After the false missile alert issued in Hawaii, there was a 50 percent rise in PornHub traffic, some reports claimed. Yet, far away in the east coast, things don't seem that porn-friendly as Florida could brand pornography as a public health risk soon.
This was announced following the state House of Representatives committee gave an overwhelming approval to the resolution on Thursday, as reported by Mirror.uk.
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Republican representative Ross Spano spearheaded the resolution based on researches that found links between pornography and 'mental and physical illnesses,' among other societal and individual illnesses.
Initially Spano – who also sponsored the bill, wanted it to be branded as a state public health crisis – the status held by opioid epidemic – in Florida, but the resolution was passed by deeming any kind of adult entertainment material as a 'risk' instead.
The resolution states that pornography is a public health risk from which Florida needs to 'protect the citizens of [the] state' through 'education, prevention, research and policy change.'
Spano and 17 other supporters of the resolution see pornography as a growing risk in an age of limitless access to the media, especially with technology that is ever advancing, since 'children are exposed to pornography at an alarming rate' which is contributing to their 'hypersexualisation.'
The local news station WFSU reported that Spano's pornography concerns stem from his own son, who upon being asked about the first time he had come across porn, he had responded saying he was probably all of 10, and an older kid had shown it to him.
Spano also cites in the resolution how research shows that 27 percent of young adults 'report that they first viewed pornography before the onset of puberty.' The resolution states porn is associated with a wide-range of adverse health effects and that it is 'potentially biologically addictive, resulting in the user consuming increasingly more shocking material to satisfy the addiction.'
Psychologists and psychiatrists have even considered adding porn to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), but it was once again excluded from the book's fifth edition. New York psychologist Dr Ari Tuckman also shared with Daily Mail Online how 'porn can be easy to blame as the cause, but it's really part of the problem' when it comes to relationships.
But while small studies suggest that exposure to porn at younger ages may affect men's attitudes toward women, Pornhub's recently released statistics also revealed that more and more women are watching porn.
Yet when it comes to Florida and porn, they have been mutual boons to each other: porn to Florida's economy and Florida to porn, historically. The Exxxotica Porn Convention happens at Fort Lauderdale every year, while on the other hand, both Orlando and Miami ranked in the top-ten cities for porn consumption in 2012.
However, Dr Cary Pigman who was the only medical doctor on the committee that passed the resolution, said: "I'm not sure that we need to spend legislative time enunciating a particular complaint when we have others that are far more pressing."
