But the documentary, while thought provoking, is also incredibly representative of the current world we live in, and presumptions that just aren't true.
For one, it mostly only looked at how porn was affecting teenage boys. This is socially accepted as the main viewers of porn, sure, but that's only because it's somehow frowned upon for girls to go anywhere near it. Like they're less worthy of investigating that side of things than the male population. But that's just stupid, because if they're supposed to be mostly innocent, but the boys want to have sex with them, then surely they should be allowed to want that back. And yet the minute a girl might admit to watching porn, she's viewed as less when boys can joke about it. There was no mention of how it affects girls other than them being victims of abuse because of it.
Also, the only porn they discussed was violent and heterosexual, with the males dominating. Now, I know full fucking well that that isn't all that there is. Sure, it's a percentage, of course it is. If you can think of it, there's probably a video of it. But that isn't all kids watch.
And the ways people are considering stopping this moral panic? Filters, bans. You can't ban things on the internet. People will always find ways, and if you tell someone they can't see something, they will only be more intent on finding it. Besides, if you filter your kids' internet access, at what point do you decide they're allowed it again?
I got cut off for two years because I found out I was trans* and started researching it, started conversing on tumblr with a boy named Rob in Canada, who identified at the time as genderqueer. He encouraged me, told me my parents would be fine. Said that it was tough, but I'd be okay. It took a lot of inspiration from him, and then my parents told me he was just using me for his own deluded needs, to convince himself of whatever his insanity claimed. They loudly implied he was mentally ill, that he was lying to me. It went against everything I'd read in his blog, everything I felt personally, and I knew they were full of shit, but I was made to delete my internet accounts, change my names on other accounts, and unable to go online unless my mum was next to me, monitoring.
That's damaged me. It cut me off from my friends, messed up my psyche and is probably the main reason I need therapy. That is not the right way to raise kids when they start trying to find out more about themselves and the world.
If adults are so damn worried about kids of the new generation thinking porn is how sex is supposed to be, and trying to live up to those unrealistic expectations, then it's about time they started telling the kids that.
The school education in England, if not everywhere
I have a strong memory of year five, in the cloakrooms, aged eight, talking with my friend about how the hell lesbians were supposed to have sex. I don't even know how I found out they existed, but it probably wasn't my parents. I think we got to the conclusion that they used their hands, but that's all we could figure out. And until I watched through Queer As Folk a few years back, I can't confirm that I really had any strong idea. But I'm sure as hell glad I worked it out.
As for two guys? I found that out by accident, through Torchwood fanfiction, chapter six of a fic that had been mostly nice up to that point, with nothing intense. I cried, because I didn't understand what I was reading, what was happening, and I was maybe 13.
That's another thing. I almost pointed out that they're ignoring erotica and online stories, but then I'd have to admit that I regularly write gay porn, and that would be a little awkward.
More and more, kids are forced to find out online how sex really works, because there's a difference between looking at diagrams in school textbooks to the real thing. And it's screwing up their perception and understanding of how things should be.
So how do we sort that out? Well, maybe adjust the curriculum, teach a little more than just vanilla hetero sex. Teach the kids that everybody watches porn, that there are lots of types, and that sure, the representations aren't always good, but sometimes they are. That there's no difference between who can and can't watch it just because of their gender. Hell, there's a specific part on the female body designed for pleasure so why is it assumed that they aren't allowed to us it?
Better yet, maybe the parents could tell their kids all of this. My generation as adults will probably be a lot better, because we're getting better at discussing it. We're not looking at the stuff online and being all 'in my day it was just glossy top-shelf magazines and sneaky videos that showed a little skin gosh this is horrific'.
Maybe, if kids are aware from a young age that whatever they see online isn't necessarily the real world, if they're taught that there is a lot of variety, we can stop freaking out about the idea that they're all being made into sex offenders or something absurd. Adults freaking out to other adults isn't addressing the people at hand that really need the attention.
And if we could teach girls to stop feeling like they aren't allowed to get off or watch porn because they're girls, that would be great, too. We've got a long way to go, especially in ol' England, but maybe my generation will help change that.
And I found a quote that best explains how I feel about how this is being handled. So, in the beautifully syrup-like words of Cecil Baldwin, in this recent episode of Welcome To Night Vale:
'Listeners, especially our younger listeners, consider this; when we talk about teenagers, we adults often talk with an air of scorn, of expectation or disappointment, and this can make people who are presently teenagers feel very defensive, but what everyone should understand is that none of us are talking to the teenagers that exist now, but to the teenagers that we once were. Al stupid mistakes, and lack of fear, and bodies that hadn't yet begun to slump into a lasting nothing. Any teenager who exists now, is incidental to the potent mix of nostalgia and shame with which we speak to our younger selves. May we al remember what it was like to be so young. May we remember it factually and not remember anything that is false, or incorrect. May we all be human. Beautiful. Stupid. Temporal. Endless.
Past performance is not a predictor of human results.'
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