When people defend porn, they always back up to: "we want porn to be allowed, but don't worry, we'll make sure children don't see it, then nobody will get hurt". I think though that the idea that children somehow are intrinsically damaged by seeing nudity or sex is one of the great untested assumptions of the age. It's just never been justified by reason or evidence. I admit I have the same feeling, I once dutifully removed a black-and-white erotic comic book from a childrens library. But it's just a feeling, how do we know? How do we know it's not just an irrational idea which is being strengthened by endless repetition? Where's the evidence?
None of the school pals of mine who found their father's stash turned into monsters or wrecks. Also, finding porn on the Internet is so easy now that it's must be the exception rather than the rule to find a kid who's grown up in the past 10 years who hasn't seen some. And yet I've yet to hear anybody say that the new generations are more psychologically damaged than the past ones.
Pascal, medical doctor, wrote the comments in blue below (and much more), under the alcohol post.
It can always happen that a child see by accident his parents having sex. If he knows what it means, and his parents are matter-of-fact about it, I'm ready to bet there won't be any meaningful trauma. I've got a modern book on sexuality aimed at little kids (for when the little one starts asking, which should be soon), and it explains "everything", with images leaving little room for doubt in spite of their cute style. In our (relatively) taboo-free 3rd millenium, it's the sensible AND healthy thing to do.
Now, don't nobody claim that I advised for a "practical demonstration" to complete a child's education! I won't go that far. The book also explains the very important concept of intimacy, see? Si.
Parent Alex opinionated...
"I think, in our society, the less known about parental sex the better."
Well, I grew up in the, let's say "conservative", lebanese society of the Seventies. But my sensible parents satiated all my intellectual and practical curiosity about the matters of sex when I was 5. And I feel it helped give me an immensely healthier and more relaxed attitude toward sex than my more typical schoolmates, and even University comrades in Med School!
As I said, the principle of intimacy means that parents aren't meant to give their children a live demonstration to make the course more complete. But "knowing" what goes on, on an intellectual level, does not hurt a correctly raised child, on the contrary. I might add, if a child happens to hear odd sounds coming from the bedroom of the parents, (s)he will then know to simply leave them to their intimacy. At least in my case.
None of us would exist if Mom and Dad hadn't "loved each other very very much". So no "eyew!", please. It's normal, it's God's design and Nature's working, it's part of the Universe, grow up and just deal with it.
"I was going to say misuse of alcohol can mess up your life and possible kill several other people, as if that was somehow different from sex."
Now THAT sums up the issue perfectly. :-)
What WOULD harm a child, is his parents sleeping around, or the drinking equivalent, getting drunk. Normal is normal, abuse destroys respect.
French television doesn't even put an age advisory any more if a film on national/public TV has non-sexual nudity in it. This includes a couple getting out of bed together, and clearly having slept naked together. Even includes the occasional tasteful sex scene with a reasonable level of non-explicitness, but undoubtedly naked actors.
What IS causing concerned debate in France today, is the fact that minors are getting very easy access to hardcore porn. And the concern is not even about the explicit sex! Nope, it's about the gravely deformed image of sex that most porn conveys, potentially messing up the conceptions that young teens may get regarding sex. Such as, "when she says no she means yes", "women are all secretly nymphomaniac she-dogs in heat", "swapping, slapping, dirty talking, group sex, non-consensual or ambiguous, are quite normal"... You get the general idea. Another major concern is that porn made today still slacks off regarding systematic condom use, and youngsters getting used to THAT is very bad. Aids is getting a second wind these days...
As one good friend of mine (very experienced) said to me: "Young people, teenagers, they WILL have sex; unless adults lock them up they'll take their own decisions, and our responsible job is to keep them safe by educating them the best we can. If you take a stict forbidding attitude, they may even disregard what you say just to spite you." We all know he's right. Even when risking death in the most conservatine muslim countries, many people just risk it all because the need to "just live" is too powerful to relinquish.
25 comments:
Well, it's already pretty much been said:
Nope, it's about the gravely deformed image of sex that most porn conveys, potentially messing up the conceptions that young teens may get regarding sex. Such as, "when she says no she means yes", "women are all secretly nymphomaniac she-dogs in heat", "swapping, slapping, dirty talking, group sex, non-consensual or ambiguous, are quite normal"... You get the general idea.
