What is Fight the New Drug’s Billboard Campaign?

You may have seen our billboards around town, and you might be wondering what Fight the New Drug is all about.

Actually, these aren’t real billboards by Fight the New Drug, they’re photoshopped.

But the messages they convey are real, and we want to explain why we’re sharing them and why our organization says that porn kills love.

Pro-sex and anti-porn

Not watching porn IS being pro-sex. ⁠

We are a sex-positive organization, and in case you didn’t already know, the porn industry often glorifies a lack of consent, fetishizes race, and ignores mutual pleasure. None of those attributes are sex-positive.

Not to mention, research consistently shows that porn consumption is associated with sexual dysfunction (for both men and women) and decreased sexual satisfaction.Bőthe, B., Tóth-Király, I., Griffiths, M. D., Potenza, M. N., Orosz, G., & Demetrovics, Z. (2021). Are sexual functioning problems associated with frequent pornography use and/or problematic pornography use? results from a large community survey including males and females. Addictive Behaviors, 112, 106603. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2020.106603Copy Szymanski, D. M., & Stewart-Richardson, D. N. (2014). Psychological, Relational, and Sexual Correlates of Pornography Use on Young Adult Heterosexual Men in Romantic Relationships. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 22(1), 64–82. https://doi.org/10.3149/jms.2201.64Copy 

Not allowing porn to dictate what is sexy to you is absolutely a pro-sex perspective—it’s about discovering what you want, and not letting a multi-billion dollar industry dictate your personal sexual interests. Be the author of your own sexuality, reject the inauthentic imitation of the real thing.

Porn fetishizes marginalized people

How is it acceptable for porn to exploit, fetishize, and dehumanize marginalized individuals and people groups?⁠

For example, porn often depicts and profits from blatantly racist tropes and stereotypes. For one example, a 2021 content analysis of more than 1,700 scenes from two of the world’s most popular porn sites found that videos featuring Black people disproportionately emphasize violence and aggression, perpetuate harmful racist stereotypes, and often depict Black people as “worse than objects.”Fritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2021). Worse than objects: The depiction of black women and men and their sexual relationship in pornography. Gender Issues, 38(1), 100-120. doi:10.1007/s12147-020-09255-2Copy 

Reducing people of color to clicky sexual categories that prominently feature damaging, racist stereotypes is what the porn industry does.xHamster. (2018). xHamster trend report 2018. Retrieved from https://xhamster.com/blog/posts/745297 Copy 

Not only that, porn also fetishizes sexual orientation or gender identity, using degrading terms to describe LGBTQ+ people.

Porn often misrepresents them through harmful and degrading stereotypes. How is this acceptable?

Porn fuels sex trafficking

Pornography and sex trafficking are linked in a few different ways. Sex trafficking happens more than people might realize during the production of mainstream porn, as one example.Cole, S., & Maiberg, E. (2020). Pornhub doesn't care. Vice. Retrieved from https://www.vice.com/en/article/9393zp/how-pornhub-moderation-works-girls-do-porn Copy BBC News. (2020). GirlsDoPorn: Young women win legal battle over video con. BBC News. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50982051 Copy 

Trafficking is legally defined as a situation in which “a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age.”Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, Pub. L. No. 106–386, Section 102(a), 114 Stat. 1464. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-106hr3244enr/pdf/BILLS-106hr3244enr.pdf Copy  Situations where manipulation, force, or coercion are involved are, unfortunately, quite common in the industry.

And any case where any one of those three things are involved, that situation legally qualifies as sex trafficking.

It may be tough for some to hear, but there’s truly no reliable way for a consumer to guarantee that the porn they’re watching is truly consensual and abuse or coercion-free. The porn industry will continue to exploit people as long as there’s a demand for porn—especially porn that is extreme, abusive, or degrading.

Porn kills love, and so does shame

We know the phrase “porn kills love” can come across as aggressive, but hear us out. We want to explain why we say porn can kill love.

Since the start of our organization in 2009, we have raised awareness on the harmful effects of porn using only science, facts, and personal accounts. When the “porn kills love” phrase came about a few years after our start, we never intended it to be shaming or be weaponized to shame someone for watching porn.

Dozens of studies have repeatedly shown that porn consumers tend to have lower relationship satisfaction and lower relationship quality.Wright, P. J., Tokunaga, R. S., Kraus, A., & Klann, E. (2017). Pornography consumption and satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 43(3), 315-343. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12108 Copy Perry S. L. (2020). Pornography and Relationship Quality: Establishing the Dominant Pattern by Examining Pornography Use and 31 Measures of Relationship Quality in 30 National Surveys. Archives of sexual behavior, 49(4), 1199–1213. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-019-01616-7Copy Perry, S. (2017). Does Viewing Pornography Reduce Marital Quality Over Time? Evidence From Longitudinal Data. Archives Of Sexual Behavior, 46(2), 549-559. Doi: 10.1007/S10508-016-0770-Y Copy 

Porn consumers also can encounter more negative communication with their partners, feel less dedicated to their relationships, have a more difficult time making adjustments in their relationships, are less sexually satisfied, and commit more infidelity.Maddox, A. M., Rhoades, G. K., & Markman, H. J. (2011). Viewing sexually-explicit materials alone or together: associations with relationship quality. Archives of sexual behavior, 40(2), 441–448. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9585-4Copy 

As an awareness-raising and educational organization, helping people recognize that porn is harmful isn’t about shaming them, it’s about inviting them to truly consider how porn impacts their life and know that being porn-free has some serious benefits.

Fight the New Drug’s billboard messages

All in all, Fight the New Drug’s billboard posts are intended to share impactful information that can empower people to make an informed decision for themselves about the issue of pornography and whether or not they want to consume it.

Porn is trash, and you deserve better. Consider before consuming.