Porn: The Big Threat To Our Kids

Our children now have ready access to porn, and child pornography is on the rise, with half of South African learners having actively searched for sexual material. LOIS LAW looks at what that means, and how we should respond.

In recent years Africa has seen exceptional growth in the use of information and communication technology. At the same time, the sex industry has flourished because there is such a large market for the merchandising of women and children.

Notwithstanding the positive aspects of the Internet, it also brings risks in the form of online criminal offences, especially those perpetrated against children.

These include unsolicited exposure to sexually explicit material (pornography), the production and distribution of child pornography, grooming of children for sexual exploitation, and sexual extortion.

“Through information and communications technology, the ability to sexually abuse a child is now in the hands of every person,” UNISA’s Dr Antoinette Basson points out.

Child sexual abuse materials are considered to be any visual depiction of a minor, or an individual who appears to be a minor, who is engaged in sexual or sexually-related conduct.

The Film and Publications Amendment Act 3 of 2009 states that child pornography “includes any image, however created, or any description of a person, real or simulated, or who is depicted, made to appear, look like, represented or described as being under the age of 18 years”.

However, the effectiveness of the Act is severely compromised by the Internet, which is extremely difficult to police.

“What once was taboo, hidden inside a suitcase or wardrobe in an older male relative’s girlie magazines, has moved into all of our homes,” as an article on legalbrief.co.za put it

“The influx has been facilitated by the mass media and more specifically the Internet, mobile phones and television. However, it is no longer just a centrefold model but a deluge of online and increasingly bizarre or violent content.”

The Internet is the cheapest, fastest, and most anonymous pornography source.

These continuing developments have made children increasingly vulnerable and in need of greater and more effective protection.

Frequent exposure to violence—including sexual violence—in the media can be confusing to children, who are not yet able to distinguish readily between fantasy and reality.

“At a later stage, violence in the media can condition impressionable persons, especially those who are young, to regard this as normal and acceptable behaviour, suitable for imitation,” the Pontifical Council for Social Communications warned already in 1989.

Kids are exposed to porn

While parents would ideally want children to learn about sexuality and reproduction at home, in a loving and secure environment, the harsh reality is that nearly half of children between the ages of 9-16 experience regular exposure to sexual images.

Researcher Chantelle Blokdyk observes that “we are the first generation to have the conversation about Internet pornography with our children”.

The vulnerability of children in the age of social media cannot be overestimated—and the children most affected may well be the younger ones.

Research shows that media has a tremendous capacity to teach. However, it’s what it teaches that is the concern.

Exposure to media online, on cellphones, through games and in movies—particularly where the content is violent, gender-stereotyped, and/or sexually explicit—skews children’s world view, increases high-risk behaviours, and alters their capacity for successful and sustained human relationships.

Ms Blokdyk emphasises that parents need to start the conversation with their children as soon as they can, as “establishing healthy sexual boundaries and values from a young age is essential to prepare them for protecting their minds and bodies”.

Adolescence is a particularly critical period, especially for male children.

Effects of pornography

Psychologist Dr Victor Cline posits four progressive effects of pornography in these words:

– Addiction, where the need to view pornographic materials leads to a loss of free control over behaviour;

– Escalation, where the person delves into progressively harder pornography, usually to attain the same level of sensation and arousal;

– Desensitisation, whereby the user is no longer morally sensitive to the shocking, illegal, repulsive, perverted, or immoral quality of the material, but instead views it as acceptable and begins to look upon others as objects; and

– Acting out, where the fantasising becomes overt behaviour.

Although the adult mind is vulnerable to pornographic imagery, children are the more severely harmed.

Behavioural scientist Ralph DiClemente comments that “children can’t just put [porn] in their worldview, because they don’t have one. This becomes one of the building blocks that they’re going to put into their worldview, and that’s what we don’t want.”

Children’s minds are still developing, so they do not have the capacity to understand the harmful and profoundly disrespectful nature of pornography.

These distortions become the filters through which the rest of life is seen and understood.

The end results include emotional trauma; having sex earlier; desiring and pursuing sex apart from emotional attachments; difficulty in establishing emotional attachment; and a higher risk of sexual compulsions and addictions.

According to Pretoria child psychologist Marita Rademeyer, “exposure to pornography amongst South African children appears to be on the increase”.

She notes that the youth research unit of the Bureau of Market Research at UNISA “found that 48,4% of learners who partook in their study [had] searched intentionally for online pornography, many on a daily basis”.

“The use of pornography by young children is thought to contribute to early sexual debut, sexual exploitation of other children, lack of sleep, depression and other negative outcomes,” according to Ms Rademeyer.

Supervise kids’ Internet

Anecdotal evidence abounds of innocent Google searches such as “bunny rabbit” or “lollipop” reaching pornographic websites. It is critically important for parents and other care givers to be mindful and to supervise their children’s access to the internet

Children need to develop a strong sense of the corporal integrity of both themselves and of others.

Unfortunately, children may enable their own vulnerability in what they post on the Internet, even on supposedly private sites.

One of the basic principles of the Internet is that nothing that is posted goes away.

Attorney and social media expert Emma Sadleir notes the harsh reality that the “minute it has been shared or seen, it exists in cyberspace and may come back to bite you.

It is impossible to completely erase content once it has been posted online or on social media.

“Even if you delete the content from your Instagram account, many people may have taken a screenshot of it or downloaded your images,” Ms Sadleir warns.

Likewise peddlers of child pornography have access to these images and there is nothing preventing them from using these images for their own exploitative and nefarious purposes.

Our present legal framework has proven inadequate and does not provide children with sufficient care and protection.

Furthermore, it does not protect society from the psycho-social consequences of exposure to child sex abuse materials and the insidious nature of these crimes.

Attention should be given to making it an offence for any person who becomes aware of the existence of child sexual abuse material not to report it to the authorities.

Present legislation tends to limit the duty of reporting to specific categories, such as teachers, social workers or medical practitioners..

The Church must also make the best possible use of its own institutions and personnel to give education and formation concerning the media of social communications and their proper role in individual and social life.

Sound laws must be enacted where they are lacking, weak laws must be strengthened, and existing laws must be enforced.

This is an abbreviated version of a research paper which Lois Law wrote for the Catholic Parliamentary Liaison Office. For the full version go to bit.ly/2QTB91r or www.cplo.org.za