I have no problems with porn on its own - for adults. Let children be educated, fine. They certainly don't need to see their parents doing anything, but need to know that it may or may not happen. But porn for children and teenagers? Not hardcore porn.
But what are we going to do about it?
I suspect that even if children were drowned in the most perverted porn, they are more likely to become bored with it.
I think though that the idea that children somehow are intrinsically damaged by seeing nudity or sex is one of the great untested assumptions of the age. It's just never been justified by reason or evidence.
The only way to test it would be to expose children to it and see if they are messed up by it. That doesn't sound like something any normal person would want to be involved in. Maybe the Nazis would have been interested.
I suspect that even if children were drowned in the most perverted porn, they are more likely to become bored with it.
What a stupid thing to say. I suspect you are a latent pedophile.
Nudity is one thing, Eo. I don't think I'd want children to be viewing pornography.
"The only way to test it would be to expose children to it and see if they are messed up by it."
So there are no pre-existing cases which could be studied? No kids ever found their father's stash?
And if no children have ever been exposed to porn, how can you know that it's damaging to them?
OK, Joe, but can you tell me *why*. I'll accept it if I just hear a good reason, not just a feeling. When I grew up, many of my school pals found porn, and I never saw any evidence of damage.
I have the same feeling as you, a desire to keep it away from them, but I would like some actual *evidence* that the feeling is correct.
So there are no pre-existing cases which could be studied? No kids ever found their father's stash?
That doesn't sound like it would be exactly scientific, making it worthless. (That doesn't mean I agree with anonymous, though.)
I doubt it. It seems to me any experienced therapist would be able to say how often he comes across people who find that their emotional difficulties can be traced back to viewing porn.
Who cares. When I was 6 or 7 I found a hardcore porn magazine. I browsed through it, and other than getting my wee pecker hard, it didn't do anything to me. It didn't give me nightmares or any kind of trauma. People should lighten up. We're animals. Animals procreate. In our case, procreation happens to be enjoyable. So enjoy it and get that stick out of your arse -- unless you're enjoying that as well.
Hannah: "what are we going to do about it?" - I'll tell you what you should do about it: not a damned thing. Apparently becoming a parent makes people retarded. They somehow forget that they got up to all sorts of things behind their parents' backs. You can't prevent a child from getting up to mischief. Whether it's watching porn or stealing pears. Let children be children. Let them explore their world, test their own limits and see things with their own eyes. If they see something they don't like, you'll know about it, and then you can talk to them about it. There's no point in trying to hide things from them, it'll only come back to bite you in the arse.
My parents were somewhat oppressive like that. They would never take me to see my friends when I was a kid. When I was a bit older they wouldn't take me to see my girlfriends or even let me see them. You know what I did? I did it all behind their backs. When my dad told me my girlfriend couldn't even enter the house, I went over to her place behind his back and got -- and gave -- my first handjob at age 13. I don't regret it, and I've never seen anything wrong with it. Sure, it's statutory rape, but I can't say I give a damn.
Parents should grow up. Seriously.
I doubt it. It seems to me any experienced therapist would be able to say how often he comes across people who find that their emotional difficulties can be traced back to viewing porn.
As Alex might say, I stand by what I said. That would most definitely not be scientific, as scientists define the word. I get the feeling you would not be interested in whatever findings they made anyway, having clearly already made up your mind.
Hey, anonymous. I can see why you didn't want to put a name to that shit. You are one dumb sack of shit.
I have the same feeling as you, a desire to keep it away from them, but I would like some actual *evidence* that the feeling is correct.
I somehow missed this other post of yours.
I was saying that the study would have to be done to go beyond just the gut feeling, but that it couldn't be done. Can you see anyone ever allowing it? No one, whether they are for or against, can produce any proof.
So really the question can't be answered. We feel one way or the other. Personal opinion.
I will say - and this of course is also only opinion - that it was different in the days when a kid could find a Playboy or other magazine. These days kids are downloading tons of hardcore porn videos off the internet. I don't have any proof that this is damaging in the long-term. I am betting that it's different than just the odd secret magazine.
