This Old Anti-Porn Movie Shows How Far We Have (And Haven't) Come

Historians recently uncovered a copy of an anti-porn propaganda film from the 1960s that they believed was lost forever -- and it's totally, completely outrageous.

“Pages of Death" is a nearly half-hour long movie from 1962 that was rediscovered last week by the Oregon Historical Society . “That film was thought to be completely lost or eradicated,” the OHS's Rachel Randles told The Register-Guard .

The film opens with a family distraught over the sudden disappearance of their 12-year-old daughter. Some gumshoe detectives get on the case and eventually figure out that the innocent child was murdered by a local teenager, Paul, who everyone previously thought was a great kid.

And why would Paul do such a thing??

PORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s right -- books, magazines and films with names like “Shows All, Tells All” and “Home of the Stripper” (actual titles from "Pages of Death") apparently motivated the fictional murder.

“I don’t know why I did it! I don’t know why!” Paul wails.

But the detectives know. It was porn.

The movie ends by warning that “thousands” of young boys just like Paul are at risk of becoming porn-crazed violent maniacs, and encourages viewers to learn more about how to stop the circulation of porn in their communities.

The movie, narrated by football star and sports broadcaster Tom Harmon, was the work of Citizens for Decent Literature, a Catholic anti-porn group. As Jezebel points out , the movie is so off the rails that it’s comparable to the infamous 1930s anti-marijuana movie "Reefer Madness."

But while it’s fun to watch the movie and laugh at how kooky those old-timey folks were, it’s important to remember that we’re not quite as far past the days of “Pages of Death” as we’d like think.

Citizens of Decent Literature doesn’t appear to be active anymore, but plenty of similar organizations promote the dubious claim that watching porn causes violence, as well as the scientifically baseless assertion that watching sexual material featuring adults leads to the desire to abuse children.

Politicians blame sex crimes on adult entertainment venues, like strip clubs, and try to hold them financially responsible for the government’s own failure to process rape kits. Plenty of people still believe that every single sex worker is an exploited victim -- even when sex workers themselves say that’s not the case.  And others hold the deeply disturbing view that sex workers can’t be raped.

So go ahead and laugh at “Pages of Death.” Just don’t feel too smug about it.

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