Miss Lori asks, “Do you know what your child is watching on their phone?”

Okay, here’s a question. How old were you when you first saw pornographic material? Did you run across a Playboy tucked under a bed? Something like that. Or maybe a friend got ahold of an older siblings Penthouse or Hustler. OO my. Okay. Now, how old were you when you first saw a pornographic movie? I gotta tell you, I don’t remember exactly, but I know I was well beyond high school. I didn’t really know much about pornography growing up. It’s not that I was sheltered. Far from it. I spent most of my time amongst people of all ages through my work in theatre. Sex was in the air, just not on any screens that I saw. It really came down to availability.

So now, with all of that said, how old do you think your child was or will be when they see their first pornographic video? Remember, it’s a matter of availability. Oh yes, that got your attention didn’t it? Well, it certainly got mine recently.

I rely heavily on all of my portable web browsing devices, particularly my smart phone. I need complete access to the World Wide Web for my work. I am often bombarded with porn overtures. It’s highly annoying. Yet, it simply did not register in my mind what exactly is available to my children and their friends right on their phones. The iphone should be renamed the iporn for all of its’ unmonitored access to pornographic material at the touch of a fingertip! Think about it. We have given our children phones to make our highly programmed lives more convenient. To encourage communication while supporting personal freedom. Which leaves them free to roam, (and I’m not talking cell towers).

A young man that I work with, who is 11, made me aware of a pornographic site that he was experiencing peer pressure at school to look at. Though he said he didn’t necessarily want to look at the site, he also didn’t want to be the only one who hadn’t. I am not going to name the site because I don’t want to give them any free publicity, nor do I want to be indelibly linked to them. Nevertheless, let me just say it is merely one of many that offer hundreds of amateur and semi pro videos of every kind of sex act imaginable…for free. Just like youtube, they allow you to rate, comment, pick favorites, set up playlists and share. There is another site out there that claims to be the facebook of sex. You set up a profile, friend people, and then hook up for casual sex. It asks for your age and says you must be at least 18. However, the pictures they use for advertisement show men and women who look more like boys and girls in high school.

Now of course, pornographic sites are perfectly fine for consenting adults. There is nothing illegal in what the videos on many of these free sites are showing. No one is being visibly abused or forced to do something against their will. It’s adult porn. However, that said, it is illegal for children to be shown material such as this, yet they can access it simply by typing in the address into their web browser. You may think… “my child wouldn’t do that. He isn’t interested. He wouldn’t know what to look for. She knows the rules about the internet.” Sure, that all sounds good, but do you really believe it? Peer pressure is a strong influence. No one wants to be left out. Will your child look on just to be included? And what happens when they do? What happens when they take a peak, when they are exposed to such material? What is the overall effect? Pictures are a strong influencers. They show you what’s possible, and they can make an indelible imprint. At a time when children are just coming into their own sexuality-when they are a giant ball of unfettered hormones-what effect does seeing pornographic material have on them? We did study’s in the 80’s and 90s that proved exposure to violence through video games has a lasting effect on children, desensitizing them. Thus making them more accepting of, and potentially viable to commit, acts of violence. So likewise, does exposure to graphic sex acts influence our children and cause them to be more likely to participate in sexual behavior?

YES!

As reported on Net Nanny…
Internet pornography is often the first exposure that children and teens have to sexual images. This plants in them a twisted and perverse view of human intimacy that is difficult or impossible to weed out. These early learning experiences can lead to sexual deviancy and crime, and often negatively affect their future relationships and marriages.

APA online provided very interesting study information…
In one study surveying 471 Dutch teens ages 13 to 18, the researchers found that the more often young people sought out online porn, the more likely they were to have a “recreational” attitude toward sex—specifically, to view sex as a purely physical function like eating or drinking.

In the study, reported in the December 2006 Journal of Communication (Vol. 56, No. 4, pages 639–660), the team also found a relationship between porn use and the feeling that it wasn’t necessary to have affection for people to have sex with them. Boys were much more likely to hold these views than girls, and they tended to hold these attitudes more strongly when they perceived the material as realistic, the team found.