Anonymous would like us to look at this like cavemen. Like animals.
We do know that violence desensitizes. I'm not talking about fake movie or video game violence. I mean people who have seen the real thing. You get used to it. People who watched human beings fighting and killing each other in an arena could get used to almost anything.
In the same way, for kids, would watching hardcore porn videos do something similar? You might think it's a good thing. We're not talking about just nudity. I believe others have pointed out before on this blog that nudism is not sexual. Do we want a kid who has not yet had their first sexual experience to be already bored with sex? You want it to be new and exciting to them. Of course the real thing is far better than just watching it, but still.
(That doesn't include sex education. This would be more the equivalent of Popular Mechanics putting out a sex manual to be taught in schools.)
P.S. On a completely different subject, is it just me or are these word verifications becoming increasingly incomprehensible? Sometimes I can barely make out the letters, they are so stylized. :-)
"Do we want a kid who has not yet had their first sexual experience to be already bored with sex?"
I don't know, did you get bored with sex after a couple of years? I don't think it's a great risk.
"are these word verifications becoming increasingly incomprehensible? Sometimes I can barely make out the letters, they are so stylized."
I agree. I doubt how necessary it is.
As Alex might say, I stand by what I said.
I think that sometimes I am belligerent and will put my foot down.
As for kids, nudity, porn etc.
Thankfully my parents had a binder with umpteen editions of a late 60's/early 70's educational sex mag. I think it was "Man and Woman". I seem to remember stumbling across it when I was about 10. It was tastefully put together, and, even with all those moustaches, it never really scared me. I think the limited but honest information from my parents, and my me ness, was more damaging.
There are about 4/5ths of me want to sit down with the boys and watch "Prosperos Books" but I think the Caesarian section scene is a bit much.
A none threatening sex scene would not be a problem, I think, Hmm, there was one in Octopussy, I which I just let it play through, however, I think I would be very hesitant to show BDSM to the kids. However, isn't that the whole appeal of Bond, Tarzan, even The Avengers? All those films where the heroine is tied up and scantily clad?
There is a difference between bondage styling, leathers and chains (Edward Scissorhand, Catwoman, Emma Peel...), non sexual bondage, as in heroine tied the tracks, Mrs Peel in a feather boa in a gilded cage, Bond strapped to a bench with a laser aimed between the legs, and then the more intense bondage and sadism, like The Gimp in Pulp Fiction, or , well you know what I mean.
Do you put a 16 year old in a formula 1 car, and if they survive let them drive a Mini around town?
So, as parent Alex might put it. Softly softly catchee monkey. Not a baptism of fire.
I guess the trick is letting a kid know that between consenting adults nothing is taboo, and teaching them to know how to gauge how far something might go, how to keep themselves safe, and to respect the limits of their partner.
An impossible task, and both teacher and student will make mistakes,
...children...are more likely to become bored with it.
I suspect Eo's right here, they will get bored, not because they think it's perverted, but they'll somehow sense it's just rubbish.
They'll find their way to a natural attitude to sex, well, yes, just for the reason that it's a "natural thing".
Will ""primitive people"" who run about naked all day be discussing the same issue like we do? Certainly not.
Please note I've double-marked the words by intention. Call them primitive, but they're intelligent nontheless.
When I was 14 or so, my uncle borrowed a super 8 porn film and a projector. My uncle and aunt wanted to watch it secretly under the blanket. But my uncle didn't know how to fiddle the darn twisting film into the projector. My aunt asked me "secretly", if I could get the device ready so the show might start on another day.
I finally got the film reels turning, the cocks started popping up - and I thought: what a bloody fuss around all this sh**.
Today I'm a healthy admirer of human bodies, old and young.
I don't know, did you get bored with sex after a couple of years? I don't think it's a great risk.
That's an odd thing to say considering that it wasn't possible to download porn in those days. My exposure to it was the odd Playboy or Penthouse. I know that, for me, it did not have a negative effect. If you read what I wrote you would have seen that I was wondering about the effect of the amount of porn easily available for download to today's kids.
