Young Women: New Consumers of Pornography

According to Professor Jason Carroll, college-aged women are more accepting of pornography than are their fathers. According to his study, Viewing pornographic materials are seen by subjects as an acceptable way to express one's sexuality.

Not surprising when there are sitcoms that depict the cool girlfriend as the one who buys pornography for their boyfriend's birthday.

It is unfortunate that society has changed so much where adults are accepting of pornography.

Pornography is accessible, affordable and anonymous, making it an icon in our new American culture.

More and more studies are showing that increasing numbers of women are admitting to being addicted to pornography. Depending on the study, the percentages range from 17% to 28%! In addition to the pornography addiction findings, a number of studies are indicating that 50% - 65% of women are struggling with lust.

Clearly our efforts to educate children and youth in the area of purity need to take these trends into account.

Before we act too surprised we need to look at the societal changes in the past 30-40 years. While women have historically not been visually oriented, our "visually oriented" culture is slowly changing the impact that images have on women. In addition, the advent of "couples porn", designed to appeal to women as well as men, is lowering the barriers on the bedroom TV screen. In developing women-friendly porn, the adult entertainment industry seeks to accomplish two goals:

Eliminate women's objections to pornography, increasing the "freedom" of men to access and purchase porn, and get into the other 50% of the wallets on the planet;

Couples porn consists of movies, etc., that are designed to NOT offend the sensibilities of women. Instead of the blatant sex in traditional male-oriented pornography, this new genre has high production values, plots, characters and character development, and exotic locales. Put simply, they are soap operas with single "X" rated love scenes. Often these can be found on late-night premium movie channels on cable/satellite systems.

Other entry points for women include:

Web sites devoted to erotic fiction.
"How to" sites to "enhance sexual skills"
Video/image-based web sites that are "toned down" for women.
We have to ensure that we do not focus so much on male use of pornography that we ignore these threats to girls and women when we emphasize purity.

Concerning teenaged and younger girls:

"Some predators introduce sexual content into their conversations very quickly, and even go so far as to arrange meetings with young people who can expose themselves to danger without realising the consequences.

"Parents are encouraged to make the time to learn about the sites their children are visiting by sitting down with them to explore the Internet. The Internet computer should also be positioned in a common area, not in bedrooms, to limit the opportunity for exploitation by predators.

"At the same time, parents should be reminding their children that the rules when meeting new people in the real world also apply when online - you wouldn't invite a stranger into your living room, but that's effectively what you are doing when meeting and 'chatting' with new people in cyberspace," he said.


TIPS FOR PARENTS

· Limit the amount of time your child spends online.

· If you believe your child may be at risk, you should consider talking with them about the dangers associated with online conversations.

· Spend time exploring the internet with your children and let them teach you about their favourite websites.

· Keep the computer in a room the whole family accesses, not in your child's bedroom. Opportunities for exploitation by a sexual predator are limited if the computer monitor is visible to all members of the family.

· Consider installing filtering and/or computer blocking software provided by your Internet Service Provider.

· Parents should immediately contact their local police station if their child has received child pornography, has been sexually solicited, or has received sexually explicit images.

· If any of these scenarios occur, parents should keep the computer turned on in order to preserve evidence.

TIPS FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

· Do not send a picture of yourself to someone you don't know and never place a full profile and picture anywhere on the internet.

· Never give out personal information including your name, home address, phone number or school.

· Never arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone you have only chatted with on the internet.

· Tell your parents or another adult of any contact online that makes you feel uncomfortable.