In a related study in the March issue of Sex Roles (Vol. 56, No. 5/6, pages 381–395), the Dutch team found a link between the type and explicitness of sexual media the teens saw and their tendency to view women as sexual “play things.” The more explicit the material viewed, the more likely young people were to see women in these ways—and Internet movie porn was the only media type to show a statistically significant relationship, they found.

According to statistics cited by the non-profit advocacy organization Enough Is Enough, nine out of ten children between the ages of 8 and 16 with Internet access have viewed pornographic websites, sometimes inadvertently in the course of looking up information for homework.

If kids are exposed to pornography during the “formative stage” of their personal sexuality, they have the potential to become disconnected from relationship contexts. They might grow to see their potential mates merely as objects, and remove themselves from “feelings,” and other human traits. Pornography can be very intoxicating, especially for curious, hormonally charged young people. However, watching it they run the risk of tuning their bodies to be aroused solely from imagery and video, instead of from real human contact. Plus sex doesn’t look like a porno film. Yet when our children are exposed to this unrealistic view of sexual activity they are potentially locking in unhealthy ideas about their body image, and what makes them sexy and desirable.

Socio-sexual imprinting. A heady topic, so let me break it down.

We are told as parents to repeat, and model behavior and lessons for our children, so that they will learn and grow. We repeat because repetition hardwires into the memory and hopefully becomes and integrated part of our child’s thinking and processing. For example, saying “please and thank you.” We reinforce the idea by saying the words, writing them, singing them and playing games etc…all in a effort to train our children to be polite. The invention of video has helped a great deal with our teaching as well. Everyone recognizes the power of the all mighty image, particularly the moving image. Ok, now think about it. Sex education is a tough. We talk to our kids, they get family science in most schools and they have access to books. But where are they really getting their information? What is hardwiring into their minds about relationships, physical interaction and sexuality? What behavior is available for them to repeat and model?

That would be predominantly the behavior and relationships that they see on TV, and the internet.

Our children are attracted to, and enticed by the images they see before them. These images are hardwiring into their minds at a time when they are most psychologically available and vulnerable. Watching pornography during their formative sexual years can hardwire children to believe that their best and truest arousal comes from pornography. That sexual interactions are purely physical and do not require an emotional connection. It could leave them vastly unprepared for the myriad of emotions that are truly present in real life sexual interactions. Worse yet it can desensitize them from the ability to experience and enjoy the emotional by product of a sexual relationship.

There is a reason that we don’t let our children use scissors at a young age, or cut with knives without supervision, or light a candle with a lighter until they are older. It’s because they aren’t old enough to work with such things safely. We have bans against cigarette ads and alcohol ads because we feel that exposure to such adult items could have undue influence on minors. We have justifiable concerns that such ads could potentially lead children down a path towards something that is dangerous for them, or simply too adult for them to comprehend. Yet, we hand over phones and computers with internet connections that are a time bomb of adult material. We put that material right in our children’s hands and leave them to navigate the shark infested waters of pornography without so much as a single scuba lesson, let alone protective gear.

When my children use the computer at home they are monitored. They navigate in full view of the household, and have restricted access to the web. As for their phones, I personally don’t allow them to have web capability. But they are still at risk because their friends have full access smart phones and iphones. It’s not enough for individual parents to say “no” to the portable web for kids. We need to come together as a community and make a collective choice to protect all of our children. That means putting real limits on web access on phones for minors. It would be a little difficult and potentially costly, but can we really afford not to. What is the going price on childhood these days?

I say it’s priceless.

SMILE On!

ML

Miss Lori can be found Musing from her Minivan at MissLori.TV , Wearetherealdeal.com and ChiacgoMomsBlog. You can also see her Activating to Be Great at Miss Lori’s CAMPUS on Youtube, Facebook, and LinkedIn.