I did not and have not become bored with the real thing. But then I was not exposed to massive amounts of the hardcore stuff like a young teen or pre-teen boy probably is today.
Oh, and I knew I was playing with fire when I violated on the rules of the Code of the Schoolyard: "Never say anything, unless you're sure everyone feels exactly the same way you do."
"I think though that the idea that children somehow are intrinsically damaged by seeing nudity or sex is one of the great untested assumptions of the age."
Well, my main problem is that there's no tasteful porn that I know of. (You once blogged about an article analyzing this very phenomenon.)
I remember watching The Blue Lagoon as a family movie, decades ago. It was very tasteful, and yet the lovemaking was quite clear in the story. I was a kid, my parents had already explained to me the "facts of life" years earlier, and we watched it together. And Jerry Springer still doesn't know any of us, go figure. "SO not the drama!" :-)
I don't think any degree of explicit sex viewing would harm a well brought-up child. It's the porn movie producers that worry me. Especially the modern ones. The first porn films I saw, at the end of the Eighties, were often quite neutral, vice-wise. Just explicit sex, no particular added vulgarity. "Organic porn", you could say. Nowadays, you just don't know all the crap they put in that stuff. Consumption may be hazardous to your mental health. [Caution: these movies may contain nuts.] ;-)
I have a lot of stuff at home I don't want the little ones getting their hands on. Some of it is fragile. Some of it is violent or even pornographic, like DVDs or videogames. But they get curious, and ask questions. What I did, was select a few chosen harmless samples, and satiate their curiosity a bit. Now, when Uncle Pascal says: "That? You wouldn't like it. Let's choose something else that's more fun" they know I'm saying the reliable truth, and there's no fuss. Kids hate all boring things. But the forbidden? It's a magnet to them.
What do you think a pre-teen's reaction would be to viewing an issue of Playboy? A normal one would go: "Bah. All naked women. Nothing else. Bo-ring." The pre-puberty brain isn't hard-wired to be INTERESTED in sex, not before the hormones have worked their mojo. Most of you probably know the widely circulated Message of Love from the Dolphins image, where adults see a couple having sex, and children will only ever see a bunch of dolphins (in black silhouettes). I think this is a very meaningful objective test...
Once, at such an age, I happened to find an erotic book with photos. Seventies style. All that interested me, was to see the parts that are usually not shown, out of curiosity. And I was disappointed. Bodies too much in close contact, doing whatever in bizarre positions, showing nothing clearly. As for the story, it was probably very hot porn, but very boring to one like me who didn't grasp the concepts.
"I once dutifully removed a black-and-white erotic comic book from a childrens library."
What the...?!?
You'd think one would always pay enough attention and interest to an erotic comic book not to mistakenly put it in the children's section! I mean, it's a basic adult reflex, isn't it?
I must say, I think you did the right thing, in spite of all my previously stated beliefs. Because the mere reaction of prudish adults if they found it in the hands of a child would probably cause great damage and anxiety, like that mother who almost busted the computer trying to frantically unplug it and remove the porn on the screen. Now, THAT, it's very dangerous to children. Phobias of the parents are always very contagious. Many Lebanese learned from their mothers to become hysterical if a cat or a small dog seems about to approach them. No fib. :-(
"And yet I've yet to hear anybody say that the new generations are more psychologically damaged than the past ones."
If anything, by being able today to speak up about incest and pedophilia abuses, the real-life hard damage might even be dampened.
In the monstruously conservative arab countries, if a woman is raped, she is considered guilty of adultery regardless. Probably because to the phallocrats she should have swallowed her tongue rather than accept "a fate worse than death"...
Incidentally, to my knowledge it's impossible to commit suicide by consciously swallowing your tongue. That sort of misconceived "incident" only really happens in a comatose person, and it's not swallowing, just loss of the reflex to open the glottis. Go ahead, just try and see if you can even remotely swallow your tongue. You'll just tear a muscle in it or retch. Or snort disgustingly.
Hannah worried...
"But porn for children and teenagers? Not hardcore porn."
Define teenagers. Technically, in the English language, "teen years" are from 13 to 19. But puberty often starts at 11-12, and one is considered "legal" at just 18.
