This is why I was saying that, rather than going for unenforceable all-out tech bans, it would be more interesting to discuss whether she wants to publicly support degrading images of women. She is a woman. Understanding the debate about porn, knowing in what ways you might say that hurts women and in what ways porn can be liberating is pretty important, if you want to share it on the internet for all to see. Make sure you have an articulated opinion before you jump into the deep end.
Looking at images is quite different from sharing them online, and I’m sure that she does actually know that. I think a better understanding of the nature of these images is important.
[QUOTE=Steophan]
The point is, there’s nothing wrong with porn. Teenagers like sex, and like porn, and always have done, and there’s never been anything wrong with it. What’s wrong is having to feel ashamed of sexuality, and having to hide it, and it’s exactly that attitude that can put a 15 year old girl in the position where they can be coerced and taken advantage of. Teaching them to be in control of their own sexuality is what the parent should be doing.
[/QUOTE]
And this. But I’m pretty sure grayhairedmomma is all about that I just think added awareness of the specific case of porn could help.
The ‘your internet identity could live forever issue.’
I personally think number 2 is more important. Fact is, some companies are basing hiring decisions based on people’s facebook and other online activity. You have to admit that if a future employer were to find out what she has been posting (or reposting) they would be less than impressed.
So, I think she needs to understand that looking and using porn on the internet is fine contributing (or contributing to the further distribution of it) is a bad idea and can be linked back to her.
As to the results of this behaviour in terms of the sex stuff, we would be going over each item in embarrassing detail. (Why do you like this one? This is what I don’t like, do you see it that way? Yadda yadda.)
You will not keep your daughter from watching porn, but that doesn’t mean you should condone it. It is enough that you show, and most importantly tell and convince, her that you’re very serious in your opposition to it, for good reasons (like it being degrading or unhealthy or her online identity lasting forever). A short term online ban in your own house is fine if you had already told her it wasn’t kosher. I wouldn’t spread it outside of the house though (i.e. calling friends’ parents and asking them to deny her their computers).
Just know that it is nigh on impossible to actually prevent porn use, unless you monitor her every waking hour, which would be harmful for its own host of reasons. The next time she uses it, it doesn’t mean you have failed as a parent, or that she is very bad or needs extra punishment. It’s just inevitable. Getting the message through is the most that you can reasonably do, and then, she will have to act on it, just like everything else she does in the end.
If she’s sharing it with her friends, well good lord, I didn’t do that. That would’ve made you weird back when I was in high school (04 - 08, get in your “youngin’ whippersnapper” jokes now). But I think the ubiquity of the Internet is changing a lot of attitudes.
One of the changing attitudes is the emotions provoked by porn. A generation prior you’d only have access to mostly mainstream magazines and maybe some videos, and they’re all doing (what is today) ordinary sex acts. That kind of porn is just going to provoke arousal and lust in most people. But now? The Internet enables instant access to a fractal catalog of increasingly depraved and bizarre niche acts. That’s not going to change your daughter’s tastes although it may change what she thinks is normal or commonly accepted. But my point is that she probably finds some of the pornographic content interesting solely for shock value or for comedic purposes. That especially sounds likely since she’s sharing it with some of her friends. Be sure that you’re understanding her motivations.
You’re very sage to be concerned about her online identity. Honestly I think that is 75% of the problem, and since she’s only been on God’s green Earth for x years, and all only in the context of living under you and/or her dad, she can’t seriously picture how it might hurt her x or 2x years down the road. All I can say is do your best.
Remember that in a few short years she will be moving out of the house and part of your “job” as a parent is to prepare her for living her own life and being out from under your wing. Everything you can try to shield her from now will be foisted upon her once she’s on her own, so, it’s important to instill strong character. We all know the people who grew up as parentally mandated Goody-Two-Shoes, went to college and saw, for example, beer for the first time, and went wild because they didn’t know any better.
Lastly, if she posts any pornographic content of herself, including but not limited to suggestive poses in underwear, go nuclear. There are plenty of mentally stable 24 year olds who do that kind of thing, but at 16, she’s not mature enough to decide that. Not to mention society will shit all over her (and maybe you and any viewers of the pictures) for it.
I think the online identity thing will become less important in years to come. Put it this way: if employers don’t want to hire people who said or posted crazy things on the internet when they were teenagers, they are going to have to restrict themselves to employees born before about 1995.
Now, in the time frame of your daughter’s life, there is the possibility that a selective college or a sorority could reject her for this kind of thing. But assuming she grows out of it in the next year or so, when she’s looking for a job in 2020, potential employers aren’t going to care about what she did as a teen.
Well obviously you want to keep her from becoming the massive fuck-up you are.
Except (I assume) you’re not a massive fuck-up.
So I’m not clear on the difference, except, well, she has a computer. And the stuff you deem particularly nasty is no harder to obtain than the stuff you find more acceptable (and don’t try to tell me that’s a purely objective distinction).
