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Sun 14 Dec, 2003 05:50 pm
This topic has been debated for centuries. Starting from when cavewomen first put on clothes. Our ancestors covered their children's eyes when some "skanky" woman walked down the street with her ankles showing.
In this day and age, things are slightly different. I care less about what girls are wearing (or not wearing) and more about how much sex is being shown on television. Our inalienable human rights have somehow been changed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of a penis.
Adults aren't the ones most effected by the prevalence of sex. It's the children who catch messages that are for their parents. Children are having sex at lower ages than ever before, I know children that are twelve years old and having sex.
Should we worry that the immature are being shown messages that they think pertain to them, when they are really only for the mature? Is sex on tv effecting our young? Will intervention (condoms sold at school) actually promote illicit behavior?
Sex is a natural drive, advertisers exploit it, it's their job. Do I personally agree with it? No. I think parental supervision is still the answer for kids.
But children can go on to the internet anytime they want -even at school- and find porn without any parent to watch them.
Is the prevalence of sex pressuring children into thinking that they can be adults?
Hmm....I suppose that's true. One would think that schools have filters for that sort of thing, but maybe they don't.
They have lousy, underfunded firewalls that don't really do anything except block sites containing the word 'porn'.
To be honest, I think porn is less harmful than some of these chat rooms that pedophiles frequent. That truly scares me.
I believe that sex is not too prevalent in today's society. It is, however, depicted all too often in cheap and tawdry ways that I deeply disapprove of. I have often wished that sex knowledge had not been withheld from me like some dirty secret when I was a child. It's always out there; it needs some sort of balance.
edgarblythe wrote:I have often wished that sex knowledge had not been withheld from me like some dirty secret when I was a child. It's always out there; it needs some sort of balance.
I'm not against telling children about sex at all. I used to have a children's picture book all about sex. Maybe it's still around the house somewhere...
It's all up to the parents to teach their kids about love, sex, etc... and make sure that they know that what they see on tv and the internet is simply entertainment.
Individual, do you have any stats on people having sex earlier than ever? I think it's possible, but I think a) it's a bit overhyped how horrible today's youth are, and b) kids have always, always, ALWAYS been horny and figured out about sex quite on their own, although they also c) have always had access to some kind of porn (thinking of that Marlene Dietrich movie with the card with the little feather skirt that can be blown out of the way...)
What I don't like about the accessibility of some kinds of porn is that I think there is some level of "imprinting" that happens when kids are young and horny and discovering sex. If they make early associations with airbrushed perfection, they may find reality disappointing.
By the way read something recently about the episode of "Friends" where they figured out that condom packages say right there that they are not 100% effective, and that a problem with the condom resulted in Rachel's pregnancy. They did some kind of comparative study and found that the message -- "condoms are not 100% effective -- stuck with teenagers far more than any other kind of teaching.
So it's not the sex that bothers me per se, it's how it's handled/ what the overriding messages are. And I think some of it can be good.
I find the Japanese culture to be very interesting, because the family bathe together in public bathhouses, and pornography is prevalent in Japan. But sex crimes is very small compared to other countries.
So showing children sex might promote acceptance?
That makes sense. But is the low occurance of sex crimes because children accept the naked body or is the reason completely unrelated?
I recall being a naive sailor in Osaka Japan in 1964: One evening I went into a public restroom and sat on the pot, not realizing it was normal for both sexes to be in there. I watched two attractive ladies in animated conversation walk right past me. They appeared completely at ease and I don't believe they took the slightest notice of me. I marveled then, as I do now, that it all seemed perfectly natural, with no slight notion of shame or embarrassment.
If you look back in history, people married when they were much younger than they do know. It was expected that women be married by the time they were 15 or 16. They'd often had several children before they were 20, or had died in the effort.
Don't they teach this sort of thing in history classes anymore?
I think some of the things we think are odd now, like young teenagers having sex, are fairly artificial. I've been socialized to think that 12 or 13 year olds having sex is inappropriate, but I know over the history of humans on earth that is fairly standard. And it's definitely not new in any way. There were pregnant 13 and 14 year-olds when I was in junior high 30 years ago. Internet access and porn have nothing to do with it.
ehBeth, In many parts of this world, the average life span is under forty years. If they wait until their late twenties, none will see their children grow up.
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