What are you going to teach your kids about pornography?

[LimeSlice]

...I'm going to be singing that damn song all day now...

[HotI]

This is the thought process that REALLY ticks me off - because it quite clearly shows that one who thinks there is NO healthy/realistic/intimate pornography, has never really watched/seen much.

hmmm, i don't know. i really don't feel like wading through the sludge to find the 'good' porn so i can educate my kids on it.

Similarly, i am not going to try all the drugs or all the lifestyles or all religions, but i still feel that i can give my kids perspective on them.

it's a tough one

[loulabelle]

Arcadia! You've made me have to think about something in soooo not ready to have to think about!

I don't know what I'll do when that time comes. I imagine I'll try to be honest with them and explain exactly what it is. Explain that a lot of it is very fake but not all if it. I don't ever want my children feeling ashamed, so I'm not going to make out its horrible and disgusting. Like anything to do with sex, I do think it's important to lead the conversation to how important it is for sex to be respectful and consensual.

Watch it with then? No way! I feel that would be totally wrong and do exactly what I don't want to do - shame them and make then feel they've done something wrong. That's a really good way to screw up someone's sexuality.

[Gigi]

i think, with many kids having their own portable computers (iphones, ipads etc) with them all the time, wherever they go, there is massive opportunity for kids to be looking up all kinds of things, including porn, from pretty early ages. And then show what they find to their friends. That's how i assume my DD will discover porn.

Kids are pretty literal, i think porn is often used by boys, to justify, why they think girls should do, what the boys want them to do. Peer pressure - e.g the make girls perform oral sex on a lineup of guys. I'm terrified by what i hear is the current/new way of being a teenager.

There apparently is more sex slave trafficking going on around the world, than ever before. Part of this is forced prostitution and production of porn. I doubt most people watching porn are even aware of that.

i think many kids will view porn, alot younger than parents will suspect - due to the easy access to the web.

i find all of this incredibly scary, don't know how to deal with it, don't even know where to ask. The little info i have seen, relates to desktop computers. (out of date with current reality of portable computers).

[BellyBelly]

I think it should be done too - last year at school (year 3 for my daughter) there was an incident where some girls (including my daughter) were looking up whaling and typed in 'whale net'. Looking at the images for it, they found women in body fishnet stockings and all sorts. It was investigated by the school and turns out the education department had turned off some filter due to complaints, but put it back on. But too late for the other boys to be huddled around one of their computers and had looked up some site about a sex club which his dad apparently had been using. So maybe he found it on the computer or maybe the dad was too open with his son. These are 9 year old kids, that will no doubt rember that and do it on their oen devices/computers etc. Its not just your kids you need to worry about.

[loulabelle]

That's what I find so very scary, Kelly. I don't want my kids exposed to anything too young. I was told something very graphic by one if my siblings when I was way to young to handle it, about 10 or 11 I think, and it stayed with me, still stays with me.

It's such a fine balance to find, to be open and honest yet still protect them. Especially when protecting them requires everyone that knows them. I don't know exactly how this is done.

[Arcadia]

I think that's why I am steering towards teaching my kids about porn and discussing the normal vanilla type while discouraging extreme stuff until they feel they can handle it.

I first saw porn at 16 and it disturbed me. I was sexually mature, had some experiences, came from an open family but it still shocked me. I don't want my kids to experience porn too young and in a way where they have no guidance and no one to discuss it with.