Normalised homophobia is not a contemporary development

This is not a recent development.

Q: Are you a benny tied to a tree?

Y -> Hah! You're a benny!

N -> Hah! Benny on the loose!

British secondary school, circa 1980.

I must have missed the golden era of schoolboy tolerance and respect for diversity that Diane harks back to.

She needs to get out more

Diane Abbott needs to be more informed by getting away on a "young" holiday package to sunnier climes where the only theme is "sun, sea and sex". Kids learning about sex and porn on the internet? I don't think so. Fueled by industrial quantities of cheap alcohol (and other substances) they ARE the performers of sex and porn. If she hasn't time for holidays in the sun then I suggest any binge drinking, Friday/Saturday evening clubbing in any UK city centre.

Re: "putting the responsibility on teenage girls"

The alternative is to expect teenage boys to be responsible. Good luck with that.

I'm 35 and I'm barely responsible now.

Perhaps if you didn't constantly mollycoddle your children away from even the slightest mention of sex, they wouldn't be so fascinated with it?

Also, puberty. Let me tell you how this is: porn doesn't make teenagers horny. Teenagers are horny, therefore porn.

old people trying to blame the internet again.

Surely they have seen the daily mails sidebar of shame? all the papers pushing half naked pics of 'celebs' and who they have been shagging are on the front pages.

Terrible pop stars going on about sex in songs marketed towards kids, fucktard nobodies famous and idolised for doing nothing other than having a sex tape.

They dont need to go on porn sites, all this shit if already forced upon them before they are old enough.

Why do they always single out porn as the sole thing poisoning the minds of the young?

http://www.cracked.com/article_18756_6-romantic-movie-gestures-that-can-get-you-prison-time.html

Open challenge to Diane Abbott

And to all other demented knee-jerk reactionist who see porn everywhere they look.

Give me a list of ten porn sites that you personally have accidentally seen in the last week.

Should be easy enough, hell the way they go on the challenge should be "in the last ten minutes"

She's ignoring the real issue...

"That bullies can easily share compromising photos of their victims, and secretly explore X-rated corners of the web, is of particular concern: it puts parents and teachers in the dark on what their children are really up to and leaves the adults unable to teach effective sex education.".

And how does it happen that the bullies came into possession of such compromising pictures? I'd say because the, then, victim made those him- or herself and actually spread those amongst who (s)he thought to be friends.

So where were the parents in all this? In my opinion that is the real issue at hand; a lot of parents don't raise their children anymore but more than often make them fend for themselves. You shouldn't try to block everything which may harm a kid, that's frickin' impossible.

Instead you should actually try and talk to them and warn them about the dangers that lurk around. You should also be very careful how you bring it. Because well; if you start forbidding stuff then you can bet that your kids will try to try it anyway without your knowledge. The term "the forbidding fruit" didn't come out of thin air you know.

But if you instead explain what it is all about and most of all why you're warning them then chances are very high that your kids won't stumble into a mess they can hardly get themselves out of.

Sure; this is a lot more work than simply trying to make sure your kids won't come into contact with $adult_subject. But that's the cost you took upon yourself for becoming a parent. If you got kids you should live up to the responsibilities you chose for yourself.

And yes; there's also nothing wrong with letting a kid make a mistake from time to time. In general we learn from our mistakes and those lessons tend to stick a lot better. But as always; you can hardly apply this in general. Would you allow your kids to push their fingers into an outlet so they'll learn never to do that again?

Pornified blameless predators ..

> in this Reg hack's humble opinion, her ideas seem to be more aimed at changing girls' behaviour than that of boys.

Personally I find the sight of a pubescent teenage girl dressing and talking like some red-light-crack-whore disturbing.

btw: has this "Web is turning us into kid-ults with no 'private identities'" anything to do with "web filth 'PORNIFYING' our kids".

"slut shaming"

Twas ever thus ... technology just offers new ways to bully, I doubt they are any worse.

I worry that even with parents blocking in their own homes that it will become an obligation.

Like now if you let your kids go out to play in the street you are looked at like some crazy fool 'cos they're gonna get attacked by the paedos - and then when something does happen, whose side are the courts on then?

I would prefer to better educate children and leave the blocks off.

It's both a matter of trust but also I don't want things they should see being blocked by overzealous filters.

Of course "they" want kids to grow up used to censorship and monitoring.

COMMENCE THE FROG BOILING

Bloody Fabians.

Just because they never got any at university.

Pornification?

Sever lack of taste and common sense + brains dissolved in C2H5OH + "the sooner she gets knocked up, the sooner we will apply for a bigger council flat" is what "pornifies" her children.

Such is a small minority of parents. However, they also tend to be the ones who complain - "It is an outrage! - I saw a padded bikini for 5 year old girls the other day in the shop. Of course, I had to buy it for the little Nancy right that very minute! Such pressure, such pressure!"

Absolutely, nothing to do with the internet and the rest of the country's values.

unable to teach effective sex education.

Sex - Don't do it. Is not effective.

Just ask Texas

State interference again

Here we go again. The government really loves grandstanding and trying to nanny people under the pretext of "think of the children". Do I detect just the merest hint of cynicism in this post?

I wholeheartedly agree with other posters that it is parents' responsibility to regulate what their children get up to - and that includes what they see on the net and what they do with their mobile phones. It is NOT necessary for the government to think they can intervene in their citizens' everyday life at the drop of a hat. Far too many do-gooders floating around, it would seem.

Blame the bullies, not the victims

If "bullies can easily share compromising photos of their victims", I vote that we blame the bullies, and not the victims.

Cameras

So why is a camera on every phone wrong, but a camera on every street corner indisputably right?

Why doesn't anyone do this "sexting" with me?

Adolescents

Modern societies need at least some of their children educated to a high standard to keep the country ticking over. That means they need to spend a long time in education. On the other hand the post-industrial economy now provides little work for those not so academically inclined - so they are also kept in the education system as a panacea.

However once they pass puberty then their hunter-gatherer genes are telling them it's time to reproduce. That doesn't need any sex education - it is NOT reproducing that requires education and cultural pressures. Our natural lifespan is short and we are genetically programmed to recognise the body signals when puberty is advanced. To complicate matters - for nutritional reasons puberty is getting earlier for both sexes.

As a species we are unusual in that a mutual sex drive reinforces pair bonding even without reproduction. In my day it was usual for secondary schools to be single sex - and sex education was absent. Boys quite openly talked to their peers about their mutual sexual experiences with other boys. The closeness of any particular relationship was tacitly tolerated with or without references to "soppy" emotions. Girls' schools were probably similar. Whilst that generally kept that generation in check - it did seem to produce marriages primarily for the sake of sex by about 21 followed by two quick children. The strains in a marriage then became apparent - and sex education became a belated hit-or-miss add-on to their lives.

Many years ago it seemed that several continental countries had managed to square the circle with sexually aware teenagers more keen on their educational prospects than starting families. They had comprehensive attitudes to sex and relationships that helped adolescents to understand themselves and others. That may still be true today. Unfortunately on several occasions the UK government has chosen instead to follow the USA as "best practice" - in spite of their even higher teenage pregnancy rates.

The human animal is by its nature curious, or fearful, about things that are not familiar - and sex is probably still the overblown issue for many in UK society.