So this is a thing in today's news
http://ift.tt/1peLct3
This is following up from the new measures from the government where ISPs are required to block porn unless otherwise requested by their customers. I remember starting a thread on that one too and the response being mostly "meh, its just porn" but this is making me curious again about where people think government action should stop and parental responsibility begin. It also raises some issues I have with the whole "protect the children" reasoning which I'll get to in a minute.
Starting off though, I'm not a huge fan of these ideas of imposing restrictions, however minor, on entire populations to make up for shortfalls in parenting. Parents shouldn't be plopping their kids in front of a computer without supervision in the first place and that's for various reasons not just limited to the possibility of them finding xxx sites. Parental controls are a thing, and they're not a hard thing to use either. I also feel like the generation gap isn't there anymore. As the years go on we're getting more and more parents of young children being people who grew up around computers and the internet. Ignorance of technology is becoming less and less of a viable excuse for not using the measures already available. Hell you could fund adverts in tv for a month and plug the knowledge gaps. So that's my first problem. I don't like that parental problems are potentially effecting other people in order to protect their kids that frankly aren't anyone else's problem.
My second issue is that this is restrictions over what is essentially a moral issue. We can go back and forth over the issues of pornography and whether its demeaning for women etc etc etc but I can't remember ever seeing a study proving that. I'm not going to say a 6 year old should be watching hardcore vegetable action, but the idea this has to be done to "protect" children seems unfounded.
What also irks me somewhat is the idea that they need protecting in the first place. Kids are a very emotional topic for a lot of people but there is a huge tendency to forget the fact that they're individuals with their own thoughts, desires etc and not just an empty bubble. Our definition of "children" is also sweeping. Under 10 you probably shouldn't be watching porn. But from, say, 13 and up you're biologically hitting the point where you become interested in sex. I remember being curious about it younger than that and joking about it with female friends from like 11. The idea that a person going through puberty would want to look at porn doesn't seem frightening or wrong to me. It seems perfectly natural. Now, granted, there's varying degrees of porn and while I'd expect them to want to see the opposite sex naked they perhaps shouldn't have their first witnessing of sex be some bdsm dungeon thing but that's a niche area anyway.
I feel like this is linked in some way to how a segment of society trips over sex education. As a country we still have quite a conservative approach to the subject and, despite evidence showing otherwise, we're still quite resistant to teaching sex education sooner or teaching it in a more frank and realistic way where instead of trying to push people away from sex, it should be accepted that they're going to do it and prepare them as much as possible. The fact that there's resistance to that means I'm not too surprised that there's opposition to internet porn but I feel like they both stem from this unrealistic desire to keep our children innocent and pure until they're basically adults and that's just not how it works.
Edit: in addition to the last part, one of the arguments I heard in the last thread against porn viewng is that it presents an unrealistic view of sex. While I'd argue that depends what you watch, I've seen that linked in some cases to the idea that people in adult entertainment are having sex for money and entertainment, not for love. It ties in nicely to the sex education I received, which was only 6 odd years ago, which did really have an undercurrent of promoting the idea that you only have sex when you've been with someone for a really long time, you're in love and you're settled down. I'm very confident to say now that that's pretty much bollocks. There is a huge amount of sex being had that has less to do with love and more to do with fun and exploration. Maybe that has more to do with the age group I'm in, but that's the one that these kids we're protecting will be in at some point when they first start experiencing sex. To that end, I think promoting the idea that sex is an expression of love instead of just another human need that, while it can certainly be an important part of a loving relationship, is also something that really can be done just for fun, and more importantly getting away from the idea that there's anything wrong with that, is a problem. And its a problem I think the opposition of porn is linked to. There's valid concerns about how porn presents how sex is carried out, but I also feel like there's concerns among others that the issue with porn is it makes sex about something other than love. Personally, I'm cool with that.
That's all the thoughts I have on this so far, or at least the ones I can think of a coherent structure for, but I'm curious what others think. Both on the recommendation itself, and on the "to protect the children" reasoning.
