The debate about where media responsibility ends and personal responsibility begins has been going on for a very long time. Several cases have made their way to the Supreme Court which usually holds the media harmless. For instance, in Texas, a young 14 boy, reading a Hustler magazine, tried to practice autoerotic asphyxiation and wound up dying as he accidentally hung himself in the process. (Texas Sup Ct. Herzeg v Husler). His parents tried to sue Hustler for the damages and ultimately failed.

Even though media is held harmless because of our value for the first amendment protecting freedom of speech, it does not mean that media is harmless because of it actions. People do die because of the media and lives can be ruined because of what people read and watch.

Pornography is one of those things that is rampant in society and leads many in society to future addictive behaviors which involving the viewing of obscene materials.

We can and should hold parents responsible for their children; but that still will not deter the easy availability, at any age, of obscene materials, for large numbers of minors all over this nation. Parents, even consciencious ones, cannot monitor every single thing that comes to their child short of cutting all technology out of their lives. Obscenity is a societal problem–and it begins with the viewing of pornography. One goes with the other.