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The Internet Has Created A New Baseline For Sexuality
Like it or not, pornography is more widespread now and easily accessible than any other time in human history. There are pluses and minuses, but do your teenagers know what “normal” is?
4 Responses to “The Internet Has Created A New Baseline For Sexuality”
As a techie, I tell all my clients not to allow their kids to have the internet on their computers in their rooms…do they listen? nope
The problem is, parents see the computer, much like their parents saw tv…as a babysitter…it is not.
The fact that parents do not talk openly with their kids about sexuality only adds to the problem.
But it is not just pornography on the web that should be at issue, it is sites like myspace and youtube, where more and more teens are placing videos of themselves in different stages of dress. Think of yourself as a teen in need of attention and positive support…what kind of rush do you think you would get if your vid or pics gets thousands of hits, and you get hundreds of messages telling you how attractive you are.
In his perverse way, the unibomber was right, technology is evil.
What will all this lead to? I fear congressional comittees and laws passed with no teeth. The net cannot be stopped, but we all must take personal responsibility for its use.
Intresting article (as always from Johann Hari). I agree with him that the best antidote is to educate kids about the unreality of porn. Basically, kids need to know that the images of hard-core porn they see – especially the more “creative” ones – are as unrealistic as the violent movies out there. And we as parents need to take that on seriously.
I think porn has been easy to find for a long time. I remember reading Playboy at the homes of children I babysat in the ’60s &’70s.
Porn is more accessible than it was when I was a kid. But one thing Hari doesn’t mention is that you can get a blocker for most adult sites on your computer.