It’s time Britain had the porn conversation

[flashharriet]

Article here

Have to say this article puts into words my growing sense of disquiet as my kids approach their teenage years...

Plus MN gets a mention (in conjunction with Boden but you can't have everything )

Good article. We need to have that conversation as a nation. I too have a sense of disquiet and been thinking about it quite a bit lately as DS1 and DS will both be young teenagers in a few years.

hmmm.
I wonder if I'm being hopelessly naive.
I have 3 teenage dcs, and ds is 20. They all have free access to internet. They do waste a lot of time in cyber space, but whenever I check they are chatting to RL friends downloading music playing tetris or watching iplayer. My dds don't dress like whores and have a healthy self respect.
I really don't like over sexualised clothing for dcs, and we don't have porn or anything approaching it in the house. I guess I'm saying, it's not that hard to avoid it, and we seem to have managed to sheild our dcs from all o f that stuff without too much effort.

I remember seeing a series about teenagers and sex that showed how porn had completely skewed boy's expectations about girl's bodies. This had a huge effect (and of course girls see porn too) about how girls felt they should look.

From what I've heard, a lot of it goes on via mobile i.e. viewing and sending videos and pictures.

I saw that programme too shonaspurtle - can't believe their wasn't more outcry about it. Trouble is, anyone who raises doubts is accused of being frigid, square etc etc

I campaigned in the 80's against porn when I was a teenager myself. I was annoyed by the fetish for the kinky schoolgirl image which was prevalent at the time. I was approached by a weirdo on my way home from school who offered me a lot of money for photos to send to a well known gents mag. I was really upset and joined CAP, probably being the only child member. I have a teenage son who has utmost respect for girls and 3 well balanced daughters who have a great self esteem and no porn in the house even newspaper porn not allowed. Im very proud of my kids!

this is horribly timely for me and dh - we had to have 'that' conversation recently. My ds is 12 His best friend had showed him porn on the pc at a sleepover and he was a bit freaked out.

At the same time, a friend's 11-yr-old daughter has allegedly slept with her 15 year old boyfriend at another sleepover. The thing is, she hasn't, but she told her friends she had, because she thought she was the only girl in Yr 7 who was still a virgin. How does this happen?

Another friend's Yr6 ds complained to the headteacher about boys in his class sending pornographic pix on their mobiles. he is now being bullied by the other boys for 'spoiling the game'.

DS isn't yet at that stage of development where he is interested in sex. He is iterested in music. He lusts over guitars. But a look at his pc history shows numerous big-titted pop-ups from music sites.

I can't tell you how pleased I am to find a few people who are concerned about this as well. There's so much apathy around this subject - "ah well, it's out there, what can you do?" etc - that it's easy to think that you're the only person who thinks 10 year olds (or younger) looking at hard-core porn is WRONG!

However, I have to say it's a bit disappointing to find so few postings, even after the thread being flagged. Maybe the vast majority of people really don't care. God, how depressing

YES.

I think it must create completely skewered idea of expectations. How can it not? They'll go to bed with a REAL woman at some point and she will: have a sense of humour (hopefully), hair in all probability, thoughts, opinions, desires which are hers not yours, I don't know, ideas, you know, she'll be a human being.

I think the point is about saturation, because it is everywhere and it's presence isn't healthy.

I was looking at a load of girls come out of secondary school the other day - and it struck me that even the fashion comes from porn. It's sort of trickled down. That messed up big hair, the fake tan, hairlessness etc.

I do think it's insidious.

And I don't care if anyone thinks I'm censorial prude for saying so.

Yes some do object because they are prudes, but the idea of kids getting all their ideas about women from porn bothers me and I'm a man who has looked at his fair share of it in the past.

I don't think porn is wrong in itself. There may be side effects on those working in the industry which need to be dealt with, but they don't make the porn wrong. Just those profiting from it.

I also don't think that trying to ban it is worth considering. It wouldn't even work so is pointless and just makes another set of laws to be misapplied by the real prudes.

