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While parents wonder how to go about making their teenagers understand human sexuality, whether it should be done at home or at school, teens are taking it into their own hands and learning much more than needed from a totally different source – the Internet.
It is a known fact that minors and teenagers spend hours online. What is it that most of them do online? Statistics show that about 40 percent of them visit x-rated sites that show explicit content, either accidentally coming across the sites or being led to those sites.
Teenagers today are targeted with salacious junk, from MTV, to video games to the internet. There is simply no way they can escape all the trashy pictures literally thrown at them, and it is as simple as typing the word “sex” on the Internet to be lead to hundreds of hard-core porn sites. It is estimated that more than 40 million Americans visit an estimated one million porn websites each year. As disconcerting as this may sound, this is not the main cause of worry. The concerning factor is the impact this ease of access has on kids and teenagers, for whom porn has become just part of the culture now.
Researchers have found that there is a typical pattern to teens entering these cyber-porn villages. It usually starts on a day when the parents are away and teenagers being inquisitive in nature search for a little porn. Searching for one, they find thousands of sites that can gratify their curiosity. Then they end up registering at some of the sites. This is how it starts and then they are hooked for life.
Sometimes, what starts off as innocent chatting in a chat room also takes these unsuspecting and innocent teens to the sugar-coated chat of pedophilics. Shockingly, to make things scarier, there are said to be several pedophilics hanging around on the internet, that trap teenagers into cyber sex. These child trappers even go to the extent of asking for nude pictures of the children. In fact, they entice children into doing what they want by rewarding them with on-line cartoon CDs or some such things that they know kids and teenagers find irresistible.
Almost all clinical psychologists agree that this could mess up teenagers’ attitudes about sexuality and any relationships they enter into in the future. Teenage years are very impressionable and teens may learn to view women without respect and only as sex objects, and kinky and extreme sex will seem normal, which is detrimental to their emotional health.
There is a real-life example that shows how porn can destroy lives. For Charlie, who was imprisoned for 12 years for sexual assault, it all started as a teenager, when he was hooked to porn. A person on his paper route showed him pornographic material and he found that totally interesting and went back to see more. After a while, the pictures did not satisfy this teenager and the need to act on what he was seeing became impossible to control. That urge is what led him to the sexual assault that nearly destroyed his life. However, he is one in a million who understands what went wrong with him and now speaks against porn and states that it is no coincidence that about 90% of the sex offenders who are in prison used pornography extensively as teens or young adults.
Cyber sex is known to be a psychosocial hazard, and once addicted; it is extremely difficult to escape this porn racket. With the accessibility and quantity of porn available online, the likelihood of porn-addiction is very high. Experts believe that this subject should be looked into seriously, because once it becomes an addiction for a teen, it is for life.
There are several help centers online, where parents are told to teach religious and moral values to their children and the consequences of an immoral life should be explained to the teenagers. Without these moral guidelines, experts believe that these kids are just sitting ducks for the enemy. When they get unsolicited sexual innuendo in email, they should be able to say “That’s wrong and I shouldn’t do that,” because they have a sense of right and wrong. This should be done before the world totally infects their minds and pillages them of any kind of moral values. This is the only way to help teens ignore the glitter that draws them to cyber porn.
This may sound scary and many parents may not even imagine that all this goes on online, and blindly choose to believe their innocent children can do no wrong. Experts say that this innocence of children is taken advantage of by the unscrupulous elements online. Since it is almost an impossible task to stop those monsters that are after children, parents have a much bigger role to play in keeping the children safe.
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There is a real mental health crisis on the horizon. We can't begin to measure the effects pornography is having on the countless teens who are watching it in mass amounts. We can see how pornography and other hypersexualized media has been detrimental to society and marriages for older generations. What will happen when today's teens are fully grown?
We are in real need of a new "sexual revolution" among teens that will overturn our sexual values in culture today, one that centers on radical purity. Parents and teachers need to take the lead in this, especially when it comes to Internet pornography.