Mandatory simpsons clip
Edit 2: As a completely off-hand question, I've just re-read the article and noted the checks would be on credit cards. Does anyone actually still pay to see porn? There's a good sign you're out of touch right there if you think kids are paying for it
http://ift.tt/1peLct3
Quote:
A UK industry regulator has called for the law to be changed to require pornography sites to carry out age checks before granting access. Video-on-demand watchdog Atvod said the government must act to protect children from seeing graphic adult material. |
This is following up from the new measures from the government where ISPs are required to block porn unless otherwise requested by their customers. I remember starting a thread on that one too and the response being mostly "meh, its just porn" but this is making me curious again about where people think government action should stop and parental responsibility begin. It also raises some issues I have with the whole "protect the children" reasoning which I'll get to in a minute.
Starting off though, I'm not a huge fan of these ideas of imposing restrictions, however minor, on entire populations to make up for shortfalls in parenting. Parents shouldn't be plopping their kids in front of a computer without supervision in the first place and that's for various reasons not just limited to the possibility of them finding xxx sites. Parental controls are a thing, and they're not a hard thing to use either. I also feel like the generation gap isn't there anymore. As the years go on we're getting more and more parents of young children being people who grew up around computers and the internet. Ignorance of technology is becoming less and less of a viable excuse for not using the measures already available. Hell you could fund adverts in tv for a month and plug the knowledge gaps. So that's my first problem. I don't like that parental problems are potentially effecting other people in order to protect their kids that frankly aren't anyone else's problem.
My second issue is that this is restrictions over what is essentially a moral issue. We can go back and forth over the issues of pornography and whether its demeaning for women etc etc etc but I can't remember ever seeing a study proving that. I'm not going to say a 6 year old should be watching hardcore vegetable action, but the idea this has to be done to "protect" children seems unfounded.
What also irks me somewhat is the idea that they need protecting in the first place. Kids are a very emotional topic for a lot of people but there is a huge tendency to forget the fact that they're individuals with their own thoughts, desires etc and not just an empty bubble. Our definition of "children" is also sweeping. Under 10 you probably shouldn't be watching porn. But from, say, 13 and up you're biologically hitting the point where you become interested in sex. I remember being curious about it younger than that and joking about it with female friends from like 11. The idea that a person going through puberty would want to look at porn doesn't seem frightening or wrong to me. It seems perfectly natural. Now, granted, there's varying degrees of porn and while I'd expect them to want to see the opposite sex naked they perhaps shouldn't have their first witnessing of sex be some bdsm dungeon thing but that's a niche area anyway.
I feel like this is linked in some way to how a segment of society trips over sex education. As a country we still have quite a conservative approach to the subject and, despite evidence showing otherwise, we're still quite resistant to teaching sex education sooner or teaching it in a more frank and realistic way where instead of trying to push people away from sex, it should be accepted that they're going to do it and prepare them as much as possible. The fact that there's resistance to that means I'm not too surprised that there's opposition to internet porn but I feel like they both stem from this unrealistic desire to keep our children innocent and pure until they're basically adults and that's just not how it works.
Edit: in addition to the last part, one of the arguments I heard in the last thread against porn viewng is that it presents an unrealistic view of sex. While I'd argue that depends what you watch, I've seen that linked in some cases to the idea that people in adult entertainment are having sex for money and entertainment, not for love. It ties in nicely to the sex education I received, which was only 6 odd years ago, which did really have an undercurrent of promoting the idea that you only have sex when you've been with someone for a really long time, you're in love and you're settled down. I'm very confident to say now that that's pretty much bollocks. There is a huge amount of sex being had that has less to do with love and more to do with fun and exploration. Maybe that has more to do with the age group I'm in, but that's the one that these kids we're protecting will be in at some point when they first start experiencing sex. To that end, I think promoting the idea that sex is an expression of love instead of just another human need that, while it can certainly be an important part of a loving relationship, is also something that really can be done just for fun, and more importantly getting away from the idea that there's anything wrong with that, is a problem. And its a problem I think the opposition of porn is linked to. There's valid concerns about how porn presents how sex is carried out, but I also feel like there's concerns among others that the issue with porn is it makes sex about something other than love. Personally, I'm cool with that.
That's all the thoughts I have on this so far, or at least the ones I can think of a coherent structure for, but I'm curious what others think. Both on the recommendation itself, and on the "to protect the children" reasoning.
Mandatory simpsons clip
Edit 2: As a completely off-hand question, I've just re-read the article and noted the checks would be on credit cards. Does anyone actually still pay to see porn? There's a good sign you're out of touch right there if you think kids are paying for it
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