teens and porn

Pornography is the depiction of explicit sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual excitement. And pornography or porn for short has been existing amongst us since early civilisation, what used to be an act intertwined closely with some religious acts such as in Asian countries like India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Japan and China where representations of sex and erotic art have specific spiritual meanings within the native religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto and Taoism. It even is a common scene in ancient Rome till the Victorians came and tried to hide away the frank sexual depictions of the Romans (which are only available for the upper class) and since then the world's first law criminalizing pornography was enacted by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1857 in the Obscene Publications Act.

as taken from Reader's Digest (July 2009), "Kids as young as 11 and 12 have been discovered taking compromising photos of themselves and sending those shimmering pixels over their phones and computers. More than a few incidents have made the nightly news. In February, for example, a 15-year-old girl from central Pennsylvania faced charges for possessing, distributing, and creating child pornography after she sent topless photos of herself to a man on MySpace; the man, 27, was also charged. Last year, an 18-year-old Orlando, Florida, teen began serving five years' probation and had to register as a sex offender after forwarding naked photos of his then-16-year-old ex-girlfriend to her friends, teachers, and relatives. And six middle school boys in Massachusetts were questioned by police after they passed around a picture of a half-naked 13-year-old classmate on their mobiles."

yes we can obviously conclude that pron has brought nohing but negative impacts to our young generation. and yes, i agree that there shouldbe some limitation to the accessibility of porn on the Net. There should be extreme measures taken to limit accessibility of porn for teenagers below the age of 18 (or maybe even 21). There should be firm control on porn accessiblity but i dont think it's necessary to the extent of banning the whole thing.

porn has been a taboo for a long time and it is a taboo because of the elderly preceiving it as something rude and degrading to be exposed publicly. We perceive it something negative, when the reality is, is porn itself something negative? the cases mentioned above happened because teens who are clearly not known for their 'great judgement' abuse the accessibility of porn. Abuse as in using it for the wrong purposes, then it is no wonder that grown ups and the government see the need to amend laws to control these acts.

As taken from Reader's Digest again, ''It's pretty appalling,'' says Pamela Paul, the author of Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships, and Our Families. ''Among girls and boys, porn has become increasingly accepted, even kind of cool.'' And with ''the American Idol-isation of the culture, where everyone can be a star,'' she says, it's almost inevitable that kids would be tempted to cross the line into interactive porn. ''Every form of media has become interactive. Why shouldn't porn be as well?'' she laments."

So, as a conclusion, i think there should be firm limitations to the protection for porn, but only for those are below the age of 18 or maybe even 21. Again perents can help but taking control over the situation, ensuring that thier child are not doing wrongful acts from watching porn. Here are websites that can help parents control their child from watching unwanted sites on the internet:

• Crayon Crawler is a browser you can download to provide a safe and secure environment for children to navigate the Internet, send e-mail, play games, and participate in real-time chat.
  
• KidRocket.org is a child-friendly content-filtering web browser that parents can implement on the home PC to ensure kids do not end up on unsavoury sites.
  
• Websafety.com sells software that can be downloaded to your kid's mobile phone and computer to alert you if he or she is sending inappropriate texts or photos.
  
• Safe Eyes, from internetsafety.com, lets you track your child's instant messaging, monitor social network­ing sites, and impose limits on his or her online minutes.
  
• Cell Phone Spy Elite, a device from brickhousesecurity.com, retrieves deleted text messages from mobile phones.