Young Australians find porn everywhere
The Australian Institute of Criminology says there is a "very high" chance that Australian teenagers will be exposed to pornography before the age of 18 – the legal age to view and purchase explicit sexual material.
Institute analyst Colleen Bryant said there was concern that young people were being inundated with sexual information before they were capable of integrating it into a healthy sexual identity.
"The proliferation of pornographic materials and their ease of access are such that it is not a matter of whether a young person will be exposed to pornography but when," she said.
Dr Bryant said scientists were divided about the harm caused by porn as research was struggling to keep pace with changing media technologies and children's engagement with sexual material.
She said pornography might promote unhealthy sexual attitudes and behaviour by encouraging males to view females simply in terms of sexual potential.
"Protecting young people necessarily requires equipping them and their caregivers, with adequate knowledge, skills and resources," she said.
Dr Bryant said research showed males reported more positive attitudes to pornography from an early age than did females who were generally extremely negative.
But by their mid-20s, both males and females might report similarly positive attitudes.
For that reason, seeking to minimise exposure to pornography was not the whole answer.
"Though restricting exposure will remain a priority, an over-reliance on this approach to protect against the perceived harms of pornography is problematic as it fails to recognise the realities of ready availability and the high acceptance of pornography among young people," she said.
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Porn is available on the Internet folks. Lots of it and plenty of it is available with no age protection whatsoever. If you have kids using your computer for the Internet while you are not actively watching what they are doing, then they are easily able to find, view, create, and send porn. Web cams, phone cams, and digital cameras are all well within the abilities of a child to use. They pick up these internet widgets faster than you. Keep your family computer in view at all times... period. Do not put computers with network access in to your kid's rooms or in rooms out of your view. You should also talk with other parents of your kids' friends to discover what their computer use policy is. Kids are crafty and they'll quickly discover that Tony's mom doesn't pay attention to what they do on the computer...
One other line bugged me in this article though. "Encouraging males to view females only for their sexual potential." This goes both ways folks... Many females want to have sex just as badly as males. There are plenty of content sites that show some pretty "unhealthy" female to male exploits. Of course the vast majority is designed to cater to men, but I am sure teen girls will be just as crafty at finding what they like to look at online as the teen boys. Girls are not immune.
Warning... I'm about to toss out shocking subject lines just to hit home what is *easy* to find on the internet with *no* real age proection... You can quickly find every kind of heterosexual behavior that you might fondly remember from Playboy stories--anal, oral, both at the same time, groups, ridiculous groups, 18 yo models, etc. But in addition to these you'll find bondage, domination, pain, sex involving urine and excrement, extreme sexual feats like inserting very large objects, and sex with dogs or other animals. You can find *all* of these with simple web searches and in "5 clicks or less."
There is certain to be something you find offensive on the internet. Full video clips of it will be available for free with no real age protection. I appologise for being so graphic, but if you didn't know, you needed to know. Again... you must monitor what your children are doing in both your home and other people's homes.
You must be ready to talk about these things with your kids too. The reality is this stuff is there. They will be exposed to it at some time or another and it would be better if you warned them about it before running in to it on their own. You should also let them know that they should pay close attention to how this material makes them feel and discuss those feeling with you. You might carefully consider how you feel about it at the same time. The most important thing to pass on would be for your children not to feel shamed by it (my opinion, of course.) How you deal with sex is your parental concern.
Our kids are connected to the world in dozens of ways we were not. Aside from legitimate web sites offering content (offensive, but not predatory), there are of course real predators. The isolated computer combined with the Internet is just too much for unmonitored access.
I used to think this was true when I was a teenager - the amount to which it is SO much easier and more pervasive is staggering
ReplyDeleteGotta agree with you, hon. No laws or regulations can substitute for parental involvement... and that doesn't just apply to porn. There's too much out there - kids are growing up a lot faster than we did (and our parents said the same thing about us!). Parents need to be involved in their kids' lives and take enough interest to know what's really going on... relying on the government, schools, or other entities to raise your kids for you is lazy, stupid, and detrimental to the kids and the adults they'll grow up to be.
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