I knew this was happening, but it's depressing to read in black and white - an infected generation...

30 years ago boys were just as sex obsessed but without the porn 'education'
I stumbled into single sex education for my dcs and I'm so glad I did.

There already is a black market with gruesome deeds - in fact the mainstream market and the black market are merging.

We did used to regulate pornography very strictly and although there was lost of child porn about, there was about one ten thousandth of the amount there is now. So your point is what?

This is the same liberal argument applied to prostitution: have regulated, legal brothels and then all will be well. Rubbish.

if you ban porn it will just become a black market activity with no regulation with even more gruesome deeds. but then maybe some people are into that.

I feel grateful to have been the last generation to go through my teens without smart phones and the internet.
We fumbled around with each other, the boys tried to push it too far, we pushed back, I was sexually assaulted more than once, had a 28yo boyfriend at the age of 15 (which my mum was fine with!)
But we were never under pressure to do anal, send videos or shave our pubic hair off. I didn't even bother to do my bikini line half the time and I didn't get shamed or bullied!
I feel that girls today have such massive challenges to overcome.
Even as an adult pushing 40, anal, Hollywood waxes and sexting etc. Are creeping into sex lives. It's all a bit grubby.
What happened to making love?! (I hate that term, but can't think of anything else to write, not had enough coffee.)

There are two valid responses to the problem of pornography.

1. It is all but banned, or heavily regulated. The one and only good thing the Conservative Party have done is enforce age verification controls on porn websites to come into force next April. However, this legislation is not enough. If I had my way the whole lot would be banned, and regarded as no more morally acceptable than prostitution. In fact, it is filmed prostitution, and the hypocrisy of people who condemn prostitution but use porn is nauseating in my view.

2. We more or less accept it as a fact of life. Because the fact is that if lots of children are free to access pornographic media, then they will; and if pornographers and tech entrepreneurs are free to make money out of children accessing porn, then they will. You can try and educate children and young people about it's perils and wrongs, but that's about it. When it comes down to it, the choice is that binary. Heavy regulation or the situation gets worse.

In the internet a monster has been created which has given licence to all the inherent barbarisms of human nature. The liberals who thought it was a great idea can suck up the consequences.

I think the best us mums can do is keep an open dialogue about what's ok and what's not - not just in a sexual way. I think a lot of these issues are just common sense. You should not let someone make you do something you don't want to do. When it comes to sex, this becomes a whole other matter and it's important to educate our little girls to be firm, and our little boys to think less with their dicks. Keep up the good work mums!

I think the main issue is with how accessible porn is these days.

Anyone remember about 20 years ago, when "Red hot dutch" was being talked about in Parliament? It was a porn channel which became available in the UK, and the gov were worried they couldn't prevent access to it, as it was beamed in over satellite.

I thought they were being daft at the time. But, with the internet, we've got free, unfettered access to the type of porn that didn't even exist 20 years ago. And we're seeing the results. I have 3 young boys, and I'm going to make sure they have a £9.99 phone, if at all!

Access to (hardcore) porn is the primary cause of this behaviour. With sexualisation of pop stars a definite contributor. Speaking to friends who are secondary school teachers was a real eye opener for me. They spoke of regular incidents of sexting/obscene pictures being taken on phones.

How's about this as a first step? Government legislates to prevent any phone with an LCD screen, or a camera, being taken into a school by a pupil? I can prevent my kids from getting smartphones, but what can I do if their schoolmates are showing them shit behind the sports hall?

Mobile phones are not essential, and they're not a human right. We need to stop them getting into schools.

It is depressing, although I hate to use the term it seems as if an entire generation has trivialised themselves. Nothing was allowed to be taken seriously, being sexually available was all that mattered. Other countries had an excuse for using the word 'decadent'.
However there is a note of hope - I am using the past tense there. I believe we're on the edge of change. I don't know what the later consequences will be of this abandoned generation in the middle, but today's youngsters are giving me a hope I haven't felt for a long time.

Sea you can bet your bottom dollar that the women in Little Mix are not the ones who get to decide whether they're gyrating or not. See picture for what they looked like originally.

I think the parenting and teaching boys has to start much much earlier. DD is 6 and a group of boys has been bullying her for a year. They gang up on certain girls and aren’t controlled at all by the school, their parents or society. Boys will be boys and be really mean.

They are allowed to be loud, mean and fairly violent without censure. The girls like that soon find that they are censured. Not DD any more. After trying the school repeatedly I’ve told her she can hit back now.

I honestly feel that modern female pop stars have a lot to answer for.... like this Little Mix music video where they are all gyrating around like porn stars for the lip licking enjoyment of the male gaze -

Little Mix

Of course female stars expressed their sexuality in the 80s/90s [when I was a teenager] but Cyndi Lauper, Kim Wilde, heck even Madonna actually seemed to be having fun with it and it's whole expression appeared to be something more about female empowerment and the ability to enjoy oneself and dress up and perhaps pull a guy at the end of the night... Not this vapid,slack jawed, lip licking, boobs hanging out hoping to gain sexual validation and approval from men.

