Kids are bombarded with opportunities to see porn. It's available on streaming apps, PCs (even school-issued devices), smartphones, and tablets. Porn can be accessed via social media, gaming apps and consoles, virtual reality, and even library apps.
There are numerous methods for children to be exposed to and drawn into porn! Today's children must deliberately and purposefully endeavor to escape it!
So, what exactly is the big issue with pornography? It is harmful to children in many different ways:
#1 Body Objectification
Porn is the epitome of body objectification. The popularity of porn in pop culture influences young girls' desire to be "hot." What causes a young girl to grow hot? She has to dress a certain manner and purchase certain "sexy" clothing. She needs to wear make-up and buy (or have her parents buy) a lot of things to fit in, to be seductive, hot, and popular with the boys.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Examine your children's clothing and leave the overly sexualized items on the racks!
Examine the toys your children play with and discard any that are sexualized.
Finally, avoid using the words "hot" or "sexy" as a praise to anyone.
Put work, accomplishments, generosity, or ingenuity ahead of physical attractiveness. And begin with yourself.
Allow your children to hear you speak great things about your inner traits rather than making negative comments about your body. Instead of saying, "Don't I look great in these skinny jeans since I lost 10 lbs?" instead, "I'm grateful I've been able to achieve my exercise and weight loss goals—I feel stronger, more in control, and healthier!"
#2 Porn interferes with natural kid development
Here are three examples:
Sexual Dysfunction: According to research, children who were exposed to pornography during their latent years (between the ages of six and twelve, when they should be diverting their energies into non-sexual development) were more likely to acquire dysfunctional sexual health attitudes and behaviors.
Sexual Abuse: We've known for a long time that adult predators use porn to groom children for sexual abuse. "It's a well-known practice for adults to use porn to groom children for sexual abuse," says Dr. Sharon Cooper of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Porn is used by perpetrators to normalize children having sex with adults. They utilize porn to educate children on the mechanics of sex, to persuade children to feel comfortable executing these actions, to sexually thrill children, and, eventually, to have children engage in sex with other adults or children."
Sexual Addiction: Finally, children who see porn may get addicted to it. The empirical research on this is sparse, but we do have a lot of anecdotal data from parents, therapists, addiction coaches, and organizations like Fight the New Drug, which receive emails from children as young as eight years old asking for help to stop watching porn.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Teach children a simple definition of pornography.
Many parents use the CAN DO plan from Good Pictures Bad Pictures to teach their children what to do when they witness porn.
Make it clear to your children that they should never be shown pornography.
Help children understand how pornography can harm their developing brains and become an addiction.
Teach your children the correct names for both sexes' genitals to help prevent them from sexual assault.
#3 Porn influences children's attitudes around sex
Many children use porn as a convenient form of sex education. Unfortunately, as children see some of the most popular and widely circulated online porn, they are taught that sex is about demeaning and violent activities rather than love, trust, and connection.
Sex in porn isn't about making love. Connection, empathy, sensitivity, care, and affection, which we ordinarily associate with such an act, are absent. Fear, disgust, fury, disdain, and contempt have taken their place as the feelings we identify with hatred. In porn, the guy "makes hate" to the woman, as each sex act is aimed to degrade her to the greatest extent possible. Nonetheless, the women are portrayed as enjoying these scenes. These images, which are now commonplace and omnipresent on the Internet, are changing the way a new generation of boys think about and connect to sex, relationships, and intimacy.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Teach your children your sexual values, and express your desire for them to have a loving sexual connection with their eventual spouse.
Help them understand that porn keeps viewers from developing healthy intimacy.
Mention how popular fiction, such as 50 Shades of Grey, depicts an abusive sort of love. Love is never violent.
#4 Porn alters users' sexual BEHAVIOR and escalates sexual violence
Even non-explicit, sexualized media predicts adolescent sexual activity: Dr. Michael Flood of Australia's University of Wollongong wrote a study for the Australian government earlier this spring. According to him, "three recent large-scale longitudinal studies document that exposure to non-explicit sexual content on television and other media frequently used by adolescents predicts earlier initiation of sexual behaviors, including intercourse."
Children also imitate pornographic sexual acts such as oral and anal sex.
The impact of pornography on young people's sexual behavior, particularly anal intercourse, has been well documented." Anal intercourse is common in heterosexual sex portrayals in contemporary pornography, with various studies reporting it in 15-42% of scenes.
There is consistent evidence that male sexual aggression against girls and women is linked to pornographic exposure. Individuals who actively ingested violent X-rated materials were more than six times more likely than others to engage in sexually aggressive behavior, according to a new longitudinal study of US teenagers aged 10 to 15, with three waves of data collected over three years.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Tell your tweens and adolescents that having sex before kissing is not a healthy progression of physical closeness (it's a bizarre phenomenon, but it happens all the time!).
Teach children that science indicates that porn influences their conduct. Learn more by downloading our free Quick Start Guide for Proactive Parents. This article will assist you in starting the conversation with your children.
#5 Children's porn consumption spreads to and damages other children
Children who see porn frequently expose other children to porn.
Children rarely tell their parents about their first exposure to pornography. This is dangerous since shame and concealment have been linked to an increased risk of addiction. According to a poll by Bentley, only 9% of girls and 7% of males acknowledged their first exposure to pornography on the same day.
If youngsters did not reveal on the same day, their chances of ever speaking to anyone before adulthood were significantly reduced.
In all, 31% of individuals have NEVER discussed their childhood exposure to pornography.
Children return for more. Children who are unintentionally introduced to porn return in large numbers to seek out more. According to Bentley's research, approximately 80% of those exposed returned to look for more pornography.
Pornography has been linked to an increase in child-on-child sexual abuse or deviance. Porn becomes the perpetrator who educates children to be offenders.
Consider the following worrisome statistics:
According to a Justice Department study of crimes in America, minors perpetrate over 40% of child sexual abuse in the United States.
According to a UK Parliamentary investigation, "up to 65% of all sexual abuse experienced by children under the age of 18 is perpetrated by someone under the age of 18."
Siblings are more prone to abuse children than their parents. Other minors perpetrate more than one in every three occurrences of sexual assault against children in the United States, and siblings are frequently the perpetrators. Sexual abuse between siblings is significantly more common than abuse between parents and children.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
Begin early to immunize your children against pornography.
Be the first reputable expert on sexual information for your children, not Google.
Use filtering and accountability technologies to reduce exposure as much as feasible. Inquire with the parents of your children's pals to see whether they are also securing their children's electronics.
Keep up to date on the stresses that children encounter.
Don't stop talking because our pornified culture isn't going away anytime soon, and we can't leave our children to deal with it alone! Read on for proof that chatting with our children works!
Assist children in meeting their emotional needs in healthy ways.
No parent wants to bring up the subject of porn, but our children are worth a little discomfort, if not humiliation. We can be essential mentors to our children if we stay in touch with them and educate them about the world in which they must grow up. And if we give children the resources they need to reject porn from the start.
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