As a mother of
five children I am continuously watching out for those things that will help or
hinder my children’s growth. I want to give them the best chance of succeeding
in this life. A powerful emerging
obstacle to that success for all children is increasing access to pornography.
Viewing pornography has been named a public health crisis and is affecting our
children in large numbers. Many
petitions have been created to ask our government to give us the option of
opting out of receiving pornographic sites through our internet service
providers. These petitions never get enough signatures to pass. Our society
needs to understand the impact pornography is having on this new generation and
make the necessary changes to protect their future.
While there are
those that argue pornography is a normal part of life, and even an expression
of art, many doctors, scientists, and psychologists are speaking out and
sharing what they know about this harmful addiction. In 2004, Dr. Jeffrey
Satinover, M.S.M.D, shared with congress the following thought; “I respectfully
submit to this committee that modern science allows us to see that this is an
illusion: Pornography is mere “expression” only in the trivial sense that a
fall from the Empire State building is a mere stumble—since it’s hitting the
ground that’s fatal. Or, that cigarettes don’t cause cancer, it’s the burning
smoke that’s the problem.”
Dr. Satinover goes
on to describe how viewing pornographic images produces a chemical in the brain
that acts like a drug more addicting and harmful than heroin. There has been a staggering increase in the
number of kids under the age of twelve viewing pornographic images. In 2015,
the BBC News reported, “of 700 kids, one in five had seen pornographic images
that had shocked and disturbed them.” This
increase has come with the advent of the internet. Children are learning about
sex through powerful images while their brains are still growing. Long before a
first kiss or a first dance, they have watched men and women act out in
violent, degrading behaviors, all in the name of sexual intimacy. How are these
children expected to grow up and have healthy relationships with the people
around them? Numerous studies find they do not.
Kids grow up
feeling like they can never have a normal girlfriend or boyfriend. Even their
friendships at school are affected by their desire to be at home, by
themselves, watching more pornography to feed their addiction. We must protect our children from these
experiences, at least until they are old enough to differentiate right from
wrong.
In 2013, areas of
Europe required customers to go to their internet service providers to “opt in”
to pornographic content. While this solution did not completely fix the
problem, it dramatically reduced the incidences of children involuntarily
exposed to these images.
Additional ideas to stop the
destructiveness of child exposure to pornography include requiring all
pornography sites to register as .xxx domain. This requirement would allow .xxx
sites to be more effectively filtered using existing technology.
It has been argued
that these types of filters would allow parents to become lazy in their
responsibility of preventing children from viewing sexual images. Statistics
show that one out of five 12 year-olds have been exposed to pornographic videos
and images, revealing parents are already remiss in safeguarding their children.
(BBC News)
It is time to
rally together and make a choice to protect our future generations. We must
take greater responsibility for creating an environment in which our children
may forge more meaningful and fulfilling relationships with others. Now is the
time to make the necessary changes. Ten year-old children should not be acting
out their sexual fantasies. Sexual violence and assaults should not be part of
a young person’s daily viewing. We must make the choice to free them from this
destructive addiction by requiring Internet Service Providers to give
households an opt-in/ opt-out choice for pornography access. Those who hide
behind declarations of freedom of speech are thinking only of themselves. We
are fighting for a future generation’s freedom from an addiction that, as other
addictions, destroys a child’s freedom to live a normal life.
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