, according to an ABC News report.
And Mana Vautier, 23, a freshman from Auckland, New Zealand, majoring in physics, has decided to take a stand against it.
Vautier organized a petition last week that commits students to encourage their friends and families to stay in hotels that do not provide pornographic material on TV programming.
'After collecting over 2,000 names, I will visit the four hotels and motels that offer adult entertainment (in Provo and Orem),' he said. 'The petition will hopefully show that there is enough people against the availability of adult programming in hotels and motels in the Provo/Orem area that the owners will see it is not economically viable.'
Unless motels understand that the community won''t support pornography, change is unlikely, said Rory Reid, a part-time faculty instructor who focused his graduate work on impulse control disorders associated with pornography.
The project originated as an American Heritage course requirement, Vautier said. He was required to do something practical to help solve a problem in American society.
Vautier said he sought the advice from a professor for help on the project and was referred to Reid.
'I could tell he wanted to do something on the community level so together we came up with this project,' Reid said.
Through this petition, Vautier said he hopes to contain the pornography problem and keep it from oozing out of the local hotel establishments.
One of the ways people get involved with pornography occurs during overnight business trips, when they stay in hotels that show pornography on television, Reid said.
'When they are bored, they surf the channels on the television until they come across something pornographic, and then they watch it,' Reid said.
These people are alone and realize they can indulge in this inappropriate behavior with little or no consequences, he said.
'Sadly, there are always consequences,' he said.
In 1999, the issue of pornographic television programming was brought to Omni Hotels, and they resolved to stop providing it, said Caryn Kboudi, the marketing vice president for Omni Hotels. Their hotel was the first major hotel chain to make that decision.
'The decision was made for no other reason other than we felt it was the right thing to do,' she said.
Since then, the hotel chain has received thousands of letters thanking them for the decision, she said.
Kboudi said she could only remember one negative response.
Since that time, the decision to eliminate adult entertainment has increased the hotel''s business.
'We''ve never seen a decline in business from the decision,' Kboudi said. 'It has allowed some new groups, such as religious groups that were opposed to adult entertainment, to come to our hotels.'
The effects from pornography can be devastating, Reid said.
'Pornography teaches a fraudulent message about human intimacy,' he said. 'It portrays distorted views of sexual relations as normal interaction between partners, creating unrealistic expectations in relationships.'
Pornography also minimizes the consequences of promiscuous sexual behavior, such as sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, he said.