May 14 2008

Know who (besides you) and what is influencing your teenager part 3

Published by dodo at 12:12 am under Adolescent, Books, Child Care, Children, Daddy, Education, Family, Mommy, Parenting, Stroller, Teenager

Other electronic media

The potential hazards of unrestricted access to video games and computer on-line services (including the Internet).

Literature and nonliterature, including pornography

While you want to encourage reading as an alternative to TV watching, pay attention to the material your adolescent brings home from the library or bookstore. Much of what lands on current best-seller lists is truly pulp fiction, laced with vivid scenes of horror, violence, and sex that are far more explicit than the contents of most R-rated films. Even the so-called romance novels, whose covers are emblazoned with bare-chested hulks looming over bodice-busting sirens, generally contain an abundance of vivid and immoral sexual material. If your teenager is engrossed in a steady diet of books focused on bloodletting, body counts, and bawdy situations, offer some alternatives of better content and quality. (By the way, what books are on your nightstand?)

A more dangerous influence, one that encompasses a variety of media including books, magazines, and videos, is pornography. Twenty years ago someone who wanted to see a dirty movie had to travel across town and sneak into a seedy theater where no one would recognize him. Since then, an explosion of new technologies has given pornography access to nearly every home. Most cable services offer not only unedited feature films on various “premium” channels but also specific channels whose programming consists entirely of sexual material. Nearly every video store has a back room full of hard-core stuff on cassette, available for two or three dollars per night. Most major hotel chains offer payper-view movies in every room—including a selection of idiotic “adult” films. Now the Internet has become a lawless Dodge City in which extraordinarily harsh and perverse material can be viewed and captured by any adolescent with a computer and a modem. And all of this doesn’t include Playboy, Penthouse, and the other spin-offs that have cluttered newsstands and bookshops for decades.

KidsUnlike the general run of films and TV, there is no gray zone for pornography. This is not harmless recreation, especially for an adolescent, and certainly not an appropriate source of information about human sexuality, for a number of reasons:

  • Pornography paints a distorted picture of human sexuality as nonstop, careless, and meaningless copulation.
  • Pornography degrades women, depicting them as brainless sex toys. Some of it sells the rape myth—that women who say no to a man’s sexual advances really mean yes and actually enjoy being raped.
  • Pornography is highly addictive for some adolescents (and adults). Consumption of this material might continue into adulthood as a compulsion, contaminating relationships and interfering with a healthy sexual experience during marriage.
  • Pornography is progressive for many who become addicted to it. Once someone has seen all the genital gymnastics that a man and woman can do, the search for new excitement may lead to viewing grotesque behavior, sexual violence, and even murder. A few cross the line of sights and sounds to actual participation and criminal behavior.

As your child approaches the teen years, talk about pornography and explain why this material is destructive. Needless to say, there shouldn’t be any lurking in your own bedroom. If you as an adult have difficulty staying away from pornography, you should seek counseling from someone who is experienced with this problem.

Nevertheless, it is likely that your teen will stumble upon soft-core material, and perhaps something worse, at some point in his teen years. But what if you are looking through his closet or turning his mattress and stumble onto some sleazy material? Your best approach is neither to ignore it nor to fly off the handle and preach at him for two hours. Instead, plop the magazine (or whatever) in plain view in his room so he knows you found it or casually bring it out when you’re ready to talk to him (one-on-one) about your discovery.

Most likely he knows that it isn’t good to look at it and has dealt with a strong mixture of interest and guilt already, so a low-key approach will be quite effective. (A little humor might even relieve the tension: “Say, this is pretty interesting stuff here! Mom and I were thinking about getting a subscription!”) Let him know that you know that curiosity about female anatomy is normal at his age, but remind him that this type of material is inappropriate, exploits women, can be as addictive as a drug, and (by the way) is very offensive. Make it clear that you don’t want any more of it in your home and give him the honor of dumping it into the trash. It is impossible to know for sure whether he will refrain from looking at pornography somewhere else, of course, but keep your lines of communication open.

If you find material that includes more ominous themes such as homosexuality, violence, or child pornography, you will need to go a step further and get him involved in counseling with a qualified individual who shares your basic views on sexuality.

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Know who (besides you) and what is influencing your teenager part 3

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