Let’s Dam Polluted Stream

Wed., March 19, 1997

Greg Wilkinson Special To Opinion

Each morning, I scan the sports pages for Seattle Mariners news so I have something special to talk about with my 15-year-old son who loves big-league baseball.

Something besides the Mariners recently got my attention in the sports pages - but not for reasons of sharing it with my son, that’s for sure. On the other hand, maybe I should share it with him as an object lesson.

The blond-haired woman in the Deja Vu ad looked so innocent, almost wholesome. But what about the lives behind the perfect Deja Vu faces that so consistently clutter the sports pages?

Dr. Kim Pittenger of Seattle knows something about such women: “In my work as a suburban family doctor, I have encountered multiple patients who were ‘exotic dancers’ and who ‘acted’ in porn films. Nearly all are survivors of childhood sexual abuse and lead lives of continued abuse, addiction and depression,” he wrote in a letter to U.S. News & World Report magazine.

The Spokesman-Review hasn’t lied outright in the Deja Vu ads, but hasn’t the newspaper been an accomplice to a certain deception? By advertising “Spokane’s Only Adult Nightclub” week after week in the sports section of a community newspaper, hasn’t the paper implied that pornography is harmless, an acceptable diversion, kind of like going to a ballgame?

Commendably, The Spokesman-Review has refused certain advertising, and I would think the decision to run strip-club ads was not made without some debate. But, of course, pornography has become a very big business in America, one that can afford all the advertising any medium will stoop to give it.

When I was a kid devouring the pages that spoke of Mantle and Mays, every column inch was safe reading. Now when my son devours those same pages, he has to be careful to keep his mind on baseball when he spots the alluring ad that includes its pornographic Web site address.

Pornography has become mainstream, no longer tucked away behind an obscure counter or along Skid Row, but ubiquitous and a moneymaker for even respectable businesses such as Time-Warner, Holiday Inn and, sure, a few advertising bucks for The Spokesman-Review. Please, I’d sure be grateful to our city’s main newspaper if it would do its part to swim against a polluted stream.

MEMO: “Your turn” is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a “Your turn” column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write “Your turn,” The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane 99210-1615.

“Your turn” is a feature of the Wednesday and Saturday Opinion pages. To submit a “Your turn” column for consideration, contact Rebecca Nappi at 459-5496 or Doug Floyd at 459-5466 or write “Your turn,” The Spokesman-Review, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane 99210-1615.

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