Elizabeth Smart: Porn Made My Ordeal Even Worse

She records video for anti-porn group
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 22, 2016 4:40 AM CDT

Elizabeth Smart has shared new details of her horrific kidnapping ordeal in a video for an anti-porn group, in which she says she has witnessed firsthand how damaging porn is. Smart—who was kidnapped in 2002, when she was 14, and raped repeatedly over the next nine months—says captor Brian David Mitchell ended up raping her even more after he had watched pornography, NBC News reports. "He would just sit and look at it and stare at it, and he would just talk about these women, and then when he was done, he would turn and look at me, and he would be like, 'Now we're going to do this,'" she says.

"Looking at pornography wasn't enough for him. Having sex with his wife after looking at pornography, it wasn't enough for him. And then it led him to finally going out and kidnapping me," she says. "He just always wanted more. I can't say that he would not have gone out and kidnapped me had he not looked at pornography. All I know is that pornography made my living hell worse." The video was recorded for the group Fight the New Drug, which says it uses "science, facts, and personal accounts" to raise awareness of what it calls the "harmful effects" of pornography, reports the Deseret News. (Smart, now 28, is married and had a baby girl last year.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X