Former "Playboy" model Pamela Anderson has experienced a surprising change of heart, now speaking out about the dangers of pornography and warning of its devastating effects on the family.
The 49-year-old mother of two recently collaborated with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach for an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal blasting the "addictive nature of pornography". The article was written in light of the multiple sexting scandals involving former congressman Anthony Weiner.
Following the most recent scandal, Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin announced that the couple was separating, and officials from the Administration for Children's Services are currently investigating the former politician's treatment of his son, who is now 4.
The duo wrote: "We have often warned about pornography's corrosive effects on a man's soul and on his ability to function as husband and, by extension, as father."
Referring to porn as a "public hazard of unprecedented seriousness," the pair added: "And if anyone still doubted the devastation that porn addiction wreaks on those closest to the addict, behold the now-shattered marriage of Mr. Weiner and Huma Abedin, a breakup that she initiated, reportedly, in shock at the disgraced ex-congressman's inclusion of their 4-year-old son in one lewd photo that he sent to a near-stranger."
Anderson and Boteach went on to warn that children who have grown up with technology will "become adults inured to intimacy and in need of even greater graphic stimulation. They are the crack babies of porn."
According to watchdog Covenant Eyes, the porn industry generates $13 billion each year in the US, and by 2017, a quarter of a billion people are expected to be accessing mobile adult content from their phones or tablets, an increase of more than 30% from 2013.
In light of these shocking statistics, the pair offers a solution: "We must educate ourselves and our children to understand that porn is for losers - a boring, wasteful and dead-end outlet for people too lazy to rep the ample rewards of healthy sexuality."
Anderson's stance may surprise some, as she not only posed a staggering 14 times for Playboy, including the magazine's final nude issue, but once did a nude photo shoot for Paper's Girls Girls Girls issue. Fox News notes that the actress has also had two sex tapes leaked-one with Tommy Lee in 1995 (her husband at the time) and another one with Bret Michaels in which images of the video appeared in Penthouse magazine in 1998.
In April, Utah became the first state to pass a bill officially declaring pornography a "public health hazard," as it normalizes violence and abuse against women and children, and is "linked to lessening desire in young men to marry" as well as marital dissatisfaction and infidelity.
The resolution, S.C.R. 9, was signed by Governor Gary Herbert, and says that says porn "perpetuates a sexually toxic environment" and contributes to the "hypersexualization of teens, and even prepubescent children, in our society."
In 2009, Utah was ranked the top state in the U.S. for subscriptions to online porn sites, according to a Harvard study. In Utah, 5.47 out of every thousand broadband households had signed up to a pornography subscription, the study found.