The thing is, sexual urges appear around the BEGINNING of puberty. And the problem is, MENTAL maturity takes a lot more time to set in. And yet... some people never accomplish it, and remain completely irresponsible at 40!
The only real problem I have with teenage sex, is that in a majority of cases, they're not wise enough, and just as reckless about it as with driving cars. Maybe even more.
I recall the effect my first hardcore magazine had on me (at approx. 16). Let's just say I didn't sprain my wrist but I broke an all-time record. However, even AFTER that, I never as much as dirty-talked to a real-life girl. For some bizarre reason, I did not forget the difference between images made with models for "that purpose" and the facts of dealing with real live ordinary people.
What are we going to do about hardcore porn and teens? I'll tell you once again the only thing we can genuinely do. Both the only practical sensible thing, and the one that'll work best, by far. We can, and we must, educate them with knowledge, as much knowledge as we can. How sex goes, how to properly treat a girlfriend, what's a sexual predator, STDs... the whole enchillada. As parents -or other adults in charge, for those youngsters who don't really have parents- we have the duty to remain present until their majority, but this is a gradual process. One doesn't turn 18 (or 16, or 15 in France, whatever) and suddenly transmogrify from an innocent little child into a sexuated being, competent and responsible. A tree as well as a person grows up constantly, day after day. It's a gradual thing. One day, if we've done our job well, if we've protected them without smothering them, if we've prepared them, we'll be ready to trust them and they'll be ready to be trusted. Or to make their own mistakes, but as responsible grown-up beings.
We can prepare them to one day take flight and leave the nest. We can educate them. That is all.
Knowledge is power.
Anon#1 decreed...
"What a stupid thing to say. I suspect you are a latent pedophile."
Well, I suspect he's not, and is in fact an exceptionally wise and fine person. JMHO.
Joe Dick pondered...
"Nudity is one thing, Eo. I don't think I'd want children to be viewing pornography."
I don't think I'd want children to be viewing horror movies or extreme violence, either. It's just not for them.
Porn and pubescent teens, that begins to be different. Progressively, it goes from a complete no-no to perfectly okay between ages 12 and 18.
This is probably why French law, while practically forbidding (with few sanctions) porn and the other categories of movies I mentioned before age 18, has put the age of consent halfway, at 15. If a minor between 15 and 18 has consensual sex, it's their own private damn business. If a minor between 15 and 18 is sexually abused, the perpetrator is judged for assaulting a minor, and below 15 it simply becomes much worse an offense.
I think this is getting close to a sensible attitude from society.
Eolake interrogated...
"So there are no pre-existing cases which could be studied?"
What, and do you also want to know if there are pre-existing cases of children raised by animals?
Just being sarcastic. The challenge, of course, is finding children who have been exposed to pornography, but not to a completely fucked-up family and life, and it's a real challenge because social taboos will make this very difficult to gather spontaneous testimonies about. While the Jerry Springer-like affairs burst in public view anyways, and it's impossible to blame it all on the porn.
I personally know a young man who would spend much time viewing porn as a teen, and was "destined to go wrong" by general consensus. Today, he's a model citizen, and has founded a quite balanced family. One example a study does not make, but...
"No kids ever found their father's stash?"
Well, not me. In fact, I think my father didn't have any stash. But again, porn being unavailable in wartime Lebanon isn't a surprise. To find any, you had to know some seedy types bringing in contraband stuff...
Even today, the only genuine freedom space over here is the internet.
"And if no children have ever been exposed to porn, how can you know that it's damaging to them?"
"How can you know it's NOT?", the holier-than-thou preacher retorted.
And he added, "now children being exposed to rapists in robes, this I can find quite easily." :-(
[Okay, actually that last one was all mine!]
"When I grew up, many of my school pals found porn"
Before, or after puberty? Hardcore, fully-explicit porn to a child before puberty, that I can't tell. So I'll just agree with you about the feeling. And I'll suspect that the evidence you crave does actually exist, "but..."
Remember, only very recently have the taboos lifted enough for Society to accept and LOOK at any objective evidence regarding existence of spontaneous homosexuality in animals. For most of my life, I'd heard that it was an "exclusively human perversion".
