Kids as young as 8 and 9 years old are watching porn and its not just dodgy magazines of videos like back in the old days, no, they are accessing sites such as Pornhub on their phones and if not their phones, its highly likely another kid is showing it to them. We discussed this on The Hard Shoulder, Newstalk FM this week and you can catch the podcast here. It will give insight about the areas we need to worry about and work on and some tips for how to speak with your children about this. Yes its awkward but its very necessary as parents we start these conversations because the more we have them, the easier they will get.
https://link.goloudplayer.com/s/pGCEBc0Gc804
Its extremely worrying that on these sites, women are degraded and treated violently and aggressively in a large number of the videos on the homepage. This normalises violence against women to children, teens and young men watching. There is hair pulling, choking and alot of disturbingly rough acts being done to women and it depicts sex as something that includes aggression and violence towards women. This is NOT depicting normal, consensual sex. As parents, and as uncomfortable as it is, we have to speak with our children about this. We have to talk about porn is not real. We need to explain to our children that women do not like having their hair pulled, or neck squeezed in normal sexual scenarios. Sex should be consented to by both parties and no-one should be hurt of feel uncomfortable about how the other person behaves towards and treats them.
Many young girls – as young as 10 and 11 have been asked for ‘nudes’ by boys. The boys say that if the girl wants him to like her, then she needs to send a nude pic, usually of her top half and he ‘promises’ her that he will not share it. Sadly, I personally know alot of girls and teenagers who feel into this trap and their picture was shared with classmates and their friends and in alot of cases on social media sites and it caused great distress to these girls. I am saying girls here because from my experience, it happens to girls alot more than boys and my experience has been with girls. Some girls could not cope with the shame and embarrassment – a shame that was not theirs but belongs 100% to the person who shared the intimate picture and there have been girls so traumatized that they have self harmed and in some very sad cases, taken their own lives.
As parents we have to talk to our daughters about this, to warn them and prepare them. And our boys, we need to talk to them about consent and what is the right way to treat a person they are intimate with.
Violence against and murder of women is on the rise in Ireland and sexual harassment is a part of that problem. We need to educate our children from a young age about what is and what is not ok.
