Kids and porn.

In the ongoing debate about how to protect kids from porn (latest development: Google putting parental controls on "adult" Droid apps, even though the Droid can access the entire Internet uncontrolled), I think it's important to point out that there's a couple different kinds of "kid" we're talking about here.


1. The totally innocent. These are very young kids who don't seek out porn. Their risk is that they're going to Google something innocuous and get hit with something they aren't old enough to understand. This is the only category that I agree should be protected by straight-up censorship. (By parents, not by society.) No one of any age should have to look at porn when they don't want to, and particularly not little kids.

On the other hand, this totally-innocent demographic is not that likely to be really hurt by porn. Momentarily disturbed or confused, maybe, but any kid young enough to be asking mommy why the lady is naked is probably too young to absorb truly harmful messages from the lady. "AUGH WHAT IS THIS LADY DOING" is actually a much preferable reaction to "I guess that's how ladies show they like you in the real world."


2. The corruptible innocent. These are kids who seek out porn, but don't really know what they're going to find. These are kids who've started masturbating, who've had sex ed, but haven't really put all the pieces together in their view of sexuality. They Google "vagina" and type www.vagina.com in the search bar. They know enough to be secretive about this, but they're not terribly clever about it and they can be deterred.

This is the demographic I'd consider most vulnerable. They're the most apt to pick up weird ideas. When you genuinely don't know what most people look like naked, your body image can get all fucked up. I had a friend in high school who thought his dick was on the small side--only seven and a half inches. Nine is average, right? And even that's benign compared to the ideas you could take away about human behavior--that lesbians are there for male entertainment, that sex doesn't require negotiation, that hot women give it up to fugly men just for showing up. In fact, strike my assumptions in the previous clause--the worst message kids can get from porn is that anyone gives it up to anyone just for showing up.

Kids like this, who want porn but can't fully contextualize it, are tough to protect. Censorship does more good for them than it does the other two groups, but it's tough to shield their eyes without infringing on adults' rights, and it's impossible to shield anyone's eyes forever.

(Incidentally, I think censorship of things like nipples and the word "fuck" is always stupid. I'm talking here about porn, not body parts and words. A woman on her knees in a "come get me" pose in a bikini is sending a much more worrisome message than a woman running around having fun with her tits fully out.)

This is the group I think parental filters make the most difference on. As they become Stage 3 it'll become useless, but a little obstacle on how fast and easily they can get to GapingAnuses.com doesn't seem like a bad thing. I particularly like the idea of monitoring what kids do, if parents respond appropriately. That is, saying "this is bad and now you're bad" is useless or even harmful, but being able to say "If you're going to look at that, we need to talk about what you're learning from it" might do some good. (Also, sitting them down for a frank talk about sexuality is probably the worst punishment of all.) I think that punishing kids for sex can create the idea that sex is bad, and punishing kids for looking at naked women can make it seem like those women are doing something wrong.

Still, I always worry tremendously about abuse of parental monitoring, because I don't really trust parents. I always worry that a kid's going to get cut off from their friends or get hit for being curious about porn, or that parents are going to use the snoop ability to monitor a kid's entire social life. There always seems to be a slippery slope from "I just want to make sure she's not meeting pedophiles" to "oh my God, there's a bad word on her Facebook, MELTDOWN."


3. The corrupted. These are the professionals; kids who know all about porn and have defined preferences and they're determined to get their porn. They may be under 18 but they know that their favorite site on Kink.com is Hogtied and their favorite model is Madison Young. They have Mossad skills for circumventing parental controls and getting premium content for free, and they will not be stopped.

I don't care at all about protecting these kids from porn. I think they still need to be discouraged from making stupid real-world choices, from meeting creepy people or giving away their personal information, but when it comes to simply viewing porn the damage is done. They're going to fight furiously and deviously against attempts at restricting or monitoring them and there isn't much they haven't seen already.

What these kids need, I think, is the same as what adults need, which is the opportunity to think critically about the messages they take away from porn. Simply censoring porn gives no benefit after a certain saturation point, but being able to understand and discuss how Porn Women (and men!) and Porn Sex are different from reality is crucial. Innocence can't be restored, but context and critical thinking can be gained.


No, I'm not a parent, I don't know anything, but I was all three stages of pornhound kid. Why, I can remember being so young that "I certify I am over 18" buttons scared me, because they'll know I lied! I also thought I was Stage 3 for some time while I was really Stage 2. You see one penis, you think you've seen everything... and then you see Goatse. But oh well. Everyone has to see Goatse eventually.

At this point I'm at the stage where I don't even see anything wrong with Goatse, because really, that man is just doing what gives him pleasure.