The Effects of Pornography and the Need of a Porn Blocking App

Have you ever realized what are the effects of pornography on your children? Why do you need to install a porn blocking app on your child’s device? We will find out everything in this post. Let’s take a look at a case study presented below.

Drew was just an 8-year-old kid when he got his way into pornography. As his case study depicts in an article on NYTimes, he explored online porn sites on his phone and while he watched it, he thought of many ways he was going to have sex with his future girlfriend. Moreover, he got this idea that women were objects that can be used in any way possible. At that time, he could only imagine having sex, since he was too young for that. 

As he entered the adolescent period, puberty kicked in, and he got more excited. Now he had a girlfriend, and he got a chance to have sex. He got hard on her, called her “whore”, pushed her against the bed, and tried doing the things he had always seen in porn. She slapped him and left. It was then, he realized that girls don’t like to be treated that way. Drew had only his fantasies with him, and they were developed from pornography.

Drew is almost every teenage around us. Teens see, learn, apply, and then get disappointed because they don’t get what they expected. Pornography has made this youth fantasize about the things that are not real. It screws with their minds, and they end up having some really bad experiences. 

As Jess Joho, explained in his post about the worst effects of pornography through an example of a drama “Euphoria” being aired on HBO where a high school boy, having big fantasies from pornography misbehaved with his girlfriend on bed. Originally, he was a respectful and kind boy, but he had this idea that girls like this. This show indicates the height of miscommunication due to the persuasion of porn in youth’s minds.

Where on one hand, youth is getting access to these sites, on the other, parents are unaware of this. They seem to ignore the fact that their kids can watch porn. Emily F. Rothman. a professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University, said, “parents tend to underestimate how much their teenagers know and have seen”. 

How Is Your Child Exposed to Online Pornography?

These days, if a kid has internet access, he can be exposed to porn very easily. As a psychologist, Dr. Wes. Crenshaw was asked by yourteen about the evolution in this era regarding the exposure to pornography. He explained that explicit online content (EOC) is different from the past 20-30 years in three critical ways which have been explained as follows:

1. An average teen can get access to pornography through easy googling. 
2. The content is available for free. 
3. Online pornography now is extremely graphic and fantasy-based. 

A study performed in 2007 showed that 42 percent of kids aged 10-17 years who have internet access are exposed to online pornography. Many of them were exposed to it unintentionally. While the others heard from somewhere and searched for it. Despite this situation, parents and organizations are doing so little to make a difference. 

Mee Nathan, who is just like any other decent teenage boy. He is one of the many teenage boys who get addicted to online pornography. Nathan got addicted to pornography at just the age of 12 through a simple search. That was the darkest period of his life because pornography had become his way of coping with every situation. He was tired of it because it isolated him from everything. After spending a year in this agony, Nathan finally got help and now he is helping others through working.

Moreover, the confidence of parents on their children and their denial makes them let their child be unchecked. When they give their children free internet access with no control or checkup, children tend to do whatever they like. Sometimes, they hear from other friends and search at home. Sometimes, an ad pops up and makes them curious. It can be said that pornography is something that will reach your teen making every way possible. 

Some Major Side-Effects of Exposure to Pornography on Teens

As Dr. Crenshaw said, internet pornography is in no way good for teens. Its dangers include:

• Inaccurate information: This content is more or less like a cartoon for human sexuality. Moreover, they show no context, no before and after, no storyline, and worst of all, no relationship between two parties. It markets those extremities that now teens are trying to imitate thus defining teen dating culture.
• Violence: There is too much violence shown in online pornography. The teens are in no neurological or psychological position to separate the sexual role-play from something that might end up hurting someone. 
• Degradation: Pornography shows the wrong perception of men and women. As this is a learning age for teens, and this fantasy pleases them, they tend to adopt these perceptions and use them on their partners. 
• Wrong body image: As teen girls are already in the race of being the best, porn makes them think less of themselves. They feel that boys like those bodies and that they should achieve that body image too. 

With these and many other negative effects being imposed on teens due to online pornography, parents need to take some necessary steps. 

What You Can Do?

As parents, you need to start having a conversation with your kids about it, thus not pretending that the problem doesn’t exist. An indie adult filmmaker Erika Lust launche the porn conversation tool that gives parents ideas about how to talk to their kids about porn. She says there is a need to recognize that porn isn’t just a little niche genre anymore. It is becoming an important part of the mainstream, everyday world, and it needs to be addressed. 

There’s Never an Ideal Time

As a parent, you need to have a conversation about porn with your kids. If you won’t talk, no one will. When parents don’t talk, they leave them in this confusing scenario where they get information on their own. Parents often hesitate to address such sensitive issues to their kids, and some have this idea that talking to them about it will make them look for it. 

But the thing is, if you don’t talk to your kid about drugs, you think he will never take them? Do you think not talking to them about such issues will make them not look for them? Well, you are wrong. 

Either you talk or not, they will end up looking for the stuff they heard about somewhere or that popped up into their screen all of a sudden. Parents must have an honest conversation about porn and its fantasies. There is no perfect time to do this. Here are some of the things you can talk about with your children regarding pornography:

• Why does online pornography exist? You can tell them that people film sex to earn money. Some do it as per their choice, but some just can’t find another job. 
• Is porn sex real? You ought to tell them that it is not. Tell them that they are being paid to behave like they are having the best time. 
• The risks of pornography: Educate them that pornography develops an unhealthy perception about women and sex. Whereas a fulfilled and happy relationship is about emotional closeness and bonding as well as sex. 

Do You Need to Protect or Educate?

Well, as mentioned in an article on APA, most of the parents confuse educating their child with forced protection. They seem to scold their children and create a lot of boundaries that make the kid feel alone. They often don’t even talk about the main issue, instead, pose a bad behavior. Overall, it makes the situation worse for the kids. 

You need to protect them by educating them about the facts about online pornography. Think of it as educating about the dangers out outer world. Education about digital media is also necessary, and for that parents need to have patience and calmness. 

Is Filtering Their Devices and Computers Okay? 

Internet pornography should be filtered in any way possible to protect your teen from this. Along with educating them, protecting them through filter software mean you give them the message that you have the best intentions for them. 

Porn blocking software like Secureteen can help you deal with this critical situation. With the help of this software, you can monitor your child’s online activities. You can fix their digital device using a timeframe. Most importantly, you can easily block porn sites.

However, the kid might access pornography at his friend’s house or public networks. But these filters will do two important things:

1. The time they spend on watching porn will be reduced, so will their dosage.

2. It will send them a strong message that you have the authority and you know the best for them. Also, you must discuss with them in detail why you needed to do that.