If this is true, maybe lowering the age of Sex Ed can help...
WINNIPEG — A symposium at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is looking at how earlier access to hardcore pornography is affecting children.
Several speakers at the forum sponsored by the child advocacy group Beyond Borders say for many, it can lead to sexual dysfunction and intimacy issues as they age.
Speakers at the event John Carr, executive board member of the U.K. Council of Child Internet Safety, and Cathy Wing, co-executive director of MediaSmarts, which has for over a decade monitored children’s use of the Internet.
Wing said a 2013 study of Ontario teens from grades 7 to 11 revealed 40 per cent of the male students looked for porn online, as opposed to seven per cent of females.
It also suggested the rates of parental control over access to pornography is dropping, mostly because of the Internet.
Wing said the answer is to start introducing sex education to students as soon as Grade 4.
“Sex ed has always been taught in school,” Wing noted. “But the problem is kids are being exposed to much more explicit stuff much younger. And we have to recognize that as adults. It (education) has to happen in the home as well.”
However, Wing said a recent attempt by the Ontario provincial government to introduce sex education beginning in Grade 4 was abandoned because of protests from some parents that the program was too explicit.
Some speakers suggested pornography is literally rewiring the brains of children to be stimulated to unrealistic, violent sex.
“The concern is not that they’re getting access to sexual content, but they’re getting access to exploitive and violent content that’s masquerading as sex,” said Cordelia Anderson, founder of the Minneapolis-based Sensibilities Prevention Services, which specializes in sexual violence and child sexual abuse.
“It’s completely different now. You’re getting multiple stimulation now. The content of those (older Playboy magazines) you’ll see on music videos and games now. It’s more and more violent and degrading. And it’s really encouraging stimulating pain and degradation. There’s nothing about mutual pleasure. It’s not even realistic depictions at all of what could or does happen.”
Gabe Deem of Irving, Texas, has started a website for pornography addicts called RebootNation.org.
“I was exposed to magazines at eight (years) old,” he told the conference. “I found a Playboy magazine outside my house. Then I had cable porn at 10. I had unlimited access to porn at the age of 12 when my parents got high-speed Internet.
“My porn use escalated and escalated and what I watched became more misogynistic, more shocking. Because as I became numb I needed a bigger hit. I was searching for that more hardcore material.”
Deem cited studies that concluded adolescents are “vulnerable” to excessive pornography, to the point where it “rewires” their brain with unrealistic and/or unattainable expectations of sex.
“You have to educate young people on how their brain works and how what they do matters,” Deem said. “It can change their brain, numb their brain. Teach them how to avoid overstimulation.”
WINNIPEG — A symposium at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights is looking at how earlier access to hardcore pornography is affecting children.
Several speakers at the forum sponsored by the child advocacy group Beyond Borders say for many, it can lead to sexual dysfunction and intimacy issues as they age.
Speakers at the event John Carr, executive board member of the U.K. Council of Child Internet Safety, and Cathy Wing, co-executive director of MediaSmarts, which has for over a decade monitored children’s use of the Internet.
Wing said a 2013 study of Ontario teens from grades 7 to 11 revealed 40 per cent of the male students looked for porn online, as opposed to seven per cent of females.
It also suggested the rates of parental control over access to pornography is dropping, mostly because of the Internet.
Wing said the answer is to start introducing sex education to students as soon as Grade 4.
“Sex ed has always been taught in school,” Wing noted. “But the problem is kids are being exposed to much more explicit stuff much younger. And we have to recognize that as adults. It (education) has to happen in the home as well.”
However, Wing said a recent attempt by the Ontario provincial government to introduce sex education beginning in Grade 4 was abandoned because of protests from some parents that the program was too explicit.
Some speakers suggested pornography is literally rewiring the brains of children to be stimulated to unrealistic, violent sex.
“The concern is not that they’re getting access to sexual content, but they’re getting access to exploitive and violent content that’s masquerading as sex,” said Cordelia Anderson, founder of the Minneapolis-based Sensibilities Prevention Services, which specializes in sexual violence and child sexual abuse.
“It’s completely different now. You’re getting multiple stimulation now. The content of those (older Playboy magazines) you’ll see on music videos and games now. It’s more and more violent and degrading. And it’s really encouraging stimulating pain and degradation. There’s nothing about mutual pleasure. It’s not even realistic depictions at all of what could or does happen.”
Gabe Deem of Irving, Texas, has started a website for pornography addicts called RebootNation.org.
“I was exposed to magazines at eight (years) old,” he told the conference. “I found a Playboy magazine outside my house. Then I had cable porn at 10. I had unlimited access to porn at the age of 12 when my parents got high-speed Internet.
“My porn use escalated and escalated and what I watched became more misogynistic, more shocking. Because as I became numb I needed a bigger hit. I was searching for that more hardcore material.”
Deem cited studies that concluded adolescents are “vulnerable” to excessive pornography, to the point where it “rewires” their brain with unrealistic and/or unattainable expectations of sex.
“You have to educate young people on how their brain works and how what they do matters,” Deem said. “It can change their brain, numb their brain. Teach them how to avoid overstimulation.”
