One of the most popular pornography sites in the world is offering a $25,000 college scholarship for the American student who wins its online contest, which entails submitting an essay as well as a personal video.
Critics of the site say that Pornhub is luring countless young people to submit erotic videos of themselves under the pretense of encouraging university studies, while the website says that applicants don’t necessarily “have to film a porn” to win the scholarship.
“It’s definitely not a requirement,” said Pornhub Vice President Corey Price. “The criteria [sic] isn’t to submit the best porn video and get a scholarship. I would be surprised if we had any pornographic entries,” though others counter that it is “understood” what Pornhub is really after.
Scholarship applicants must write a 1,000-1,500 word essay on the subject: “How do you strive to make others happy?” They also have to submit a two-to-five minute video that “elaborates on the good work that you do and anything else that you might want to say.”
The $25,000 scholarship, called the “Pornhub Cares Scholarship,” will go to the winner of the competition and can be applied to studies at any university.
Dawn Hawkins, executive director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) told Breitbart that “based on PornHub’s statistics, the number one search term in porn is ‘teen.’ The company isn’t selflessly helping college students, they are instead exploiting these financially strapped and inexperienced college kids so that they can drive up profits for themselves with new, young faces and bodies for consumption.”
“This ploy by PornHub reminds me of the classic image of the ‘dirty old man’ in a trench coat luring over the unsuspecting victim with the promise of a piece of candy,” Hawkins said.
A porn site offering “scholarship” to lure teens to submit porn of themselves. Our statement: http://t.co/IouRZiXNcJ pic.twitter.com/NtYj9brx9x
— NCOSE & Porn Harms (@Porn_Harms) September 2, 2015
“We work hard to help make millions of people feel happy every single day,” stated Pornhub Cares, the philanthropic arm of the porn site. “In turn, we would like to help support the recipient of the first annual Pornhub Cares Scholarship to realize their goal of doing the same.”
Dawn Hawkins countered that PornHub “is clearly seeking to garner publicity for its website, and to normalize pornography by portraying itself as ‘people who care.’ If it really cared, it would stop producing porn which is leading to the public health crisis now facing our nation with increased demand for sex trafficking, increased child exploitation and violence against women, and increased sexual dysfunction among young men, among many others,” she said.
The adult entertainment website currently has 78.9 billion reported online video views annually.
The contest is open to college or graduate school students who are at least 18 years old and hold a minimum GPA of 3.2.
Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome
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