But as the stepparent of a teenage girl myself, I’m not simply on her side here. But, can you articulate what she’s doing wrong and why it’s wrong? If so, have you tried that? If not, what business do you have punishing for it?
I’ve been consuming porn for 20 years, and I’ve never intentionally seen any porn that depicts sex that is “not normal” or would require a lecture about how it is abnormal sexual activity only done by depraved individuals under coercion. Most women I’ve been with (who grew up before internet porn or don’t view it), suggest or initiate just about anything I’ve seen in porn and then some. Other than some silly positions or cheesy plot setups/staging, most porn is just sex to me. As far as degradation, some people believe women are degraded any time a penis is involved.
I don’t actively seek it out, but there’s plenty of degrading porn. Most common is the “casting couch” style porn where some woman gets an interview for some modelling gig or something and is coerced or bribed into doing sexual acts she’s uncomfortable with (I’m sure this is staged for the most part). Often this ends with them being thrown out of the room naked while the guy laughs at them. They also have similar ones involving picking up “random girls on the street” in cars and coercing them into going farther than they want (again, all staged) and stuff. I’d say the majority of the porn ads I see are for series with this kind of stuff in it. (I also see a bunch of ads for weird “I raped my cheating girlfriend to punish her” fetish sites which is even worse, thankfully I’ve never run into one of those in the wild).
They’re pretty easy to spot and avoid if you know what you’re looking for, but they’re sadly prevalent from what I’ve seen.
Probably just the nature of advertising. Which gets your attention better:
[ul]
[li]Watch two consenting adults have sex in a hotel room[/li][li]Horny naughty cheating slut wives in your area[/li][li]Mountain Dew will refresh you for about thirty minutes after drinking it[/li][li]Mountain Dew will enable you to defy gravity in extreme sports[/li][/ul]
Not sayin’ that degrading porn doesn’t exist. Just that a good ad copy writer doesn’t want to leave any money on the table, so to speak.
I’d say a lot of mainstream porn is pretty degrading. As mentioned, the “casting couch” stuff is basically a glorification of sexual coercion – the least awful parts of those videos is the actual sex. But even much more “standard” mainstream porn has some ugly overtones. There’s a lot of ill treatment and objectification of women in there. A lot of more “extreme” videos seem to actually depict a healthier view, since they play up consentuality or at least lack open misogyny.
That said: I doubt that’s even an issue here. Most of the porn floating through tumblr is usually more in the way of clips or photos, not a lot of context to get wrong.
I “came of age” in the earlier days of the Internet, but even in ~2000 it was easy to view a lot of highly explicit, highly sexual content. I’m not sure it’s easy to argue that it was “good for me” to do so, but I think being exposed to a lot of different sexual material at a younger age did help in building my open, aware, tolerant, and informed sexual identity.
“Go hog wild!” isn’t good advice, but neither is “lock that kid up!” Stigmatizing sexuality in a developing teen is basically a recipe for a knocked-up sixteen-year-old. I’m not going to presume to tell a (clearly capable and intelligent) parent how to do his/her job, but I will say that the world we live in isn’t one that allows the happy ignoring of sexuality. It’s out there, it’s ubiquitous, it goes beyond skin deep, and you have the opportunity to give your child a genuine leg-up on their peers by helping develop healthy, informed, and self-safe views on sexuality.
I guess you’ll have to take my word for the fact that the porn was degrading by anyone’s standards - even if the women involved liked it that way and asked for it. You wouldn’t have to read between the lines. My view is that porn like that is not something that she, or any 15yr old kid, should be extensively exposed to until they have developed a good sense of who they are as a person. Once she has a strong sense of self, is of age, out of my house, and capable of drawing and enforcing her own sexual boundaries - then she can do whatever she wants.
So as it stands today, there is still a ban on electronics, she has deleted the offensive posts but can otherwise keep her Tumblr account. I am still struggling to find a way to explain in a way that I’m comfortable with, the difference between good, healthy sex and unhealthy sex. But I guess it’s just another facet of the talk about respecting yourself and other people.
I think you should make your own porn and get it posted to the sites that she follows. Once she sees her mother’s gaping asshole, she’ll swear off the internet forever.
Why don’t you tell her that healthy sex is a private act between two (or more) consenting people and does not involve exploitation by camera, fake posing for the camera or 15-year-old strangers sharing the people’s pictures on the Internet? People can do absolutely whatever they want together, with or without feelings of love, in private, as an act that gratifies both parties in some non-monetary way. Otherwise it’s pornography and/or voyeurism.
You know, saying “porn isn’t really degrading, it’s just advertised that way because people find that sort of thing more exciting” doesn’t really make the whole genre seem any less sordid.
I just think added awareness of the specific case of porn could help.