Filtering is a great tool, but it's not the only kind of software out there. Have you ever heard of accountability software? Accountability software is specifically for adults who want to guard where they go online without any blocking or filtering. Combined with filtering, it's a great Internet safety solution for the whole family. If you want more info about it check out my post “Is Filtering All There Is?” - http://www.covenanteyes.com/blog/2008/06/12/is-filtering-all-there-is-introducing-accountability-software/
Also, check out - http://www.blog.cantufind.com/2008/06/24/covenant-eyes/
I have to tell you it is not just porn, it is everything in our culture that is really is really damaging, From shows like gossip girl & others that make light of sex & relationships to our fast paced culture I have slowed down myself & realized what are we doing with our lives, we are feeding everything that is thrown at us, we are like walking,talking, consumer zombies, we need this car, that tv, that blu-ray player, that video game system, that computer, that business deal. I have even monitored my online activity other from blogging I waste much time, on facebook & myspace for nothing & I wonder why... What is lacking from us as a human that is being fullfilled through pointless activities & excessive consumer habits & porn? Enjoyment in life & happiness we fix on things that don't make us happy but give us our fix that only temp. gives us happiness. We are junkies, we are not happy so we just shop, shop, shop, want,want,want until we get then we are happy then it fades, so we shop some more & surf some more, feed on the porn, the net & the life styles that are on tv... What have we become?
I love how you make it sound like teenagers are retarded, or something.
- "...experts believe that these kids are just sitting ducks for the enemy. When they get unsolicited sexual innuendo in email, they should be able to say “That’s wrong and I shouldn’t do that,” because they have a sense of right and wrong. This should be done before the world totally infects their minds and pillages them of any kind of moral values. "
You make it sound as if kids have no brain, and will just blithely follow the rainbow to reach the pot of gold. It doesn't work that way. This whole idea that kids need to be "sheltered" and "protected" from the "evil" in society is a bunch of bull$4!t. Any minor who has trouble differentiating between what's acceptable and what's not obviously already has psychological issues, and then should be treated as you mentioned. As for the other 99% of the youth population, they don't need to be harassed, humiliated, and belittled by the older generation. I would imagine many teen suicides are the result of this pressure by parents, teachers, etc... who expect all these things from them, and treat them like morons.
Sincerely,
John
I'm with John.
You guys are weird and likely to bring up some kids with more problems than the porn watchers.
Yes - i am also with John here. Well said John! This article has everything upside down! Under normal circumstances, porn as such CERTAINLY does not cause psychological problems. Indeed, I think it is a mistake to see porn as a cause of anything or even as particularly important. It is indeed a rather dreary thing - more boring than anything else to be honest - but if it is anything, it is just another symptom of the mess that our sexuality has landed itself in. When even now sex is a subject not to be talked about or dealt with remotely openly or without furtiveness ("Hey - this is a natural act and a part of life but we are not allowed to show it to you because it is dirty and must be censored!" Huh?????), in spite of all sense, science, experience and just simple human nature saying the exact opposite, then where is the surprise that most people are interested in porn or erotica since it is one of the few uninhibited channels open? And it is also even less surprising that a very few people should get psychologically twisted! Nothing is more psychologically twisting than society's general attitudes to sex, but porn itself is only one of the more harmless results of that. Pedophiles, rape fetishists, violence and sexual dysfunction are the more serious results of these general cultural attitudes. And in some cases, erotica can even be seen to have a beneficial effect. That is also well-documented.
Besides - you haven't even attempted to define porn! What are you including here? Hardcore penetration? Pretty girls on the beach? Classic 50s pin-up art? Well-written erotica novels? Nude art? Lost Girls and Lady Chatterley's Lover? When all the fuming, sweating and embarrassed discussion is over, that definition only really boils down to one thing: "Stuff i dont like." There is an 'obscene line' that something crosses when it suddenly becomes disgusting or off-putting and that varies from person to person. One makes decisions based on that. If one makes destructive or self-destructive decisions, then it is because something destructive has been implanted in you by the world around you.
