A few years ago, when the COPA (Child Online Protection Act) hearings were being held, I was asked to write some testimony for the Congressional panel charged with drafting the new law. What I produced was a pornographer’s take on how to protect kids from porn online. Unsurprisingly my unrelenting realism, a focus on parental responsibility and a positive approach to sexuality weren’t universally popular.
Recently I’ve seen a number of pieces of well-meaning advice, mostly in response to calls from distressed parents who found little Johnny looking at girly websites, which are as misguided, anti-sex and ineffective as anything I heard from the ‘Christian Wrong’ around the time of the hearings. (As I suspect this post might generate heat, a disclaimer - I was raised Anglican, was an altar boy, choir boy and acolyte, and don’t take well to accusations of knee-jerk anti-religious sentiment. I know exactly why I’m not a fan of irrational mysticism).
So in response to the bad advice I’ve seen, here follows a pornographers take on the right way to deal with children and the pornography they may come across online. Hopefully a confused parent or two might see this and avoid wasting their time trying to convince a horny teenager to ‘…put that energy into their studies instead.’ I wish I were making this stuff up.
Understand the scope of the problem
Minors can be split into three groups when considering the impact pornography will have on them and their likelihood of encountering it.
- Group 1 - Kids too young to understand what they see, who are not actively looking for sexual material.
- Group 2 - Kids able to understand enough to confuse or distress them, who are not actively looking for sexual material.
- Group 3 - Kids who are actively looking for sexual material, who may, or may not be, mature enough to understand what they find.
The news media spends the majority of its time focused on the threat to kids in the first two groups, while in reality kids in group 3 make up 99.9% of kids finding porn online (using a tool called ‘Google Image Search’).
The approaches to protecting kids in each group are necessarily different.
Understand that pornographers are on your side
You don’t have to approve of porn to realize the logic inherent in the following statement:
“Pornographers don’t want kids to visit their websites”
Many pornographers are parents, but unlike most parents, their income depends on them being able to safely sell explicit sexual material to adults who want to buy it. If you live in LA, there’s probably a pornographer in your PTA - they’re responsible, loving people who care a much about child-welfare as you do.
The more ‘damage’ the public believes the legitimate porn industry is doing to society, the harder it is for responsible pornographers to pay their mortgages. The more damage porn does to other people’s kids, the more likely it is to harm the families of pornographers. The assumption that pornographers are irresponsible wannabe Mafioso is out of date.
Looked at fiscally, encouraging kids to visit porn websites is idiotic. Each visitor to a website costs the website owners money, and when kids visit that investment’s wasted - they don’t have credit cards and don’t become customers. When teenagers do, by ‘borrowing’ credit cards to gain access (and it happens every day), the inevitable angry phone-call and refund which follows cost the website owner time, money and goodwill. (N.B It also puts paid to the quaint idea that credit cards can be used for effective age-verification.)
Pornographers would be more pleased than anyone were a seamless way to keep kids off adult websites to emerge. When it comes to keeping kids away from online porn, parents and pornographers are fighting the same battle.
Understand your responsibility
The world is a reasonably safe place for most adults and a treacherous place for an unaccompanied child. The online world is the same and parenting doesn’t stop at the power switch.
An unattended kid playing with Lego in the living room is inside; an unattended kid watching TV or surfing the Internet is mentally wandering around outside alone. If they’re too young to go out alone, they’re too young to be online alone.
It’s an awkward idea. If the one-eyed babysitter isn’t an option, keeping kids occupied is more complicated than letting them surf, but parenting works. The company of a guardian is as effective at keeping kids away from the inappropriate parts of the net as it is at keeping them out of bars and clubs offline.
The filtering software so many people put their faith in isn’t worth trusting. It’s damaging on three counts; firstly to be even marginally effective filtering software has to make sweeping decisions about what a child should be able to see - a decision best left to parents. Secondly it provides a false sense of security, just because theirs a security guard in the mall doesn’t make it a safe place to leave your kids alone. The net’s no different. Thirdly most filters depend on pornographers building their sites in a way that allows their astoundingly crude technology to work - and that’s optimistic in the extreme.
