WASHINGTON, DC — It’s no secret that the Right Wing has a love-hate relationship with pornography. Although it is consumed voraciously in Bible Belt states, political and religious representatives from the areas revile it whenever possible.As observers of obscenity prosecution know full well, erotic materials featuring mutually consenting and legally adult performers are often both intentionally and unintentionally confused and included during conversations about abusive and exploitive materials featuring child rape. An alleged link between pornography and violent behavior, theft of property, and a general disregard for the physical and sexual integrity of others, especially women, is frequently trumpeted in spite of a lack of data to support it.

Not unexpectedly, although unfortunately, the chief counsel for Concerned Women for America is further fanning the flames of that false comparison by insisting that consumption of erotic materials featuring freshly legal men and women is not merely a sign of weak morals, but also an action that puts minors at sexual risk from adults.

In the most recent addition to a continuing series called “Road to Perversion Is Paved With Porn,” written for the Human Events Online website, LaRue states that porn starring adult teenagers (18-19) panders “to predators.”

As is so often the case, the article recounts the ubiquitous anecdote, as supposedly related by a morally upstanding woman who isn’t willing to have her real name quoted, just her personal opinions paraded as established fact. The unimaginative LaRue engages in the usual outrageous character assassinations about content providers working in the online adult entertainment industry, insisting that they care “nothing about who’s wrecked and ruined along the way,” after viewing erotic material which she insists exists in a world where porn is a “dark, dead-end road with no safety rails, no warning signs and no speed limit,” and which is entirely under the control of the porn industry.

LaRue’s insistence that 18-year-olds are “kids” and that an industry that would present them as “sex objects” deserves special skepticism is a stark contrast to the United States military’s views on the matter, as the various armed services aggressively encourage high school student to consider a career in the military during a time of particularly brutal international hostilities. Given the political climate and frantic tone of military recruiters, there’s a special kind of irony when she asks “who is the porn industry pandering to by producing and distributing ‘teen porn?’”

What offends LaRue the most, if her latest poison pen letter is any indication, is the fact that some teen-focused videos play up the fact that the sexually mature and exhibitionistic performers were recently legally and socially taboo. As is so often the case, extreme examples are presented as though they were industry standards – in this case, the extreme example in question coming from Extreme Associates, which has been enduring scrutiny and obscenity accusations from the Federal government. LaRue rather inaccurately classifies Extreme Associates as being a “’teen porn’ company” and both concludes that because the company produces “hard-core” materials, they are “prosecutable under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Miller v. California,” as well as suggests that one of the reasons that the company is facing legal woes is because a small breasted adult teenaged girl is shown in pigtails and sucking on a pacifier. Having apparently never attended a rave or indulged in any light-hearted behavior, LaRue expresses outrage and confusion when she asks her readers whether any of them “know any ‘teen’ that sucks a pacifier.”

Indicating a lack of comprehension about what makes a person legally a teen as well as why the First Amendment exists (hint: to protect unpopular speech, not just the speech that everyone feels comfortable with), LaRue accuses AVN president Paul Fishbein and his publication of showing a “purely hypocritical backside” for both observing that Extreme Associates’ releases are often exceptionally intense and, for many, difficult to watch – while simultaneously bestowing the Reuben Sturnman award upon the company for facing its legal challenges.

LaRue trots out many of the familiar players in the harder edged teen market, presenting Max Hardcore as an example of the “lowest levels” of porn and quoting his explanations about the importance of making sure the girls are of legal age and assuring viewers of same while presenting them as looking “as fresh and as cute and cuddly as possible,” virtues which, one must presume, are not acceptable for teen girls to possess in LaRue’s dark world of sexual predation. Most likely what rubs the hidebound LaRue the wrong way is Hardcore’s assertion that his newly legal starlets can keep the keenly curious “mentality of a 14-year-old” while simultaneously engaging in decidedly adult activities that their “parents told you not to do.”

The essential and vitally important fact that the men and women who appear before the camera in adult fare are legal adults capable of joining the military, voting in local and national elections, purchasing cigarettes, giving birth to children, marrying, attending college, and holding down responsible jobs seems completely lost on LaRue, who can only see that a short time previous to their 18th birthday, these things were largely forbidden to them. Although the Virgin Mary was capable of producing LaRue’s savior at an age far below that required in order to pass 2257 muster, the attorney can not adequately express her revulsion at the fact that an 18-year-old modern person might inspire and express desire and that other adults, particularly those whose own teens years are behind them, might respond favorably.

After suggesting that mock incest videos somehow represent the entire body of explicit art featuring freshly legal performers, LaRue rages against the many apt descriptors used as keywords for those seeking content starring youthful legals. Ironically, after asking a series of rhetorical free speech questions, including “Why does the industry need to simulate child pornography by depicting 18-year-olds, or even 25-year-olds, as underage?” and “Why do we always have to sink to the lowest level possible to try to titillate?” she labels the stylish, classy, and respectful Barely Legal as coming from “none other than bottom-feeder Hustler.”

While LaRue’s basic question of why legal limits must be pressed may be a valid one, her hyperbolic fit of hysteria makes it nearly impossible to address realistically. After all, if the only thing a producer or consumer of pornography must do in order to become a “risk” (never defined or supported by actual example) is present youthful women in a sexual light, what actual negotiation or discussion is available?

LaRue attempts to support her unsupportable claims by quoting experts with just as much to lose by promoting healthy sexual appetites as she claims the porn industry has to lose by reigning in its supposedly out of control production schedule. Pop psychologist and author of Virtual Addiction, David Greenfield, is quoted as saying that the people he sees are “not perverts, but they get online and suddenly, they’re sex fiends.” He doesn’t, of course, mention that he never sees the vast majority of people who get online and do not become “sex fiends.”

Not having presented enough ridiculous opinions, LaRue then trots out former FBI profiler Kennith Lanning, who suggests that many sex criminals would never have acted on their urges if they’d been able to avoid the temptations presented by the internet. “They were able to control it,” he insists, “and along comes the Internet… which is like pouring fuel on smoldering embers.” To further support her non-existent case, LaRue lists several examples of men who had used the internet in order to arrange liaisons with individuals that they presumed were underage. Unlisted, of course, are the many children molested by priests, teachers, and other authority figures long before and without access to the internet.

Ultimately, LaRue shows her absolute inability to appreciate nuances in art, as well as life, by demanding to know who, “Other than perverts and pornographers” would consider teen porn to be included in a judge’s decision that performers who appear underage can be involved in sex scenes if deemed “necessary for literary or artistic value.”

To LaRue, who, like so many far Right voices, suddenly loses her traditionally Republican faith in the Capitalist market place when it comes to sexually explicit materials, anyone who finds “’teen,’ ‘young,’ ‘little,’ ‘fresh,’ ‘tender,’ or ‘cheerleader’” capable of suggesting “‘literary or artistic value’” is just another pervert whose entertainment deserves “prosecution under state and federal obscenity laws,” merely because the performs are, indeed, “’teen,’ ‘young,’ ‘little,’ ‘fresh,’ ‘tender,’ or possibly even ‘cheerleaders.’”

In conclusion, LaRue begs with her readers to put aside their smut and think about their “mother, sister, friend, co-worker, wife, daughter and the rest of us” because “you can’t consume degrading depictions and descriptions of women and ‘teens’ and continue to treat us with respect as human beings.”

An odd statement coming from a woman who puts “teens” in quotation marks when referring to teens.

In part III, LaRue promises to “show how the porn industry grooms kids for sexual exploitation by displaying online porn in their view.”