In this article, you are perpetuating the problem more than anything else, by hammering again at the ignorant attitudes to sex that really ought to be buried. By placing the blame on a largely false but easy target rather than attempting to see any kind of depth in the situation. Look on porn as a symptom of the depression and isolation of modern life maybe, not as the cause!!!
Those that agree with John are so far removed from the facts and studies (some referred to in this article peripherally). The concept of sex anytime, anywhere is almost as dangerous as giving a kid a loaded gun. That's worked out well hasn't it: rampant teenage pregnancy, 75% of black children are born illegitimately, untold abortions as a "contraceptive" b/c they were too stupid to put on a rubber or some other thing.
This is dumb: "Any minor who has trouble differentiating between what’s acceptable and what’s not obviously already has psychological issues, and then should be treated as you mentioned." That mentality is the result of stupid parents who somehow think that a child will just eventually "know" right and wrong - without it being explicitly taught to them. To say they are a minor, so they must know, is pure ignorance of reality.
Seriously, lol. Lol at Eric. "The concept of sex anytime, anywhere is almost as dangerous as giving a kid a loaded gun." Yeah, if you gave me a loaded gun I'd immediately go rampant and then kill myself, because I'm an adolescnet and that's my human nature showing. NOT!
Think about it. Eric's statistics, for one, have nothing to do with porn. And "Fatal Enjoyment" can be said about anything and everything. Because you're going to die anyway. Hey, at least porn keeps people from wanting to have sex with actual people... your hand is a permanent companion that's kept you warm and safe on those many nights when you stumbled into the wanking section of the internet.
I've viewed porn, I'm a teenager, and I have to say that it hasn't adversely affected my life in any way. Also, I'm not addicted like people always say about pornography use. Hmm - I'm also neither blind nor hairy-palmed yet, I have stable and caring relationships with the opposite sex, and I'm not some sort of morally bankrupt idiot. However, I will agree that others can be affected by pornography, and that this can take hold of their lives for much time. I put this down to the society we live in, quoting Chris (above): "we are like walking,talking, consumer zombies, we need this car, that tv, that blu-ray player, that video game system, that computer, that business deal."
It's not even a concept of sex anytime anywhere!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!!!! Twisting words to put in the meanings that you've been conditioned to think by your controlling bodies - corporations, government, media. I think what's being said is that sex shouldn't be something that's kept away from the light of normal, hidden and closeted but always near the mind, kicked away for fear of how others will view you, and then made criminal and unnatural. Sex is something that the entire human race needs to confront and be mature about. Enough with religious perspectives and doctrines, enough with this damn world's lies!
Let us move forward as a species, as one world with many aspects to explore and learn from.
well put billy. i hope my kids have their heads on as well as you. but to assume it's not influential is naive. you are obviously intelligent and think for yourself but the fact is teens ARE targeted with so much media crap and it has influenced our nation over the last 20 years or so to a point that sex is a focal point in almost everything and as a teen most kids are influenced by all that is shoved down their throats.. which i think is what the article is SUPPOSED to be about _it just seems a little radical and not thought with youth in mind.. i'm with you that oppression is not the answer because as a one time youth i definitely wanted honesty and not oppression.. i DO believe we need to reign in the media atleast when it comes to public tv which is a major cause of the bombardment and set a lot more ground rules to what is appropriate and can be seen on family television - i am not saying ALL TV and ads but ones that children can view freely on public channels (ABC, Fox, etc.) and up to a certain time needs to be adjusted - pay channels not included.. most of all i'm with you - parents teach your children! YOu are the biggest influence in your kids lives (or should be atleast) and most likely they will end up like billy - educated, intelligent and can think for themselves..
I love how the teenager is the most rational and clear thinking commenter here.
I thank you for the article. I am a porn addict and falling. Now I see that I was wrong. Because of you, you saved a teenager from falling into the same thing so many do. Thank you SO MUCH!