Protecting children who aren’t actively looking for sexual material is as simple as good parenting.
Understand the ‘.kids’ domain
If you want the web to be safer for children, the only viable solution under discussion is a ‘.kids’ domain. In the same way we make parts of the offline world safe for kids by building them in a specific way, controlling who has access to them, and making sure they’re attended by professional, a ‘.kids’ domain would be an online ‘walled garden’ with it’s own rules, limited access and constant observation. It wouldn’t be prefect but it could be as safe as a children’s playground, and most responsible guardians don’t leave kids unattended in public playgrounds either.
The alternative to ‘.kids’ is ‘.xxx’, an idea that’s less popular than it was but for all the wrong reasons. It’s an idea that’s sure to re-emerge but ‘.xxx’ won’t work.
With ‘.xxx’ employers, ISP’s and anyone claiming to be ‘uninterested’ in sexuality will find it easy block ‘.xxx’ adult websites. As many people access porn from computers they don’t have total control over - like the notebook their boss paid for - when ‘.xxx’ sites are blocked, pornographers who play by the rules will see their profits drop. That will encourage honest pornographers to look for ways out of the ‘.xxx’ ghetto, and funnel enormous sums to pornographers willing to break the rules. If ‘.xxx’ is the law in Europe and America, there’s sure to be a poor country willing to sell domains for a price without asking any questions.
‘.xxx’ will only produce the false impression that children are safe outside it, and even it could be enforced, and all online porn was kept within ‘.xxx’, websites devoted to hate-speech, violence and other objectionable behavior would leave the web as dangerous as ever.
Though having a domain for every vice is ridiculous, having a domain for kids is reasonable, and the only solution to child protection that’s analogous to methods in use offline.
Understand adolescent sexuality
Puberty spurs the onset of intense sexual curiosity and takes place, almost universally, before legal maturity.
When minors are interested enough in sex to look for it online, the rules change. You can’t treat pornography as something they’re innocently stumbling into, and you can’t expect them to ignore the mental and physical aspects of puberty until they’re legal adults.
Protecting sexually curious kids has to focus on giving them good advice (often they turn to the web for information on sex they’re not getting elsewhere), and keeping them away from material they’re too immature to understand.
Legitimate pornographers have no qualms acknowledging that a significant portion of porn is unsuitable for people unable to place it in context. BD/SM, rape-fantasies and verbal degradation are sexual absinthe - fine for grown-ups who understand what they’re getting into, a very dangerous place to start your journey of discovery.
Once you accept there’s a space between childhood and sexual maturity, when minors are equally sexual and vulnerable, the easiest way to keep them from potentially harmful pornography becomes substitution. By giving them access to material that satisfies their curiosity, on a level they’re mature enough to deal with at the time, you can remove their need to go digging on the wilds of the internet - it’s what Maxim, Playboy and Erotic fiction are for. Sure they’ll explore anyway, but the ability to understand what they see will be greatly improved and they won’t be forced to answer their own questions, or seek out places they think they might be.
That’s what I think, I hope you find it useful. As always feel free to disagree (the COPA commission did).
I’d like to clarify your erotic fiction suggestion. As a teenager I could go buy the smuttiest books a mainstream store would carry (which were pretty smutty) and before then, well, your average adventure story has rape scenes aplenty. Reader’s Digest is filled with “shocking”/titillating descriptions of molestation, child prostitution, and rape. Pretty much the only detailed descriptions (lurid, loving, over the top detail, in fact) of sex any mainstream media will publish are of violent and coerced sex - *and this is the sexual material literate kids are being exposed to first.*
There seems to be an attitude that print material, being more highbrow, will have less of a negative impact. In the context of a story, maybe so, hence current obscenity law, but mainstream media caters to the prurient interest, technically, than the average porn site or smut story archive. BDSM, rape fantasies, and verbal degradation are going to crop up in a fair amount of written erotic material accessible to teenagers.
