Teens hooked to pornography too much too soon... Corrupting Future Generation
Lazarus Sauti
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It can include pictures as well as written and audio
material.
There are two types of porn namely soft-core pornography (18
years old+) and hard-core pornography (21 years old+).
Soft-core pornography contains nudity and suggestions of
oral and anal sex, group sex, homosexual and bisexual behaviour, but with no
penetration shown. This is sold legally and readily available.
It is critical to note that hard-core pornography is sold
only in adult shops. The content is the same as soft-core porn but with
penetration, usually shown in close-up shots.
The world today is awash with pornography. It may be found
in music, movies, advertisements, fashion, magazines, as well as on television,
video games, smart phones, mobile devices, websites and online photo-sharing
services.
Pornography, it seems, is a prominent feature of popular
culture because more people in more places are consuming more pornography than
at any other time in history.
Professor Gail Dines concurs and writes, “Images today have
now become so extreme that what used to be considered hard-core is now
mainstream pornography.”
Sadly, visual images have a powerful influence on children.
Honestly, until six or seven years, children cannot tell the difference between
fact and fantasy.
A leading researcher on pornography, Dr Judith Reisman,
remarks, “Pornographic visual images imprint and alter the brain, triggering an
instant, involuntary, but lasting, biochemical memory trail (that is) difficult
or impossible to delete.”
This means that premature exposure to sex scenes shows
children something they are unable to have a clear understanding of.
More so, pornography can hurt children more directly.
Children exposed to pornography at an early age think that
these images are part of normal adult sexual behaviours.
These children tend to become sexually active at a young age.
Studies show that pornography can influence adolescence to
become sexually active at younger ages as well as promiscuous, sexually violent
and emotionally and psychologically unstable.
Furthermore, pornography promotes sexual freedoms to the
point of promiscuity. This is so because what teenagers see on television and
magazines gives the message that casual sex with many people is ‘cool’.
Author of ‘Addictive Behaviour in Children and Young Adults
- The Struggle for Freedom’, Dr Raoul Goldberg, says, “Education about sex
through pornography ruins the very scared nature of sexual encounters.”
The inability to form relationships with the opposite sex is
one harmful effect of pornography on children.
Pornography suggests that satisfying one’s own sexual needs
is more important than establishing meaningful relationships.
Pornography pays scant attention to men’s needs for
sensuality and intimacy while exalting their sexual needs.
Thus, some men develop a preoccupation with sexuality, which
powerfully handicaps their capacity for emotionally intimate relationships with
men and for nonsexual relationships with women.
Goldberg notes, “Boys who are repeatedly viewing pornography
can become sexually aggressive towards women and feel uncomfortable in normal
and healthy relationships.
Adds Goldberg, “Young girls who are ‘fed’ on the diet of
pornography also start to believe they are sex objects, leading to feelings of
low sex esteem.
Voyeurism an obsession with looking at women rather than
interacting with them is also an effect of pornography.
The explosion in glorification and objectification of
women’s bodies promotes unreal images of women, distorts physical reality,
creates an obsession with visual stimulation and trivialises all other mature
features of a healthy psychosexual relationship.
Sadly, due to lack of strictly enforced laws in African
countries, pornography is readily available in magazines, books, videos, DVDs,
computer games, advertisements, cellphones, chat lines, the internet and
television, a powerful influence which comes right into our homes.
Accordingly, African governments should find ways to curb
the availability of pornographic materials in African cities since the demand
for porn is increasing in the lower and upper-middle class and many porn films
are being made secretly in many African nations.
The trend of young people getting attracted to porn is a
disturbing phenomenon that could corrupt the coming generation.
The youth looking for an easier option to earn quick buck
should be a matter of concern on all African societies.
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