I read the following in today's USA Today (on-line).
MARRIOTT BLASTED FOR HOTEL PORN
(Hotel Hotsheet - by Kitty Bean Yancey)
X-rated entertainment is the profit center hotels don't like to talk about. It's big business, making hundreds of millions for hotels and vendors (I've never seen any figures made public, so if you know of numbers, please tell me.)
Anti-porn groups have unsuccessfully tried to stamp out raunchy hotel room entertainment. Wednesday, Morality in Media released a letter from its president, Robert Peters, to Marriott CEO Bill Marriott Jr. Peters writes that he tries not to stay at Marriotts, "despite their quality," because the chain offers porn. "I realize that Marriott is not the only major hotel chain that distributes pay-TV pornography," the letter says. "Marriott is, however, the only major chain whose founder (your father) was honored by Morality in Media for his efforts to fight pornography."
He inadvertently stayed at a Marriott when a relative made a reservation, Peters writes. And he was not happy to see an "Adults Only" movie option, that offered titles such as 100% Sex: Sophomore Sluts and All Sex: XXX Fantasies.
Peters writes that porn contributes to the breakup of marriages and to sexual assaults and that "Morality in Media, among many others, is of the opinion that a criminal prosecution of a 'mainstream' corporation that is in the business of distributing hard-core pornography is long overdue." He urges Marriott to "do the right thing" and remove porn.
I have written about this issue, and the position of Marriott and other chains is that they are giving customers what they demand and no one has to view porn in a hotel room unless he or she chooses to.
So readers, do you think hotels should remove porn options (as Omni hotels did)? Do you think businesses that traffic in pornography should face prosecution?
(end of the article)
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This saddens me greatly because everything I read tells me that porn is beyond out of control in terms of its impact on men (and women) and the destruction of healthy relationships in the context of marriage.
I am quite sure that I have no idea the magnitude of profits derived from this horrific venture. I so hurt for those who believe that making a profit from this is necessary to their bottom line. May they find some other way to do business that does not destroy so many people in the process.
Did I read this correctly - hundreds of millions of dollars?