"It seems to me any experienced therapist would be able to say how often he comes across people who find that their emotional difficulties can be traced back to viewing porn."
LOL! I can just imagine the scene! "Doc, I've seen explicit sex images, and now I dare not DO it, yuck!"
The only trauma I ever received from porn as a teen, was that it could be so damn dangerous to have if you got caught. The viewing part, now that was more like soothing than upsetting. :-)
Again, this could very much be rephrased as "essentially, the emotional danger of porn is the guilt that gets associated with it".
Anon#2 summarized...
"We're animals. Animals procreate. In our case, procreation happens to be enjoyable."
Well, you won't hear me complaining that I'd rather be an ant (males die just after mating once), a salmon (ditto) or a spider. :-)
Now, Bonobo chimps, who are just as horny as us but without the moronic taboos, that I could live with. They'll hump a quickie just as a way to say hi. Better yet, pigs: I heard their orgasms last 30 minutes!
"So enjoy it and get that stick out of your arse -- unless you're enjoying that as well."
Good point. As Oscal Wilde (a notorious gay) said: "Don't wish unto others what you would like for yourself: maybe your tastes are different!"
"You can't prevent a child from getting up to mischief."
Not a child who breathes and moves, you can't. Now, my plush teddy bear, he's always been extremely well-behaved, the dear little angel. That's because I never let him read such pernicious literature as Tom Sawyer. ;-P
"My parents were somewhat oppressive like that. They would never take me to see my friends when I was a kid. When I was a bit older they wouldn't take me to see my girlfriends or even let me see them. You know what I did? I did it all behind their backs."
The good old safety valve reflex. Good for you, man, really. Explains why you survived instead of exploding from frustration (and making a scarlet mess).
I've seen in real life what being too obedient gives with oppressive -and repressed- parents. Out of kindness, I won't tell you what it's like. Suffice to say it's neither pretty nor amusing. It does help analysts make loads of moolah later...
"When my dad told me my girlfriend couldn't even enter the house, I went over to her place behind his back and got -- and gave -- my first handjob at age 13."
Oh, you lucky bastard. I'm green with envy! :-)
Well, at least such youthful physical activities kept you too busy to seek pornography, eh?
"Sure, it's statutory rape"
Between similar-aged consenting minor teenagers? Boy, ain't that a stupid law.
What really surprises me, is that I managed to BE surprised. In matters of sex, "stupid law" is a pleonasm.
Joe Dick estimated...
"Hey, anonymous. I can see why you didn't want to put a name"
Actually, this might be a precaution if he's still liable to get arrested for "raping" a consenting teen when he was a same-aged teen.
My guess is, he lives in a U.S. "conservative" State. I've seen some dumber shit happen there.
If I had similar stuff to retell while still in Lebanon, I wouldn't post it alongside my name either.
"These days kids are downloading tons of hardcore porn videos off the internet. I don't have any proof that this is damaging in the long-term."
It's just another unsustained gut feeling, but I'm convinced it's infinitely less harmful than being abused in real life by an adult... something which has been happening for centuries!
The mother of a good friend of mine confided that she had been abused (physically, not sexually) as a child, and before she dared have children of her own, she underwent a long therapy to make sure she wouldn't "reproduce the pattern", as can be legitimately feared. Well, fortunately there's no material for Jerry Springer in that family. But there are definitely some lingering issues from the psychological damage sustained. Such things can heal, SOMETIMES, but leaving sensitive scars...
"We do know that violence desensitizes. I'm not talking about fake movie or video game violence. I mean people who have seen the real thing. You get used to it."
Been watching news reports from Gaza, haven't you? :-(
These people are clearly accustomed to seeing and doing the most extreme violence on a daily basis.
Sometimes, it seems like I keep whining about how I grew up. In truth, sure it was nothing like a bed of roses, but I know I still had it good. It wasn't Gaza, or Africa, or today's Iraq. And the only would-be pedophile I encountered, was a lame amateur which I just told off and never dared insist. In a lawless country, you can call that damn lucky. :-/
Practically nobody can live, really live, without encountering trials. My self-assessment is, I testify about mine, but I deal with them. And rather well, I guess. "Now can I have everybody's overwhelmed sympathy? And donations?" ;-)
"Do we want a kid who has not yet had their first sexual experience to be already bored with sex?"
