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Could teenagers be stopped from looking at porn?

by newgameplus · #society
posted 388 days ago · shared by: 10
MPs have warned it's too easy for children to watch online pornography. But could the internet be regulated to protect children? And should it?


by sounds_sound 387 days ago  ·  link
I think our culture is going through a bit of growing pains with the internet right now and that, as a whole, society is healthier when more people have exposure to the dark recesses of human desire - simply because it puts it out there and makes it easier to talk about. I think that basically everyone has a certain proclivity at some point for submersing themselves into satisfying our basic human pleasures - eating, drinking, sexing. When we realize just how normal all of that weirdness is then it becomes easier to make an actual choice to not engage.
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by newgameplus 387 days ago  ·  link
One would hope, but with the rates of obesity in the west it's perhaps not clear if enough people are choosing not engage. Of course, the different factors at play in that situation make it very unique. Drinking is probably a better parallel, only alcohol is at least semi-successfully age-restricted. Which porn clearly isn't at this point. The question is really whether there is harm being done that outweighs the harm we might do by trying to regulate.

It certainly seems like this is a growing concern of many people. Here's another TED talk that blames the current educational underperformance of boys on so-called arousal addictions. Personally, it sounds very over-reductionist to me, and like you, I think there are going to be noticeable benefits from all this in the long run.

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by insomniasexx 388 days ago  ·  link
If you don't want your kids watching porn non-stop, then you limit their access to the internet. Make sure they only have access on a desktop computer in an open area. Mine was in the office right next to my dads. I wasn't allowed on the internet unless he was there. A lot of my friends had unlimited access to a computer in their bedroom. A few even had the screens faced away from the door so their parents would have to walk all the way around to see what they were up to. The shit we got into was amazing. I didn't watch porn at my house until I was 16 and bought my first laptop. Even then we didn't have a wireless router so I had to bring a 100 foot cat5 cable up the stairs and into my room. Every morning I would wake up and my dad would have wrapped the cable up and put it back in the office. I had to track it down and re-do it.

I didn't have a door on my bedroom when I was that age so I had to be extra careful when I wanted to masturbate.

IMO, teenagers googling boobs is healthy. Having unlimited private internet access will have them googling "tied up fat woman fucks cat and hubby at the same while eating mayo" in no time.

This isn't a job for regulation. It's a job for parents.

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by b_b 388 days ago  ·  link
Anyway, where's the evidence that watching porn is bad for you? Some of the biggest perverts I knew growing up have awesome jobs and stable families now that they're adults. Hell, I have a doctorate in biophysics and I watched porn like it was going out of style. Maybe its because we had to watch porn on VHS. We only had regular, Christian porn, none of this new fancy get-whatever-you-can-dream-up-on-demand internet porn; I'm sure that would have really messed us up. If I were a parent, I would just pretend I didn't know what was going on when my kid started shutting his bedroom door every time (s)he logged on to the computer.
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by newgameplus 388 days ago  ·  link
Watching porn isn't bad for you, but porn addiction is. There's now mounting evidence about how internet porn is especially conducive to creating addiction, and how the negative effects are much greater than the pre-internet days. Here's a TED talk about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zif0_60b3WU

That being said, the speaker in that video talks as if the studied levels of addiction are an epidemic. That I'm not so sure of.

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by b_b 388 days ago  ·  link
Alcohol addiction is bad, too. I don't want anyone interfering with my access to alcohol, either. But I suppose if its a huge public health issue, that's when the gov't gets involved.
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by insomniasexx 388 days ago  ·  link
I think watching porn to a certain extent is fine. But it can get really extreme really fast.

I hooked up with this guy on and off when I first got to university. I loved hooking up with him because he was sexually confident and actually knew where certain areas on my body were. But it took him forever to get off. The first couple times I blamed it on the alcohol/weed/late night. Then, I was kind of hurt that he wasn't getting off to me. I was like "I'm fucking sexy. I'm riding your cock. WHAT GIVES?!"

So I asked him, when we were both extremely intoxicated. And he opened right up. Fucking alcohol. The shit that he wanted...an 18 year old guy...blew me away. Every single fetish. He wanted to be choked, he wanted a dildo up his butt, he wanted to watch me pee, and for me to pee on his face. I asked him how he even found out he was into this stuff and he said he watched a lot of fucking porn and knows what he likes.

Even this isn't necessarily bad for you. But if you can't get off anymore from regular old sex at 18, where is your sexual life and relationships going to go? What is he going to need to get off in 5 years or 10 years or 20 years? I think this is the danger. Exploring your sexuality as you grow up is good and I think porn does help you do that. When I have kids, I will look the other way. But I won't let them sit in their room for hours and hours doing who knows what. Explore your sexuality and then get out of the house and do something.

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by steve 388 days ago  ·  link
I'm starting to realize that my sexual fantasies are tame - and perhaps even boring.
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by b_b 388 days ago  ·  link
Me too. My main one is her putting her clothes on and leaving after without me having to act like I don't want her there.
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by steve 388 days ago  ·  link
As an old married man... I'm happy if the clothes come off in the first place. ZING!
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by b_b 388 days ago  ·  link
You have me laughing like an idiot in my office. I hope no one pops in to see what's so funny. That said, if you're 18 an you can't get off to slightly rubbing up against a couch cushion then you're in for a life of disappointment when you're 30.
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by thenewgreen 387 days ago  ·  link
I remember that couch cushion.
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by newgameplus 388 days ago  ·  link
    Having unlimited private internet access will have them googling "tied up fat woman fucks cat and hubby at the same while eating mayo" in no time.
As someone who did have a computer in my room growing up, I can neither confirm nor deny that I used to do this when I was twelve. Ah, who am I kidding, of course I can deny it. We used to use Alta Vista back then.
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by thenewgreen 387 days ago  ·  link
When I was a kid finding one of my dad's playboys was like finding gold. My brother and I would trade turns looking at it and then carefully put it back where we found it. This would last for months until my dad either shifted the hiding place or got rid of it. Part of me thinks he may have intentionally placed it in a relatively easy place to find. Thanks Dad.

When we were really young we decided to draw our own version of "playboy". We folded and binder a bunch of paper together and drew nude images of women in it. We called the publication "In the Bushes" and we hid it in the woods in our fort. Because I was the oldest, I got to be the editor in chief. What I wouldn't give to be able to see In The Bushes now....

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by JakobVirgil 388 days ago  ·  link
Intentional Porn could self label in the header.
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