Darkness. That is what the thought of you brings to my mind. You see, I was only in middle school when I first learned of the very horrible thing called pornography. Someone in my class recorded it from their TV and passed it around my seventh grade classroom one day while the teacher was out. I was instantly intrigued. I knew what sex was. But I'd never experienced it like that before -- so openly. I wanted to see more. My innocent, seventh grade mind, wanted to see more. So I began looking for it on my computer at home. Little did I know, what I saw in my classroom was so small compared to what was actually right in front of me on the internet.

In front of me were millions and millions of explicit videos. These videos depicted terrible things, and seemed to display sex so selfishly and perverted. But also seemed to give me a rush of adrenaline and comfort. I became so confused and ashamed. Is this what sex was supposed to be? So many questions flooded my mind and I battled these thoughts and desires even deeper as the years went on. Fighting with the shame these images brought me and fighting whatever was telling me to run back to them.

Your industry took advantage of my young mind and brought on feelings of deep shame and struggle. And now that I'm older, now that I'm stronger and that I've been able to make it past that stage in my life, and now that my eyes have been opened, I'm here to speak out against you.

I'm speaking out against you because the way that you display sex is completely out of line with the way that it's supposed to be. Sex is not supposed to be demeaning, and overly controlling, and abusive. Sex is not supposed to be painful and silencing. Sex is not supposed to lack love and emotion and feeling.

Sex is supposed to be full of love and it is supposed to bring two people together as one. It is supposed to be pleasurable and happy and uplifting and should bring about the most intense connection with the one you're with because it's the closest you can possibly get with someone else. It's the mingling of two souls and to make it anything else than that is completely terrible.

I'm speaking out against you as a voice for the one million marriages that end in divorce every year. In 50 percent of these divorce cases, pornography is the culprit. That's 500,000 broken homes; 500,000 homes where love, happiness, and joy have been stolen. And that's too many. Not to mention porn increases marital infidelity by 300 percent. Marriage is too sacred, too special, and too meaningful to have the life sucked out of it by something as vicious as pornography.

I'm speaking out against you as a voice for the innocent women you take advantage of. Statistics show that over 50 percent of homeless teens (girls) will participate in prostitution and pornography. You take these innocent women and trick them into believing that it's OK for them to demean themselves and make themselves susceptible to abuse just to make a little money. You promise them fun, luxury, friends, and money but you only leave them feeling dark, lonely, used, and sick. You leave them worse than before. And not only do you take advantage of women, you take advantage of children too. Child pornography is currently one of the fastest growing online businesses, bringing in $3 billion annually. At least 2000 online domains contain child pornography with the worst type of abuse. Women and children are precious, and the fact that you abuse and use them in favor of sinful pleasure and money is sick.

I'm speaking out against you because the reality is that the first exposure to online pornography that most experience is before the age of twelve. This means that children all over the world will use pornography, most often as a form of sexual education, which will deprive them of healthy sexual knowledge and deprive them of having essential conversations with trusted adults about sex.

I'm speaking out against you because all you are is a lie. You promise freedom, but only enslave. You promise intimacy, but only bring isolation. You promise "adult entertainment," but are increasingly juvenile. The only thing that you have to give is darkness, disgust, anger, abuse, isolation, separation, guilt, doubt, distance, and shame. There is nothing good about you and although you have proven to be one of the richest industries in the world, you don't deserve a dime.

My hope is that one day you won't even exist. I'm tired of your lies. I'm tired of the way that you destroy people. And I'm tired of the way you place sinful pleasure and money over the souls of human beings. Although I know that you will probably still continue to do these horrible things, just know that you have many people who aren't fooled by you anymore. Including me. I will always speak out against you because the sacredness of this life, of women, of children, of marriages, and of innocent purity is worth it.

Thank you for listening.
Lindsey.