Well, as I said, unless you impose it regularly on them they'll soon shift their interest to something more entertaining than porn. The novelty of sex blossoms when puberty hits you on the back of the noggin like an arrow from Cupid.
Do you know how Cupid made his bow? According to a Bouchardon statue, carved it from the club of Hercules, no less. A heavy-caliber love weapon. :-)
You're not the only one to be taken off-balance by the newest captchas. I guess some things you can never really get bored with. ;-)
Eolake nodded...
"I agree. I doubt how necessary it is."
Aw, what about spicing up one's sexua... I mean, digital life? Variety is how boredom is kept at bay!
Alex confessed...
"I think that sometimes I am belligerent and will put my foot down."
Your foot down is less belligerent than a raised fist. So you could be doing worse. :-)
"but I think the Caesarian section scene is a bit much."
Well, the good doctor agrees with you.
That operation got its name from Julius Caesar's birth. His mother had just been killed, so a legionnaire took his sword and managed to extract the baby to life, because the term was practically reached. "And this, children, is why Gaul was conquered a few decades later."
"I think I would be very hesitant to show BDSM to the kids."
I still tend to dislike most BDSM today myself. I think those who are in it have a very twisted conception of sex... or huge social pressure to evacuate, both ways!
"All those films where the heroine is tied up and scantily clad?"
Well, those I'd call "softcore BDSM". Only kinky, not plain twisted. Light suggestive fantasy. Made lighter by the certainty that all will end well.
"and then the more intense bondage and sadism, like The Gimp in Pulp Fiction, or, well you know what I mean."
Yes, I do. I have Thrill Kill on PlayStation. Never published, but the programming team released it for free on the internet. (It was still a bitch to find, though. So I spanked it when I caught it.)
"So, as parent Alex might put it. Softly softly catchee monkey. Not a baptism of fire."
Start by baptising one match at a time. :-)
Monsieur Beep finally pitched in...
"I suspect Eo's right here, they will get bored, not because they think it's perverted, but they'll somehow sense it's just rubbish."
If by this you mean that they'll feel it as pointless to their non-sexual minds, I'm all with you.
"Please note I've double-marked the words by intention. Call them primitive, but they're intelligent nontheless."
Aptly said the intelligent man with the "you-know-what" avatar. :-D
[Contemplating his latest emoticon, the caricature smiled and blinked in approval at own wit.]
"I finally got the film reels turning, the cocks started popping up - and I thought: what a bloody fuss around all this sh**."
LOL! "Yeah, all this effort, and there ain't even a decent horseback gunfight chase. Boo!" :-D
Objectively, when you think about it, if somebody is not genuinely interested in explicit sexual depiction, a porn movie is THE boringest thing you could imagine, ex-aequo with watching paint dry.
I know from experience. Once, in France, I saw in the TV guide that there was "the soft version of a porno movie" on erotic night. This I had to see, once in my life, so I watched it. Oy, vey iz mihr! Such torture, I bet they hesitated to use it in Abu Ghraib! Basically, it was a porn movie without the sex scenes, replaced by the lamest, mildest, boringest "softcore" I ever saw in my perverted life. I'm not even sure there's a hint of nipple to catch in the whole movie. Mamma mia! Never again, kalimat sharaf. I've repented for good.
In Bernard Werber's classic trilogy of The Ants, a translator machine allows one ant to communicate with humans, and to give it a crash-course on our culture they make it watch TV. A warped view, but a very global one. Explaining a porn channel, a human describes: "This shows... well... our mating behavior." The ant asks: "I don't understand. Why is the female eating the genitals of the male?"
Remember: most ants, workers and soldiers, are asexual. They know the biological importance of the males and princesses mating, and that's it. Now YOU try and explain fellatio to an asexual member of another culture! That ant's great interest for the human mating process faded away because of all the incomprehensible things of its TV version.
Joe Dick specified...
"I was wondering about the effect of the amount of porn easily available for download to today's kids."
