Re: Half of teens here (Singapore) exposed to pornography - Survey

The poll (or survey) was conducted by Touch Cyber Wellness. The survey suggested half of teens are exposed to pornography early. Experts worried about "pornography content" (in my opinion, it is context-dependent) affecting young people's attitudes and behaviour towards love and sex, and may lead to sexual crimes.

Teens access pornography through smartphones (I think we should thank mummy and daddy for the "oversight"). The visits are either deliberately or accidentally (problem with no open discussion about sex education and pornography). Also, not to mention that pornography spread through peers the fastest and most effectively.

Bad things associated with pornography are disrespect towards women (are mums included?), altered behaviour and function in society, and worst, sexual crime.

In today's Strait Times, the above article was placed on similar page as this article about "Youth got girl to have sex by using threats and force". Many thanks to the parents in the mentioned case. Sometimes, I think that some people must be treated like stray animals and be neutered. They are not meant to be parents and shouldn't be given the opportunity to reproduce and raise "beasts and monsters" in society. I remembered the failed Eugenic movement in Singapore (which was thought to be distasteful back then, but sometimes when I read such article about bad parents, I wished we could at least neuter these people). I can't believe that girls (or boys) at 13 years old can be allowed to go out at night unsupervised/unchaperoned. The 20 years old youth got his victims (three of them were reported, and there could be unreported cases) aged 13 to 14 years old from unchaperoned outings. The latest one was when he met the girl during a night out hanging with friends and subsequently tricked her to his empty house (how convenient that the parents were not at home), and tried to buy sex from her (failed), then verbally and physically threatened her (succeeded) in order to rape the victim (how I appreciated statutory rape and how I would break the bones of people who opposes the implementation of statutory rape act).

Okay, back to the topic. I wanted to write this article to voice my thoughts and opinion.

First, knowing about sex early (pre-puberty) is not unhealthy (we have seen animals do it in TV). Knowing about the function of our sex organs (that is to say, in addition to pee pee for boys (a tube sharing two functions), whereas girls have a more specialized pee pee organ) early is not to be ashamed of. Knowing how babies are born (through the same place where sex is performed) is very crucial to sex education (and should be directed to boys especially in order for them to know that they were conceived and born from the same place from their moms. So please show some respect). What is even better would be to show them how babies are delivered (it will be bloody fun; some useless fathers should be made to see this too). Next, pornography is not bad, and good pornography (without violence, perversion, or "unnatural") can help in and complement sex education. These pornography materials should be categorized into age-suitable levels. While we are at it, to have sex education about sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) with visual cues will be of great help (similar to cigarettes and cancer; hence casual unprotected sex goes hand in hand with pregnancy/STDs). Children should be given the unrestricted information about how viruses are transmitted (not through toilet seats), and how scarily virulent viral infection can be (titer count for some infection can be low, meaning that few viruses are sufficient to cause infection and how the virus will stay dormant and come back to haunt you in the future, repeatedly in your lifetime). Children should be given information about the real effective rate of protection, such as condom (it's not 100%, and very much dependent on batch effect and defects).

The bad thing about pornography is that we can be addicted to it. Addiction to pornography is bad (similar to other types of addictions that alters behaviour). The crave for new pornography materials will promote infidelity and affect wrong behaviour towards love and sex (but we need to realize that infidelity and casual sex have been there in society all along and even before television was invented, so for those experts opinion I have this to say, "YOU ARE WRONG TO BLAME IT ON PORNOGRAPHY. IT'S HUMAN NATURE."). Addiction to pornography (or sex) will hamper proper functioning in society is true. We will be distracted from study or other social interactions, healthy relationship, and closeness with family members (it could be the other way around, i.e. no family closeness predispose "pornography abuse"). Disrespect for women due to pornography? I beg your pardon, PORNOGRAPHY did not invent sex slavery or other means to subjugate and debase women. Since ancient times, women have been subjected to "ill-treatment" by certain society. During Japanese occupation, sex slavery sure wasn't caused by pornography, but rather by Japanese men in uniform (I wonder what Japanese women were thinking then when their Japanese males were doing "atrocities" to other women, but I can't blame these women especially considering how chauvinistic/patriarchy Japan was then). How about the kidnapping of school girls by Boko Haram in which I can only imagine and cringe knowing their fate. How about the unabated human trafficking problem in certain country? That's human nature at work and not pornography. Similarly, violent movies don't promote violence, but rather it reflects the violent nature of humans on the screen for entertainment purposes.

It is difficult to stem pornography in the world today. Rather than ban pornography, more work should be done to promote healthy sex education and pornography (age-suitable levels/restrictions). FYI, children will be exposed to pornography nowadays, even with or without sex education. If romantic novels with description about sex is pornography, it will be inappropriate and ridiculous to eliminate these books from the libraries. In addition, there are other ready resources about sex, e.g. friends talked about sex, friends who visited prostitutes, friends showing explicit pictures about sex, friends sharing nude/sexual pictures/videos of their girlfriends/boyfriends, friends taught friends to masturbate, friends the sex education "specialists", and then finally, friends the adult movies supplier. What is worst would be the friend having sex with the friend type (DIY the wrong way) or sexual predators targeting children.

Pornography deemed distasteful are those that debase women. Other types are the "unnatural" sex (but not so as according to the Kamasutra, which is more than thousand years old). What is natural and unnatural then, especially considering that some sexual act or behaviour predate even written history?

The only obstacle we have right now concerning sex education is HOW ARE WE GOING TO INCLUDE HOMOSEXUALITY? The debate of whether it's behavioural problem or genetic problem is irrelevant. Are we going to allow homosexuals to live in the shadows (and in the deepest and darkest cracks in society) suffering from similar problems of straight couples, especially on matter pertaining to unprotected sex, sexually transmitted diseases, and infidelity? When marriage concept is not applicable to a certain group of society, it will be impossible to have healthy and happy family unit. Depriving homosexual couples of healthy family unit do promote unhealthy "promiscuity" problem.

Other topics that sex education can cover are pedophilia (psychological disorder) and its threat to children, prostitution (instead of debasing/insulting these women, a healthy perspective of this topic will help promote respect/empathy), human trafficking/sex slavery (historical perspective and how such threat is still in existence in the world today), pregnancy/abortion, masturbation (the act should not be perceived as shameful and unhealthy; to masturbate is many fold healthier/socially-acceptable than casual/unprotected sex), rape/sexual assault/molestation (prevention to minimize risk, and where to go for help, responsibility in reporting to prevent recurrence, and to prevent the same people from harming/exploiting other victims; note that date-rape and rape by someone known to the victims make significant number of cases), drug/date-rape drug (precaution and tell tale sign, how to prevent and where to report), help counselors (where to get help early), and finally statutory rape/rape law and punitive/deterrence measures (jail and whip).

Just a thought.