Stop the presses! Breaking news! More kids than ever before are viewing online porn!
This urgent news item has been making the rounds in the press over the past couple days. Who knew that the Internet was an increasingly popular medium? Who knew that more people are spending more time exploring the Web on a daily basis and subsequently viewing the vast variety of material available therein? And that some of these people are under 18?
This is clearly a problem. In case you don't know why, the Associated Press (the Associated Press!) quotes some pediatrician who, you know, has insight about these things. Dr. Michael Wasserman says the Internet is "beyond the wild west" and has "taken away the age of innocence."
That certainly sounds like a bad thing--taking away the age of innocence. The pure bliss that is childhood is apparently ripped asunder by the lewd lawlessness the Internet inflicts on us.
But really...and I mean really....is it such a bad thing for kids to stumble across some naked people on the Internet? Don't all kids make their way into their Dad's (or Mom's) porn collection at some point, even without the Internet entering the picture? And don't they all learn a lot about sex and sexuality in the process? (Be honest...wasn't it a delightfully educational experience for you?)
Sure, I'm against kids seeing troubling sexual scenes depicting hardcore sex, bondage, kink, bestiality, etc. No need to go from zero to 120. But the thing is random pop-up ads and the mass-marketed content that tends to dominate most of the "accidental" porn really isn't very extreme. These sites are going for the widest appeal possible, and frankly, content that appeals to the largest swath of the American public is pretty much your average porn. Certainly not anything to deeply disturb children beyond the terrors normally associated with growing up.
I obviously lack anything beyond empirical personal experience in the way of evidence for my argument, but the other side also has little to bolster their case. That's why articles like this, this, and this have to resort to hyperbole and scare tactics to rouse the public.
One point I will concede is that it is definitely suboptimal that many kids' first exposure to sex comes in the form of pornography which often depicts sex neither accurately nor respectfully. But this is a quality issue, not so much a freak-out-and-banish-porn-from-the-mainstream-Web issue.
Ultimately, it's just not a very big deal. Some kids are curious and will seek out porn; others aren't and will stumble across it. Either way, online porn is not going to ruin children. As Susie Bright aptly notes, there are many bigger problems facing the world's youth.
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