MCLEAN, Va. (LifeSiteNews) – The worldwide Hilton hotel chain has removed all porn channels from its hotels in 85 countries after a campaign that saw top executives each getting as many as 1,000 emails a week opposing the presence of porn in the hotels.
“Partly it was the public pressure,” said Pat Truman, president and CEO of the National Center of Sexual Exploitation, which organized the three-year public campaign that convinced Hilton to make the move. “But to give Hilton credit, they thanked us in the end.”
Hilton already had in place a serious policy to prevent their hotels being used for sexual exploitation. “They realized it didn’t make sense to be against that while promoting pornography, which is so closely connected to it. Sex traffickers use pornography to sell prostitution. It’s all connected,” said Truman.
Hilton made the announcement in a way that managed to let its lustier patrons know they could still get lascivious imagery on their hotel-supplied wifi connections. “We are making immediate changes to our global brand standards to eliminate adult video-on-demand in all our hotels worldwide[.] … We believe in offering our guest as high degree of choice and control during their stays with us, including Wi-Fi on personal devices. However, we have listened carefully to our customers and have determined that adult-video-on-demand entertainment is not in keeping with our company’s vision and goals.”
The issue is not just about the exploitation of the pornographic models, many of whom live and work in conditions close to slavery, but about the de-moralization of America, said Rob McIntire, a sex addiction counselor in Colorado Springs. “In more than half the divorces in Colorado, pornography is listed as a factor. Most women say they feel degraded by the knowledge their husband is looking at porn.”
McIntire applauded Hilton’s move. His clientele of mostly male sex addicts “frequently acted out with porn when they stayed in hotels. And so did I.”
In recovery, his clients phone ahead to have the TVs removed from their hotel rooms or disabled. “But if there is a hotel with no porn, I’m sure they will be looking for it.” Wives of porn addicts as well will be checking to make sure their husbands pick the porn-free hotels, and Christian organizations will do the same. “This could be really profitable for Hilton,” said McIntire.