Wee Tiny Pornography

Banner day at work today. I watched porn with my boss.

Brain Drain, my 11 ½ -year-old charge, discovered internet porn this weekend. He managed to keep it secret for all of three days before his mom discovered it in the computer’s history. I got a frantic call from BossLady asking, “Have you been watching porn on the computer during naptime?!” I said no, of course not! She responded, “Shit. You have to get back here and watch this with me.”

As it turned out, the links were all You Tube videos, which were pretty tame, but certainly not PG. BossLady settled down a little bit, but was still pretty frantic. BossMan came home from work and they had a seriously intense conversation about how to handle it. They are on opposite ends of the spectrum on this issue. I got to mediate.

BossMan thinks it is hilarious. BossLady thinks it is perverse, dangerous, and the beginning of a life of porn addiction. She is also worried that the images he sees online
will lead him to objectify, degrade, and exploit women. She is accusing BossMan of under-reacting, while he is accusing her of overreacting. I talked them both off the ledge.

As the most technologically savvy person in the room, I tried to express to BossMan that internet porn can, in fact, be very dangerous for kids. I suggested using some kind of internet filtering program, with the caveat that filtering programs tend to over-filter, making parental permission necessary to access even the library, whereas porn sites out-program the filters faster than they can update. Web filters won’t be a viable option when the kids hit high school and have to do serious research, but a filter might buy them some time to get their act together.

As a fifteen-year nanny who has been through this before with other families, I tried to convince BossLady that this is normal behavior for a boy going into sixth grade, and that they as parents need to present a unified front and talk seriously with Brain Drain about what is and is not safe Spank Bank material. (Yes, I said the words “Spank Bank” to both of my bosses). BossLady did not like my suggestion that they provide him with something more appropriate, like some casually placed Victoria’s Secret catalogues, or a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. An eleven-year-old does not need much *ahem* inspiration, so these might satisfy his curiosity about the female body without exposing him to the snuff films, rape fantasy, and child porn that are easily found on the internet.

We live in a different world than the world in which BossLady and BossMan grew up. While BossMan is right that boys will be boys, BossLady is also right to be afraid of the potential exploitation of her son. Sex offenders often supply their potential victims with pornography to convince children that they can be trusted with secrets, and to convince the victim that sex between adults and children is normal (FBI).

According to the Child Trends Database, 76% of U.S. homes with children have access to the internet. Teenagers spend between 10 and 15 hours a week engaged in non-school related activities on the internet. Parents can’t possibly watch every minute of computer use, but there are a few steps they can take, and the earlier they start implementing these steps, the better. The following list of recommendations was compiled by the FBI:

What Can You Do To Minimize The Chances Of An On-line Exploiter Victimizing Your Child?

• Communicate, and talk to your child about sexual victimization and potential on-line danger.
• Spend time with your children on-line. Have them teach you about their favorite on-line destinations.
• Keep the computer in a common room in the house, not in your child's bedroom. It is much more difficult for a computer-sex offender to communicate with a child when the computer screen is visible to a parent or another member of the household.
• Utilize parental controls provided by your service provider and/or blocking software. While electronic chat can be a great place for children to make new friends and discuss various topics of interest, it is also prowled by computer-sex offenders. Use of chat rooms, in particular, should be heavily monitored. While parents should utilize these mechanisms, they should not totally rely on them.
• Always maintain access to your child's on-line account and randomly check his/her e-mail. Be aware that your child could be contacted through the U.S. Mail. Be up front with your child about your access and reasons why.
• Teach your child the responsible use of the resources on-line. There is much more to the on-line experience than chat rooms.
• Find out what computer safeguards are utilized by your child's school, the public library, and at the homes of your child's friends. These are all places, outside your normal supervision, where your child could encounter an on-line predator.
• Understand, even if your child was a willing participant in any form of sexual exploitation, that he/she is not at fault and is the victim. The offender always bears the complete responsibility for his or her actions.
• Instruct your children:
  • to never arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone they met on- line;
     to never upload (post) pictures of themselves onto the Internet or on-line service to people they do not personally know;
  • to never give out identifying information such as their name, home address, school name, or telephone number;
  • to never download pictures from an unknown source, as there is a good chance there could be sexually explicit images;
  • to never respond to messages or bulletin board postings that are suggestive, obscene, belligerent, or harassing;
  • that whatever they are told on-line may or may not be true.

The FBI does not mention anything about providing a safe Spank Bank, but perhaps that is a little off topic for their purposes. In Brain Drain’s case, I think it’s just what the (love) doctor ordered.

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/pguide/pguidee.htm
http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/indicators/69homecomputeruse.cfm

This blog is part of a series:

Wee Tiny Opportunism

Wee Tiny Homophobia

Wee Tiny Racism

Wee Tiny Activism

Wee Tiny Environmentalism

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