Of course, the hope is that if they’re literate enough to read it, they’ll be intelligent and emotionally mature enough to put it in some kind of context. I think the focus needs to be more on setting that framework, so that when the kids do start exploring (gradually!) they’ll be mentally ready to process and deal with whatever they come across.
Sabrina - I can’t comment on Reader’s Digest, I’ve never read it. I didn’t mean to imply that erotic fiction is necessarily high-brow or intellectual. Anne Rice has written some pretty vile/hot stuff - depending on your viewpoint. I was trying to say that there’s plenty of ’safe’ erotic/educational material in all realms (film, print, web etc.) Anyone who encourages a child to read a book they aren’t sure of the contents of is asking for trouble…
Sam, this is a brilliant article, kudos to you. The whole adolescent sexuality issue spins on the axis of intention and responsibility. My mum gave me erotic fiction to read in my early teens (in retrospect some of it was pretty dark.) She knew me, she recognised that I was mature enough to handle that stuff and I suspect she chose wisely.
I was lucky, my folks didn’t assume everything would be ok and they didn’t trust someone else to teach me about the birds and the bees, they did what they could. It wasn’t perfect but I hugely admire the fact they accepted their natural responsibility with as much grace as they did. And it worked, I stayed with the smut they gave me for years. I grew with it and then out of it into the erotic being I am today as a natural evolution.
The idea of a dedicated kids domain has a lot of merit I think. I agree totally with your thoughts on the triple X system. A flat out bad idea.
I suspect if as a race we got a better handle on our sexuality as adolescents, we wouldn’t be in such a mess as adults. It’s an obvious statement but we live in a world that pathologises sexuality, a spin off from the medical model fused with post Freudian rhetoric. There’s a long way to go but surely dialogue and an acceptance that sex is good and natural is a start.
Perhaps if we didn’t teach our kids to believe sex was deviant, we’d fare better. But damn, in shortcircuiting the taboo element are we maybe shooting ourselves in the foot……
Sam - I didn’t think you had intended to. Mostly I just wanted to bring up the fact that perception does exist, and that while you can get taboo written erotic material everywhere at any age, more conventional stuff is harder to come by until you look old enough to buy the juicy paperbacks (or unless you’re lucky enough to have a grandmother willing to provide you with stacks of pulp SF). Great job on the article, I loved it. I think you basically covered everything. Sorry about the late night rant dump.
I only read Reader’s Digest once in a waiting room, but I was ten and it pinged my bondage wiring (which is unsettling when you’re reading about other kids being kidnapped).
Magdelena - sounds like we had a lot of the same experiences.
Magdelena - thanks for the kind words. I’d never say that kink is ‘abnormal’ but if it’s totally ‘normal’ then not to be kinky is ‘abnormal’ and that can’t be right. My guess is that kid’s will find kink on their own, and that only a fairly odd Guardian would actively encourage it. They might be a total weirdo.
As a kid I used to steal my Dad’s magazines from underneath the bathroom sink and read them. They were chock full of erotic stories and images. My brother’s used to go to the local dump and steal them from a stockpile that the workers had there. Also some of my friends had access to porn mags and we would often read them. The point is that porn being accessible is not just an internet thing. Maybe instead of being so fearful we need to to talk to our children more about what porn really is for adults. Example talk to kids about the fact that porn is more for fantasy stimulation and the things within are not necessarily things people will live out. Or whatever message about porn one feels their children need to know. It’s our own shame and secrecy that hurts kids. We are too fearful of talking to them about such things.
Hugs
Des
Desireous - I had my first and last shoplifting experience trying to walk out of a store with a porn magazine. I was rubbish and the guy who owned the store told me to put it back (I was underage but tall) before it even got under my coat.
