Protecting the Children

I just discovered I was tagged by Laura to pass on this meme. As a mom, and as someone who truly believes that this world can be a better place, this topic really pulls at my heart strings. While I fully respect everyone's right to pursue their own happiness, but it shouldn't come at the cost of the hearts, minds and souls of the next generation of children. Everyone I've thought to tag was tagged by Laura, so please consider yourself tagged if you haven't yet blogged about this issue.

Here's the text of the original meme:

"Please require a password-protected login before allowing even free access to explicit adult content. We understand that selling porn is your business and we respect your right to make a legal living. But understand our legitimate concerns and work with us. You already have the “warning adult content” on your websites. Yet kids, who are not legal customers of your product, ignore the warning. So to prevent them from having direct access to explicit images, texts and sounds, the simplest way is to have a password-protected login. No more “free tours” before a visitor supplies basic information."

I can't tell you how important I feel this issue is. As the mom of a (near) teenage son, this problem really eats away at me sometimes. I don't what his view of women shaped by someone else's perception of beauty. I don't want my daughter to feel that she must degrade herself in order to attract the attention of men. I've seen enough of that in my own generation, and we didn't even have the internet until much later in our lives.

Now that we've crossed a threshold as a society, I wonder what the next step will be. Now that watching sex on our computers isn't "taboo" anymore...where's the next level of shock value? How far will this go? How much exposure do we need before we put our foot down and say enough is enough?

Pornography ruins the lives of many adult men. If adults can destroy their lives, become bankrupt and suicidal from excessive use of porn, what is it doing to children? How does early exposure shape their lives?

I think that part of the major problem with pornography is that it is still seen as okay by general society. Pornography addiction, which is a real and (unfortunately) rampant phenomenon, is written off by many and ignored by most. Some consider looking at porn to be part of a boy's right of passage and something that they are expected to do. Curiousity is normal, watching women (girls really) being humiliated and nearly abused and associating that with normal pleasure is not.

The fight against free internet porn has got to be more than just getting the smut away from our kids. We've got to recognize as a society that we've gone too far. Pornography addiction exists, it's serious, and it needs to be addressed.