Report Examines Net Porn's Impact On Kids

A new report released Tuesday, which examined the effects of Internet pornography, warns that Internet pornography can have many damaging effects on children and women in particular.

The report, conduced for the Witherspoon Institute, a research group focused on ethical and moral issues, found that Internet pornography is much more ubiquitous and easily accessible to children than other forms of pornography. The report notes that about 75 percent of pornographic Web sites display visual teasers on the homepages before asking if the viewers are of legal age. And only 3 percent of these Web sites require proof-of-age before granting access to sexually explicit material. The report also said that "today's pornography is both qualitatively and quantitatively different from any that has come before--and that qualitative difference includes for at least some consumers a slippery slope into ever more hard-core, sexually fetishistic, and formerly shocking imagery."