WASHINGTON – With the announcement the InterContinental Hotels Group actually intends to begin enforcing its existing ban on franchisees offering in-room, on-demand pornography, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation is celebrating another major, momentous, colossal victory in its ongoing war against porn.
“A new age in the hotel industry is dawning,” the NCSE proclaimed in a statement posted to the organization’s website. “And it doesn’t include pornography.”
Yes, with yet another hotel dropping on-demand porn, consumers again are being sent a very clear message about morality, decency and sexual exploitation: If you want to watch pornography in hotels, you’ll have to use their Wi-Fi or burn through a bunch of the data allotment on your mobile service plan.
“Make no mistake, this is an absolute decency revolution when it comes to preventing luddites from watching pornography inside hotel rooms,” said media consumption expert Walter Duidelijk. “Unless, of course, those luddites own a portable DVD player or something.”
Franklin Wzbudzil, a medical supplies sales executive who indicated he spends approximately 200 nights a year in hotels, said he’s “super pissed off and aggravated” by IHG’s decision to enforce the ban.
“First I lose the ability to watch on-demand porn at Hilton properties, and now I find I’m going to have to pay for Wi-Fi access at the Crowne Plaza in Auckland, too,” added Wzbudzil. “Of course, I never leave the U.S. and I’m not at all sure where Auckland is, exactly, but this still makes me mad. Well, maybe not ‘mad,’ but at the very least mildly irritated in the same way I get when the batteries in my TV remote die and I have to walk all the way to my hall closet to fetch new ones.”
Bob McCoskrie, the National Director of Family First NZ, who does know where Auckland is, called IHG’s enforcement of the ban “a great decision for families and the protection of children.”
“This decision follows similar decisions by other businesses including Google, which changed its policy to prohibit pornographic ads and any ads that link to websites with sexually explicit content on them, and Facebook, which has taken steps to improve efforts to block and report child pornography on its site,” McCoskrie said. “Society is finally waking up to the fact that pornography harms human dignity and leads to addictions, broken marriages, increased sexual violence, child sexual abuse, sex trafficking and prostitution. This is a significant cultural shift which is well overdue.”
Other observers aren’t so sure IHG’s decision really represents a “significant cultural shift” of the sort McCoskrie asserted.
“Does this kiwi ‘family group’ dickhead know about Pornhub?” asked Bruce Cooper, a sports marketing professional who, like Wzbudzil, travels frequently and spends many nights in hotels. “Because I’ll bet his kids have it bookmarked on the smartphones he undoubtedly bought them and pays the bills for while complaining incessantly about other people not doing enough to keep his perverted progeny from accessing porn on the internet.”
Dr. Richard Epais, a professor of media arts at the University of California-El Centro, also is skeptical about the impact of the IHG policy.
“I read about this announcement on a tablet while sitting in an airport, using the same kind of technologies readily available to me at just about any major hotel and often available at non-traditional lodging facilities, as well,” Epais said, reclining in an enormous and very comfortable easy-chair inside a luxury condo he recently rented via AirBNB. “Besides, do people really still stay at hotels these days? I guess it makes sense that some do. My last Uber driver told me some people still take regular taxis, too, so I suppose anything is possible.”
