[ckbkr10]

I wish there was a honest discussion, I am with them about parents not giving a shit and pushing away responsibility. The idea of supervision in education institutions is good as well.

The kids in my family were well protected and supervised, they got into contact with hardcore porn at the age of 6 when other kids had access to smartphones and exposed them to it.

I would like to see a honest discussion about the impact of porn on kids, I cannot really imagine that it doesn't distort the view and expectations on sex.

In my 20s I was promiscious and lived what I saw in pornography, only later in life I learned about normal sex.

In germany we had a state sponsored porn flick once produced by ZDF Neo, maybe that is the approach to expose the kids to material that shows sex as a respectable flow rather than an extreme fantasy.

[jakobnissen]

But kids (and adults) are exposed to all kinds of fantasies. War is not like Call of Duty. The Mafia is not like GTA. Monarchy is not like in the fairy tales. Romance is not like Twilight. BDSM is not like 50 Shades of Grey.

For all these things, we rely on people's world experience and common sense to figure it out. I think it's pretty obvious that sex is not like porn, and I don't understand why so many people are convinced that people can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality in this domain specifically.

[jjcob]

People can't tell the difference in any domain. People copy what they see. It's why James Bond stopped smoking in movies, and people smoke far less now.

Mainstream porn sites show a lot of weird practices (what's up with that strangulation fetish??) and I do think it has a bad influence.

I don't think age verification is a good solution, because we don't become immune to influence at age 18. Adults are just as vulnerable to copying poor behavior as minors.

I think we should do the opposite: Remove stigma associated with sexuality. Why can't more movies just include everyday sex scenes? Why do we need to make this distinction where you need to go to a different site if you want to see something more explicit than a nipple? Most people probably wouldn't even go to porn sites if they could just watch something steamy on Netflix.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

It's different. One big part of the reason has already been said in sibling comments: taboo. Kids know that the huge jumps in martial arts movies are impossible because they jump when they play, they have seen their friends and classmates jump, they probably have tried flying kicks when playing so they get an idea of where the limits are. Nothing of this happens with sex, plus often they aren't exposed to anyone talking about it, except of course in porn.

The other part is the huge insecurities people have in this domain. You will meet a lot of people who aren't afraid to tell you that they dance like crap, or have no musical ear, or are in bad shape, etc.; but even if you meet people who talk about sex, no one is going to tell you that they last one minute in bed.

[maccard]

We shouldn’t be giving 6 year olds access to call of duty or GTA either. PEGI ratings (although overzealous) are a god starting point. I wouldn’t withhold an average 10 year old from a 12 rated game, but I wouldn’t give them access to an 18+.

Also, we (usually) talk about these things - video games are not the only source of discourse of violence or conflict, but sex is such a taboo topic that it’s highly likely most or all of someone’s knowledge will come from what they’ve learned on the internet

[Aeolun]

> I would like to see a honest discussion about the impact of porn on kids, I cannot really imagine that it doesn't distort the view and expectations on sex.

Only if they have no other exposure to this pretty damn normal thing. If all the adults in their life refuse to talk about because of some misplaced idea it is shameful, where are they going to get that info?

Not saying that’s the case for you, just that it’s the impression I get from many people.

[Retric]

> I would like to see a honest discussion about the impact of porn on kids, I cannot really imagine that it doesn't distort the view and expectations on sex.

There’s a bunch of studies on this and at the individual level it seems to do a bunch of stuff, but at the population level it has at most an effect so small it can’t be measured. Which IMO suggests causation goes in the other direction. IE if you’re entering puberty early you may seek both porn and sex at a younger age.

That said, I’m not an expert and have only briefly looked through the literature.

[_mu]

What is really missing is good sex education in schools, especially public schools - and in particular in the United States. The state of sex education in America actually deserves the work deplorable, it's so bad.

Looking at this comment thread, I get the sense that people are coming from vastly different backgrounds and upbringings. There's no baseline established for what people are trying to discuss.

There are a lot of topics that should simply be explained to children up front from a very early age. When a topic is not shrouded in mystery, it becomes boring. So kids should learn from an early age what is sex, puberty, menstruation, homosexuality, etc. and it should be presented in a manner-of-fact way that takes the emotional charge out of the picture. When people are educated, they have more latitude to make good decisions.

[Hizonner]

> In my 20s I was promiscious and lived what I saw in pornography, only later in life I learned about normal sex.

News flash. That is normal in your 20s and always has been.

[antonymoose]

Only for the last few decades, this has almost always been a taboo across all of humanity, this high level promiscuity you speak of. Hardly a normative experience across space and time.

[happymellon]

Why don't they do things that are within their control.

Such as mandatory site filtering options. So the same place you pay your bill, you can also set which sites you want to be blocked by an "admin" password.

Or are they afraid that people will add tracking.facebook.com to the block list?

The chances of the kids stealing the admin password are about as likely as the kids stealing your age verification password that you needed to set up to access Reddit.

[blitzar]

Parents dont want to be the "bad guy" or parents in any real sense.

[stevenicr]

I too have wondered why there has not been huge pressure from parents to demand that cell phone hardware and the cell companies (and cable companies) - offer a portal they can log into and choose a 'bouncer / blocking system'

I have suggested publicly in the past that there should be a set of community blocker bots that are transparent about what they do and do not block and they are easy to fork and change for this sort of thing. And parents can choose which level of blocking their networks adhere to.