Damn it’s easy nowdays…
It might be worth mentioning, too, that filters often block access to sites that are perfectly “legitimate” for children to see. For example, teenager doing a research report on breast cancer might be blocked. I used to work in a place that had filtering software, and it was ludicrous. My current place of employment has no filtering software, but I still don’t view anything I think my employers might find improper at work, nor do I update my blog from work.
I don’t know how you feel about this, but keylogging programs could work for parents who want to stay on top of their children. Some of them log which websites have been visited, and knowing that your son/daughter has visited a site can be an opportunity to discuss pornography websites. And you’re right about one thing. It just makes sense that pornographers wouldn’t want kids to have access.
I’m not surprised the COPA commission disagreed. They probably all secretly view porn, but they are too scared of looking “anti-family” if they offer even common-sense acknowledgment of what you said.
Sam- this post is perfect except it neglects to heap praise on two things:
http://www.scarleteen.com
Scarleteen is a non-profit sex info site for young folk, like a hip Planned Parenthood of sorts. Many people, including myself, put a link to Scarleteen in hopes that some teens looking for info on what sex is all about will go there and get useful information. (From how to use a condom to sexual anatomy to masturbation to analyzing the real STI/pregnancy risks of different sexual acts.) Please, do give it a plug. Unfortunately, the smut processing giant CCBill sometimes tells people that they are not allowed to link to Scarleteen, but if you fight it out with them, you’ll win. (I did that about two years ago, when all those thick-skulls could read what that I wanted kids to fuck or something.)
“Harmful to Minors” by Judith Levine
I wish I could force everyone in America to read this book, and truly can not say enough wonderful things about it. It’s subtitle it “The perils of protecting children from sex”, and cuts through misconceptions and hysteria with logical and fact-based arguments. It covers a bit of everything, from “Satanic sex abuse in day care” scares to the (non)effects of being exposed to porn to the nearly non-existent “kiddie porn industry”. Truly a kick-ass book, do read it.
And, to comment on what BareLace said, yes! those lousy censorship programs filter out all sorts of things besides porn. From the easy-to-pinpoint “breast cancer” blocking issue to stickier things like teens having access to information about safer sex and coming out, I would never recommend those censorship programs to anyone. I think it’s stupid that almost every adult site links to them and advises parents that it’s the only way to protect kids from porn. There’s no room for free ads for censorship programs made by right-wing anti-sex/porn/gay groups on any of my sites.
BareLace - the only problem with ‘keylogger’s is that they take the view of ‘pretend’ privacy backed up with total transparency. I’d rather know I was being watched and behave accordingly that find out I was being watched retrospectively. I think staying with young kids while they use the web is the easiest option, especially given that any real danger is likely to be in a chatroom or IM session, not on a porn-site.
Furry - how the devil are you? Thanks for the book tips, I will check them out. I am not a fan of filters, but for the very young (who will probably only want to visit one site repeatedly anyway) they can be effective without curtailing curiosity.
On a side note - if a pre-pubescent kid’s worried about breast cancer they need to have a smoke and a drink and chill the fuck out.
Oh, I agree that the breast cancer blocking thing is overrated- but it’s this easy way for people to point out a flaw in the censorship programs. Not many people want to get into the frightening debate that teens *should* have access to information about sex, from how to find their own clits to thinking they may be queer/trans. But, try arguing with John Q Catholic that he ought not filter his kid’s internet because his son might be a homo and his daughter needs to learn about the morning after pill.
And I’m mostly good. We should talk about menstruation sometime! My site is finally up: http://www.eroticred.com
Sam, thanks for the article. Two years ago my then eight year old just type in girls.com and of course you know what she got. The bad part was she couldn’t exit out, popups kept coming. I fixed it so that it would block sites like that with out a pass code. I just found out tonight in my history file that my 13yr old son has been viewing porn sites. I worry, not just because their porn sites, but because they are also sites with whips and chains along w/homosexuals. This is scary to me.
I’d like to thank Furry Girl for the info. on the book Harmful to Teens. I plan to check that out.