I'm not sure... There's only so much wanking one can do, and then move on to something else.
As I said, when I got my first hardcore mag, I broke all records. Past and future. Once the "heat of the revelation" had gradually passed, I just became reasonable. Neither my social life nor my school grades were ever affected. In fact, "letting the steam off" (if you want to call it "steam" ;-) is genuinely relaxing, and works great in periods of stress. Especially around exams time. It's much faster than playing a baseball game, too. Even amounting for the foreplay. :-D
Better yet, pigs: I heard their orgasms last 30 minutes!
"Let's take a second here and look at pigs. Okay, pigs don't mate for life. I mean a pig can have like a hundred sexual partners in a lifetime, and that's just an ordinary pig, not even a pig that's good at sports!"
-Chandler Bing
Do you know how Cupid made his bow? According to a Bouchardon statue, carved it from the club of Hercules, no less.
I bet ol' Herc was pissed about that.
Well, I suspect he's not, and is in fact an exceptionally wise and fine person. JMHO.
Like a Danish Mr. Miyagi! ;-)
Except my hand-eye coordination totally sucks!
"Don't say that men are pigs. They wish!!! But pigs are gentle and sensitive creatures." :-)
"I bet ol' Herc was pissed about that."
Naah! Not after he pricked his finger on a mojo-dipped arrow tip. Retired from the monster clubbing business, married and started a family.
"Like a Danish Mr. Miyagi!"
"Careful: that's NOT pronounced Miyaji" :-)
I've read a great martial arts training exercise for hand-eye coordination, in a secret book named Kama-Sutra. Globally involves the wrist synchronising with some powerful manly energy. But I'm not allowed to reveal more, so the world will never know.
Guess the non-initiated will just have to keep sucking...
I know, I know: "This blows." Too bad.
A girl I know almost had sex with her brother when she was 7 and he was 10 because he had found his dad's porno stash and the two of them read it together and copied the pictures. Fortunately the parents caugth them but things had gone far enough. She is not scarred fortunately but things could have ended up badly for both of them. Nudity I have no problem with but porn is dangerous - it gets into the wrong hands too easily.
Absolutely fascinating story. It tells a lot:
- The children were not from such a repressive family that the mere idea of getting naked and close against each other would've been dissuasive.
- They tried this, apparently, out of great curiosity. It is the porn that gave them the idea in the first place.
- The question arises as to whether they WOULD have ended up in a genuine coitus, since images alone lack explanations about some things. Maybe everyone thought it was closer to "irreversible" than it really was.
The clear conclusion to me: this can be attributed less to porn itself, than to IGNORANCE. Had they known, like I did at their age, what sex was all about, they would also have known this was a married adults thing, and what it was about. I know the curiosity of novelty could never have put me in such a situation.
I'm quite confident that the relatively hung-up parents left their children completely in the dark (figuratively). Didn't hammer that "flesh was evil", didn't explain what was normal and when and how it went, just shied and skipped the whole issue. Which also makes me say that maybe things weren't necessarily as close to catastrophe as was believed by those present.
My conclusion: this testimony IS worrying, no doubt about it; but I believe the real danger wasn't from porn itself, it was from IGNORANCE.
I mean, how many houses have totally banned gas burners, or electrical outlets, or sharp knives, or high balconies, or medication boxes, or housecleaning products, because everybody knows they can be very dangerous, perhaps deadly? What most everybody does, is educate their children with knowledge about these things, about basic life facts, and knowledge makes them safe. "This is fire, if you touch it hurts. Don't climb over the balcony, it's like falling but very, terribly much worse."
Sex isn't intrinsically a PHYSICAL harm, so it can't be worse to educate about it. On the contrary.
I love it that in the end the girl wasn't scarred. (But thhe parents probably were! :-) I guess that incident prompted the parents to finally have a long, explicit, much delayed talk with their children, and then finally everything was fine.
With some lingering sibling awkwardness, perhaps...
And yet, the fact that the two siblings spontaneously tried such a thing together, in mutual consent, also indicates their relationship was very trusting. It helps a lot in not being scarred. 'Twas very kinky and weird, but it was sort of the opposite of abuse. Almost touching naiveness. Almost.
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