Explain to me why they are harmed by not seeing people having sex?
Also, explain to me what benefit do they gain by seeing people having sex?
Also, explain to me what benefit do they gain by seeing people having sex?
The idea that a teen or pre-teen who’s interested isn’t finding porn through someone else’s computer is very likely mistaken.
By forbidding access, you are losing your child’s trust, which likely forecloses on the opportunity to honestly and openly discuss healthy body image, respect, mutual pleasure, and the fact that porn star bodies are (often) to normal human bodies as toy soldiers are to human soldiers.
Finally, forbidding access to something humans have an innate drive for is liable to make it into forbidden fruit, over-emphasizing, rather than de-emphasizing, the target.
How does watching others have sex enable more discussion on healthy body image? Why can't this conversation be started with images seen anywhere that have been altered?
Let's discuss the negatives. Porn is anti-woman. It turns the woman into an object. You mention 'damaging relationships' by not watching sex. It is exactly the opposite. Porn damages current and future relationships by turning the woman (or man in some cases) into an object for personal pleasure, similar to a toy. A relationship founded on using each other for personal reasons, and not mutual respect and love, will only fail, and fail painfully. Not to mention any 'baggage' such as STDs, pregnancies, etc.
These are the mistakes are what we aim to prevent our children from making until they reach a point of maturity to where they can reliably prevent them on their own.
Rather, you seem to be suggesting you have to prevent your child from watching porn. I am suggesting forbidding porn, in private, is very likely to be counterproductive, because it is unlikely to succeed, it makes a reasonable human desire into something illicit, and is likely to instead result in a loss of trust + cause porn to be seen as forbidden (and thus attractive) fruit.
Separately, I am suggesting that when a child is interested in porn, that’s an opportunity for a conversation about the problematic aspects of porn, respect, and fantasy vs. reality. Loss of trust makes that conversation less likely to be accessible, or at least less likely for that conversation to involve your child actually listening to you.
This is false. Mainstream porn may have failed to appeal to mainstream women, but many women watch porn and many categories of porn are not "anti-women".
> So you're suggesting the solution is to encourage watching porn or others while they have sex?
That is a dishonest interpretation of what OP said.
> It turns the woman into an object.
Does it? I find a lot of porn to be empowering as a woman. I find a lot of time they commoditize the man as just a thing the penis carries with it into the scene where the woman is the star of the show, showing us that we too can be involved in the act, we're allowed to express ourselves. We don't have to just lay there and let the male do his business until he's done. We can get nasty and just have fun. We can even be in charge. You usually can't search mainstream porn by male actor, he's just a prop.
By making sex a super strict taboo while sex is a biological imperitive, you exaggerate dangerous behavior. Having your son not treat women like objects comes from a strong moral foundation in upbringing, not sheltering him from porn and assuming he'll figure out women are people on his own. My dad raised me to be aware of the ways men are likely to trick me, but he also made me aware that the majority of people in general have extremely flawed upbringings. He raised me to be a critical thinker, as such I realize that male sexist behavior is both an individual act and a part of a larger systemic problem. I don't need cheap scapegoats like porn to understand poor behavior in males, I don't need to blame all males when I encounter a really bad one.
Education has been and will always be more effective than zero tolerance policies.
You seem to assume that people do not have sex for fun?