[Marie2]

For heaven’s sake, I didn’t knowingly allow my kids to enjoy porn. We gave them all the warnings. We keep the computer in the living room. We installed protective software. We checked the history (still do).

That’s how we found out that Firefox stopped the pop up ads (no clicking necessary for very raunchy stuff - it was just presto, right there on the screen). The kids were already good about not clicking on any come-on ads. But giant floating images would spontaneously arrive on the site of Neopets! Until we installed Firefox.

I cannot fathom how any responsible parent would expose their child to porn. To say it will not harm them is laughable, although it isn’t funny. I think it’s downright abusive, sexually abusive, to deliberately expose your children to pornography.

How does it harm them? What is the harm?

It stirs up lust before it would naturally occur. It sexualizes people who are not yet ready for sexual behavior. It objectifies others, making their first exposure to sex one that is absent of any permanent commitment. It introduces perversions. It lowers sex from a private, intimate encounter to the casual level of eating a hamburger. It decreases children’s natural modesty, making them more vulnerable to exploitation. It sets up (at least on the male side) expectations for physical perfection so high that no average woman can satisfy. It is a venue for adultery (he who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart, Jesus commented). It teaches indirectly that it is a perfectly fine thing for a woman, or a man, to accept payment for exposing themselves to others, for committing adultery with others, and for seducing others. It scares them. It scars them.

[goldstategop]

Those are all good reasons for opposing pornography. We seek to shield our children from it, not that we think sex is something to be ashamed of or certainly that making love is not the worthiest expression of human nature. In the right circumstances, it can be ennobling and beautiful. Indeed, religion has regarded sex as a prototype of the human relationship with the Almighty. Its as close to ending human loneliness and alienation as exists on this earth. What people do think is wrong with porn is that it inverts all these impulses and reduces it to an expression of mechanical activity that exists largely to gratify mercenary and then selfish impulses. It is those dark aspects of sexuality we seek to shield from our children as well as make sure they understand it is also a reproductive act as well as an act of mutual pleasure between a man and a woman at an appropriate age in their upbringing. It has physical and psychological consequences that are life-altering. That is why society in every age has sought to control sexual expression, out of an awareness of both its beneficial and destructive aspects alike.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus