Children’s exposure to porn extremes up in last 10 years

In the British magazine Psychologies this month is a pretty troubling article about teens looking at pornography on the internet, including on their internet-enable phones:  Are teenagers hooked on porn?
The magazine says this has become an increasing concern among psychologists and therapists.

An excerpt (explicit):

Just 10 years ago, most teenagers might have seen only soft porn magazines such as Playboy. Yet today’s children are just a click away from a world of ‘scat babes’ (women covered in excrement), ‘bukkake’ (women weeping in distress while several men ejaculate over their faces), or websites offering an entire menu of rape scenes, from incest to raped virgins.

The average child sees their first porn by the age of just 11. Between 60 and 90 per cent of under-16s have viewed hardcore online pornography, and the single largest group of internet porn consumers is reported to be children aged 12 to 17. There is nothing new, of course, about pornography. But this is the first generation to grow up seeing rape and sexual violence before even losing their virginity…

… The  impact of porn on boys, according to sex therapist Dr Thaddeus Birchard, is particularly profound. ‘Boys tend to create their sexual template by images — either in their mind, or on the page,’ he says. ‘These pictures become watermarked on to the fabric of each individual’s sexual repertory. That’s how male sexual function gets set up.’ A recent Australian study found ‘compelling evidence’ of a link between boys watching pornography and regarding sexual harassment as  acceptable, while researchers in Sweden have found that only limited exposure to porn changed boys’ attitudes towards their girlfriends — they found ‘normal’ sex boring, and wanted to experiment more.

Porn is addictive.

‘Porn is even more addictive than alcohol or drugs,’ agrees John Woods, a psychotherapist at the Portman Clinic. And like any addiction, the user’s tolerance threshold quickly rises. It is still too early for us to have solid empirical data on how exposure to online pornography will affect the adult relationships of today’s teenagers. Even if most of them won’t grow up to become addicts, experts’ predictions for their adult sex lives are troubling.

In the U.K., experts agree that government regulation is necessary.

The only solution, every expert we’ve spoken to agrees, is regulation. ‘We still have this ideal of free speech and expression,’ says Woods. ‘We think there’s nothing wrong with sex, and we shouldn’t go back to moral hypocrisy. But the pendulum has swung too far the other way. Regulation is the only answer. And it can’t be difficult. If the Chinese government can block political dissent, surely we can do it with sexual imagery for children.

 Also, see this page for and here more discussion of the issue.

And, an article in Salvo magazine via the Washington Times.

Until there is some higher level solution, what can we do? Use blocking software on all home computers and any smart phone. And talk to your kids. Find out what they are looking at, and where. Talk to other parents – even if your child’s phone is blocked, his friends’ might not be.

Let your boys know the dangers – it’s not just for fun and curiosity. This could be a crisis heading our way.