I think we can stop thinking of it as a problem that can be solved by how we parent our girls. I don't think it will be solved until we, as a society, have a radical rethink about how we parent our boys. And I don't mean just sitting them down and lecturing them about consent as teenagers. I mean starting from day one about all the harmful and frankly toxic messages we (mums and dads alike) send them about how to be a "successful " man.

So, what can we do as parents of girls to counter this pressure? I'm trying to find resources that are appropriate for younger children. I feel so sad that I need to start thinking about this while DD is in primary school but I think I probably do need to start laying the groundwork now for a healthy body image and healthy boundaries, especially as she is taller than average and looks older than her actual age. So, does anyone have any suggestions?

silk

Frequency your post about your DD has made me so sad. Fwiw I think you are doing the right thing keeping the dialogue open.

I am SO glad I spent my teens in a nerdy bubble away from all this shit. If I'd seen what Frequency's DD and all the other girls are seeing at 14 and younger I'd never have had sex.

Aside from my brother, I don't think I've ever met a male that genuinely saw females as his equal. Porn continues to push the belief that men are the ones to be gratified, and women are a hole.

Liberal feminism

Gawd it's depressing.
The sex ed in this country needs a huge overhaul.

I won't have it that this is caused by radical feminism. Feminism wants women to be seen by men as their equals.

"No means yes" has been around for a hell of a long time. About a zillion movies taught me as a girl that "nice" women need to put up a bit of resistance before being overwhelmed by the power of his love. At no point was it expected that an adult exchange could take place with a woman knowing her mind and a man respecting that.

These days its worse though with porn / our cultural norms "teaching" girls that they're weird if they're not up for anything that a boy suggests and don't enjoy it when it happens.

Some things are the same as ever (it was 1960 when the Shirelles asked "Will he still love me tomorrow?")

The huge shift - which I attribute mostly to porn, as facilitated by the internet - is summed up in what I heard someone say the other day: "No means yes, and yes means anal"

I was a teenager in the 70's. Girls were 'encouraged' to have sex then, and boys would certainly push their luck, but it didn't seem to be a mass thing.
To me the difference is that women and girls have been socialised into dropping their boundaries. As an example, I was asked to pose for nude photos a couple of times, I said no because I knew they would end up being passed around and it wouldn't end well for me. Sending nudes seems to be pretty standard nowadays.
I think liberal feminism has a lot to answer for. Being 'sex positive' is a good thing but it just seems to have lead to a situation of girls being obligated to be sexually active whether they want to or not. It really has played straight into men's hands.
I think it's up to us older women to start speaking up now. Young girls have to know that their bodies belong to them and they do not have to do anything they don't want to.

‘I’m feeling rapey’??? Good lord

Glittery their sex ed is rubbish, don't rely on that, plus the bad language/sexualized images/violent talk around them isn't often covered by that education or challenged enough by it either IMO.

I did feel a bit encouraged the other day. One guy was behind me in the queue in the supermarket and said something like 'I'm feeling rapey (meaning horny I think), I'm going to see X' and his friend, clearly embarrassed, said 'dude, I'm kind of over that word'. So, not everyone is cool with misogynistic violent talk. The boys on the bus were so vile they said things that made my ears pop. I cannot understand how this is normal in their worlds.

I think the main issue is with how accessible porn is these days.

I have no clue if I am parenting right, most of the time I'm just winging it but I do have a very open relationship with my daughters so I know what they see/are being shown on social media.

Their friends (including girlfriends) often send graphic and sometimes violent clips of sexual acts via message services as jokes. What we would have found shocking, they see as normal

DD shows me them, we chat about them (emphasis on the porn is not real/you don't have do that etc) and she deletes them. I feel like if I went apeshit over it and banned her from having these friends, she'd start hiding these things from me and maybe see it as normal.

She's only fourteen. I don't want my fourteen year old seeing this shit. I don't want to have to explain the difference between consensual oral sex in a loving relationship and a woman having her throat fucked for the camera but IDK what the answer is when porn and the online wide is so accessible to teens these days. I ban it at home, her friends show her it at school. It's frightening.

I have a 3yo Ds and pregnant with a dd.
This all terrifies me.
I need to teach Ds about boundaries, consent, what is/isn't appropriate etc
I need to teach dd that her body is her own, saying no is fine and she's better than all that.
I'm hoping by the time they're in senior school, schools have better ways of dealing with things, have proper sex ed (not just don't get pregnant).

Silk I'm sorry to hear what you have been through, it does confirm what I am hearing from other sources and what I am afraid of for my children.