Of course they could just block all things sex for the moment -

But parents have not demanded this.

I imagine that way back in the day when if the porn via cable boxes was enabled by default, many parents would not have chosen to just give their kids one in the living room and one in their bedroom, many houses put one in every room of the house.

And yet they know that these phone devices can bring up porn and many worse things - and they just hand them over with an unlimited data plan like its nothing.

Many years ago, some parents could argue they did not know there was naughty things on the telephone like connected to the computers, but today's parents grew up with the porn on the internet and most partents just give them unlimited anytime access to all the things.

If the zealots riling up the churches and mom groups and such truly believe that porn is proven scientifically destruction to the children, why are the parents not in trouble for giving these devices to the kids? Like giving a car and alcohol and unlimited ammo to what 90% of kids?

I do believe part of the problem has been non-great options for blocking. (I have heard there are more options today than there were when I researched this a bit 10 years ago - back then disney circle (too expensive) and an open source dns poisoning thing I couldn't figure out how to setup)

But I think we also need to be honest that all parents know the porn is there (and worse, they know they have cameras on these devices and things like snap have been around so long everyone knows there are worse things that can be done with these devices) - and yet people have not demanded non-camera, all adult blocked devices, in fact they have been buying them up and paying premium prices to provide unlimited 24/7 access.

So the few people who are getting their ego stroked by the choir for saving the children, it would seem being in their bubbling is preventing them from seeing the reality of the people's choices, and providing better alternatives and education.

It seems every year each group needs a boogie man to raise money and get the likes and shares before campaign season. It's a shame they are willing to slay the rights of people just to get some temporary popularity - and likely knowing it's not going to fix the thing, but it is going to cost time and money for many - but they don't care about the masses.

[anal_reactor]

> I would like to see a honest discussion about the impact of porn on kids, I cannot really imagine that it doesn't distort the view and expectations on sex.

Honestly I'm really surprised that the generation that grew up on free access to internet porn and turned out fine is suddenly acting so prudish. As a kid I really believed that when my generation grows up, we'll be "the cool parents".

Of course porn distorted my view of sex, but let's be real - this damage is absolutely nothing compared to American family movies where a family of four with one adopted token black kid has a minor issue and then resolves it and everyone lives happily everafter. Those sold me the fantasy that as an adult I'd have lots of friends and a loving family and a satisfying job, and when none of that happened, I spent years feeling deep disappointment, which I still haven't processed.

Meanwhile hardcore porn I watched... look, that's the absolute least of issues I had as a kid. Growing up gay in a conservative country never gave me a chance to learn about proper relationships, I was immediately pushed into the underground world of hookups with shady people. Not to mention the plethora of other, unrelated issues, like constant bullying at school which nobody gave a fuck about, abusive parents, or ghetto community promoting criminal lifestyle. Or thinking even larger: what about whole generation that enters job market into recession, what about whole generation that will never build capital because they're trapped in a cycle of poverty, what about the constant fear that WW3 might be happening, what about social connections dissolving and people becoming more and more aggressive towards each other.

But those are difficult problems to tackle, so let's focus on kids seeing a naked titty instead. For sure that's a great use of our limited time.

[edu]

But I think a big difference is that while the current parent generation grow up with free access to internet, our access was limited usually to the family computer.

For us internet access was a bit of a ritual—find a computer and got some privacy. Or you could risk getting caught at the computer lab.

Now, the internet is ubiquitous and many kids have access to connected devices all the time (computers, tablets, smartphones) and it's harder to overview their use.

Also, the amount of content and extreme content available has exploded.

[michaelt]

> I would like to see a honest discussion about the impact of porn on kids, I cannot really imagine that it doesn't distort the view and expectations on sex.

It's extremely difficult to get solid evidence of this stuff, as it all happens so slowly it's inseparable from many other gradual forces in society.

Are people getting married and having children less, because porn has undermined their ability to form healthy adult relationships?

Or is it because of a successful campaign against teen pregnancy? A rise in women's education levels making them want to wait to start a family? Contraception and pre-marital sex removing a major incentive to settle down? Society's infantilisation of men, who should put away childish things at a much younger age? A housing crisis and hollowing out of the lower middle class meaning people can't hope to afford a family home until middle age? A preference the man out-earns the woman being incompatible with a world where women out-perform men in education? Fears about the future, like the climate crisis? A decline in religion and traditional family values? The rise of online/app-based dating?

Our main tools for disentangling these influences are, as far as I can tell, vibes and anecdotes.

[lukan]

Hm .. there is porn and there is porn. Of course the professional casts are fake, but there is usually for example a amateur porn category, a bit closer to reality. So if you blame porn for you being promiscious ... I would say you had the choice what kind of porn you watch. And likely rather, what kind of friends you hang around with.

[edu]

But from your own case, how do you protect your kids from other kids accessing hardcore porn at the age of 6? That would be a great argument in favour of blocking access unless age verification is provided so you reduce the chance of the "weakest link", otherwise as much as I can content block any device used by my kids the surface of having some other kid whose parent don't care/know how to block it would be enormous.