Making sense of porn to kids traumatised by it.

A trip to the parking lot is in order.

Or maybe just having a huge intricate puzzle put together with tiny pieces. Anyway, I know there is a perfect analogy, but I can't seem to think of it right now.

So, to the parking lot. Could you have a picture in your office of some obscure car part to show children as you open discussion of porn? Ask them what it is and hopefully they won't know. Maybe ask them how it feels to be shown this thing which they don't recognize---before and after you tell them that it is a part of something that plays an integral role in their life and the lives of most everyone on earth.

I guess you see where this is going, but I'll complete it for the sake of completion...

Walking out to my car with the child, (take the picture) I'd direct my comments in this direction-->

there are many, many parts of being an adult and children aren't designed to see pictures of all of them

Certainly, it is disturbing to see pictures of some things about life before you are ready

the very job of childhood is to very slowly, in layers, learn information to prepare you for all of the things about adulthood

when some of those things about adulthood are just baldly and without warning thrust upon you, it can be very upsetting and confusing--upset and confusion are perfectly normal--and shows you're a normal child

Therefore, it is a mistake to confuse a child with a picture they not are ready to see. It would be like you (the therapist) giving the picture of the item you showed the child (obscure car part) and expecting them to be able to tell you what it is, what is does and where it goes. (At some point near this part of the conversation, it would be good to be at your car)

(Raise the hood and ask the child to find the car part, tell what it does, how to attach it and other irritating questions with a smile.)

___________________

I think it would be great to tell the child they don't have to ever do the things they saw--that all people don't do those things and that he may have weird feelings about it (arousal) and none of these things make him/her bad. But, because he/she has seen one part of an adult thing that he hasn't learned about the right way, he probably would be less upset and confused to be able to talk to a mechanic (ha) for a while until he is not confused and upset any longer about what he saw.

This, of course, is a tortured analogy/explanation, but I think it could be shaped into useful form by a therapist.

I often agree with you, Lash, but you totally lost me there. But maybe Dlowan will understand.

I kind of get where Lash is coming from on that one. The idea that this is grown up stuff and that kids aren't expected to know what to do with it and that it's only part of being an adult.

Kids often have an easier time with tangible explanations.

FD and possibly others (I didn't read back) likened porn with --something that is closely linked to a reality in adult life (sex). I was trying to think of something kids were familiar with--that was constructed of smaller parts they weren't familiar with-- something they could see.

Is that the part you didn't gel with?

I see FD posted. She understood my meaning. Of course, it depends on the age of the child.

Thanks Lash...that fits in with a stable of "things you don't get now that you will" explanations.....I use stuff like learning to read and do sums and stuff, and a whole passel of other things.


I could use the jigsaw puzzle with brighter kids.....


I don't think that car parts would really cut it as an analogy for kids, because while unfamiliar, they aren't scary....(I'd get those "she's NUTS mum" looks..or, a whole bunch of my boys would look at me incredulously and say "That's a xxxxx, our car has the newer version of that..." cos they grow up with the deceased car bodies in the front yard, and spend their dad time under a car...better than the shed with the goddamn porn, I say! Do you guys have the whole toxic shed syndrome?) but I like the layers thing. I use a leaves analogy...you know, tree gets bigger, with lots more branches and leaves of knowledge/understanding...you only have this many leaves right now....


But I will think about it, cos I already use a lot of driving analogies with kids.

bm

Goddamn it! Learn to use the litter tray, Felix!






















































:wink:

Instead of using car parts, what about finding some government forms...income tax, for example...that get very tedious, very quickly?

Hi.

I was thinking it should be something that's not scary because being an adult is not scary and sex is not scary--and those things are represented by the car. They're normal and everyday.

(I know I'm way off on a tangent--but the very idea would be to say--this whole thing is not hideous in and of itself--it's only hideous because you weren't ready to know about this one little weird part...)

Anyway.

Good luck. What you are doing is so important.

It's like.... eating vegetables.

Except, I guess, that some kids like vegetables. I always thought it was an acquired taste.

I've often wondered what sort of effect this easily-accessible porn has on children and am still unsure about it.

Back in the day, there was nothing available and kids had a tendency to be repressed and, in a way, I believe that was just as dangerous as an all-out porn assault.

Who suffers more in the long run? A child bombarded by sexual images or one who is taught that sex is something dark and evil?

I guess we will just have to wait and see. The children raised on porn will be reaching adulthood soon.

Let's see how many axes come out.

Oh, I think quite a few present-day adults were raised on porn.

Seems like there is a healthy medium somewhere, no? Like maybe start with dirty magazines after puberty? But exposing them to the donkey show at age five can't be good for them.

I want to read this through and comment when I have time.

I was raised with fractionally enlightened parents in other matters who hated dirty movies, and I mean regular movies with, er, smutty scenes. My family took the Ligorian, which I read for clues to when sex might not be a sin... fruitlessly, in retrospect.

So, I see Gus' pov.

Moderation, though..

Interesting with our age differences here -- really not that many years in toto, but there were so many changes in intervening years, re fright of sex.

Look what happened to me.

Good riposte, there, Gustav.

I don't have any answers, but I just wanted to add some observations. Not knowing exactly what kinds of images these kids were exposed to, I would suspect that some level of violence was included. Wouldn't it be safe to say that all violence is bad unless it is in self defence? Sex between caring people isn't violent.

Seeing penii and Mommy moaning while Daddy jumps about on her is bad enough.

Porn these days, for a child, would be brutality.

Your question makes no sense, at least in relation to this thread. The children about whom I am asking only come BECAUSE they are traumatised.


If there are any little kids out there NOT traumatised by seeing what they have seen, they ain't coming to see me.

Axes to Gustav!!! Onward, mob!!!


<he really should be kilt for that bit of ridiculousness>