The fight to ban pornography has found an unlikely ally in 2002 kidnapping victim Elizabeth Smart. In a new CNN video, Smart speaks out about her captors’ fascination with pornography, saying it “made [her] living hell worse.”
Over ominous music and a smattering of images related to Smart’s kidnapping, the on-screen titles read: “In 2002 Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her bedroom. The 14-year-old was held captive by a couple for nine months. She says she was raped almost daily and forced to watch her captors have sex. She was recently featured in a video by an anti-porn group called Fight the New Drug. Smart says looking at pornography wasn’t enough for her captor and it left him wanting more.”
An adult Elizabeth Smart tells the camera: “I can’t say that he would not have gone out and kidnapped me had he not looked at pornography. All I know is that pornography made my living hell worse.”
In Utah, where Smart grew up and was abducted, pornography was declared a public health crisis in April. Responding to the changing classification of porn, Gov. Gary Herbert (R-Utah) said: “There is an acute problem we think out there, a health crisis. Not only psychologically, but physiologically.”
The video clip ends with an ambiguous bit of research. “In 2004, researchers examined whether there is a link between pornography and sexual violence,” the on-screen title says. Then, citing the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence: “After two decades of research, there is little consensus, not only as to that answer but as to definitions of terms, appropriate methods of investigation, or even how to frame the question.”
(Via CNN)