The only answer that I can see is start from the other end of the problem. Teach the kids first about life and the other sex and do it before they are exposed to the fantasy.

but Onegar, that is the problem - kids are being exposed to the pornographic 'fantasy' images almost before it is time to talk to them about normal sexual relationships!

and I am not anti-porn per se, but we are the first generation of parents who have had to deal with this highly sexualised bombardment and hi-jacking of life via electronica and we're all groping round in the unknown.

sorry, feel free to snigger at the use of the word groping in this context...

Bloody hell. At last! I think this is the first time I've read an (albeit indirect) criticism of MN that I've wholeheartedly agreed with. Great article.

I am actually quite furious about this article.Especially this part;

Did it never occur to them that the Islamification of young Muslim women, the ascendancy of the hijab, that categoric statement of separation and difference, was, to no small degree, a protective reaction by a modest people against a host culture that was running through a shopping centre with its arse out, wearing a T-shirt saying ?No gag reflex!?

I find this very offensive and a real nasty attitude hiding behind tolerance

what are you saying? it's not clear to me.

flashharriet, you ask why there are so few posts on this thread. I wonder if it's because the MN moral majority is too busy juming "in at the shallow end" and "bravely lambasting purveyors of tarty toddler clobber" along with David Cameron to bother looking at the bigger story.

IMO kneejerk reactions to Lolita lingerie and Bratz-branded party shoes with a slight heel aren't just missing the point, they're deflecting attention from a very real problem.

Riven: porn has got more extreme because it is chasing profits. It's my understanding a) watching porn regularly desensitises you and so more and more extreme imagery is required to pull people in. and b) because for most people, porn is about 'transgressing' - ie 'being naughty', which is a turn on - if you are willing to be more and more transgressive you will get more audience, and this causes everybody to do the same thing c) now it's moving image you can show a lot more, and need to show a lot more to hold attention - it's difficult to be as disturbing/transgressive, and also to 'affect' someone's ideas of what sex is really like, with a still shot in a magazine. i think there is possibly more in this discussion about the fact that hetero porn is not always about sex (but about anger, domination, lack of power) and why humiliation of women is necessary... i don't know enough about the subject or eg, gay porn as a contrast to talk about that with confidence tho. The point about moving imagery and ease of access is also why this discussion about porn is really NEEDED - when it was teens sharing ripped-out pictures or porno novels in the loos, there is really only so much they can get out of it [wrong phrase!] even if at wrong age. freely accessible films that you can watch for hours, any time, can have an exponentially larger effect.

It's hardly a new issue though, ok when i was at school it was found/stolen/borrowed mags, kids get hold of porn, it's a fact of life.

Still, surely it's up to us as parents to point out the fact that this is fantasy and in no way real life unless you're a perv and as for '(What about parents who were too busy?)' please!

Oh, I'm so ANNOYED by fcking Cameron and his anti-sexualisation thing. It's so APOLITICAL and such an obvious vote snatcher from MN types. I think it's hypocritical in a party that hates regulation and lets the market do what it wants.

The PORN thing, however, is properly really scary. I think there's a massive misogynistc thing going on at the moment.
I have some young associates who are lovely, well brought up, kind, polite, and sweet etc but they have no compunction about referring to female colleagues as waste gash. It makes me (late 30s feminista) absolutely incandescent with rage.

.. but there's a big difference between 'getting hold of porn' ie the odd magazines from the top shelf , and internet-accessible films/images which you can get on your PC, phone, downloaded or forwarded to you, pretty much any time you want to, any time any place...

but there's a big difference between 'getting hold of porn' ie the odd magazines from the top shelf , and internet-accessible films/images which you can get on your PC, phone, downloaded or forwarded to you, pretty much any time you want to, any time any place..''

exactly omanoma

Was i the only child who used to see the pages of torn porn mags flying round pretty much all the time?

If you give a young child a phone capable of that you are asking for trouble imo, and if they are supervised online it's very rare to just stumble upon it.