Re: On Radio 5 Today ....
>some young men now prefer anal sex as they think pubic hair is disgusting<
Non-sequitur - what about the young men who prefer anal sex with hairy bums?
Labour's health spokeswoman Diane Abbott will today warn that Britain's culture is "increasingly pornified" and hyper-sexualises adolescents. The shadow minister reckons today's technology - specifically, the proliferation of internet connectivity and cameras in every phone - damages British teens and society. That bullies …
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.
What you need to know about Diane Abbot's thoughts about sexuality is that when she was on Desert Island Disks, she chose a track by Biju Banton, not the track by Biju Banton where he calls for the execution of gays, buy another track by him. She dismissed his well known homophobic stance in his music as (IIRC) "Some silly stuff about gays".
To be clear: That's calling for the execution of a minority equating with "silly".
If she can't see that this view of homophobic remarks from someone who is an MP is as much a problem as use of porn with, in particular young men, but also young women, she has very serious credibility issues.
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.
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.
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"
Abbott's speech might have ben prompted by a Channel 4 News investigation late last year which showed that one of the biggest problems is children using SMS and MMS to send inappropriate content or to bully one another. Some of the interviewees had pretty disturbing stories of being bombarded by unpleasant messages or photos of other kids genitals but were too scared or embarrassed to take the matter up with their phone company, parents or teachers.
The other point in the article about sexualised clothing is nothing to do with blaming women for dressing inappropriately when they're attacked; its to do with selling one body image and one way of behaving - one that is nothing to do with childhood. You have to wonder what goes through the minds of clothing designers and retailers who produce lines that might as well be called Little Miss Streetwalker. I'm pretty sure I'd want them nowhere near my children.
"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?
> 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".
> Personally I find the sight of a pubescent teenage girl dressing and talking like some red-light-crack-whore disturbing.
Quite so, my dear fellow.
Additionally, I fear that Little Miss Fabian (the Society that Orwell warned us about in 1948) may have gotten cultural influences from the Amurricas and the Japanese Isles mixed up somewhat. But what do I know ... er, nothing, nothing at all really.
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.
>it is uncomfortably close to the argument that the way women dress invites aggressive sexual attention.
Goodness Mr/Ms Parnell, what a fine exponent of the logical long-jump you are. How many do you get when you add 2+2?
I would defend very little of Ms Abbott's thesis, and definitely not the bits of it which require some kind of magical mechanism for filtering "adult content" (whatever that may be) - but there's no need to be putting words in her mouth that are even more rabid than the ones she puts there herself.
"...over whether adult content is allowed into the home or portable device or not."
Oh dear, here we go again. To protect the cheeeeldreen we have to *ALL* be treated as children!
We cannot be trusted to behave like adults, parents cannot be trusted to teach their children to think twice about what they post about themselves on the web or let others see, no, we're back to the Labour Party Nanny State nonsense of *they* are the only ones who know what is right for us...
Well I have to agree with her there, but focussing on the internet ignores the massive effect media (newspapers, magazines, TV) have had in this area.
There is a great deal of hypocrisy spoken when the media talk about this topic - condemning sexualisation on one hand and profiting by it on the other.
Eg this morning Ms Abbott was putting her views on the Lorraine program and Lorraine was suitably in agreement with her. Then later on the same program Lorraine presented a piece on a competition to see who could write the best slutty soft-porn for women.
Blind, hypocritical or what?
It appears that the difference you don't seem quite able grasp, possbly due to being blinded by a red cloud in front of your eyes, is that Diane Abbott is talking about the pornification of adolescents whereas the Lorraine show is aimed at women.
Now if you really want hypocrisy you'll have to look to the DM who take great pride in reporting on child talent contests and to push their point provide pictures which if you or I held whould be grounds for prosecution.
No red mist, just an eye/ear for inconsistency. It doesn't matter that the Lorraine show is aimed at adult women. You can't neatly partition culture into adult vs adolescent boxes when the media indiscriminately broadcast to all - that's part of the problem.
Whether the Lorraine show is aimed at adults or not, it advocated soft-porn at the same time as decrying the sexualisation of adolescents : I didn't notice any 'adults-only' warning before the porn part.
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.
See "Why the Daily Mail is Evil", here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9dqNTTdYKY
(Stick with it, there is a -reason- for the intro)
Great scott, they can just walk through shops and see this stuff!
Won't someone think of the children?!?
*flail* *kneejerk* etc, etc...
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.
and in the latter case - cameras operated "for the benefit of the public", but without the public being told exactly who controls them, a complete list (personally identifiable info included) of who has access to "footage", which elected person is personally responsible and will be prosecuted/smacked if they are used for anything illegal or any footage shared inappropriately / ends up on YouTube / left on a train etc.
on the other hand, take a pic of an armed PC Plod with your camera phone, and wait for the hassle to start ...
Until there are proper rules for controlling the powers / capabilities the govt /council / officials already have, any politician who suggests new such powers/capabilities/restrictions needs to be taken outside and given a good kicking, then thrown out of office and banned from public life forever (after they've paid back every single penny they've ever received from public purse)
"Why doesn't anyone do this "sexting" with me?"
You are possibly in the wrong generation? Since the advent of popular photography - teens and twenty-somethings have created photographs of themselves scantily clad or naked. Such pictures usually required home processing - or a tolerant shop. They were usually intended only for their current partners or close friends. In the 1960/70s many girls became more aware of their own natural qualities and aspired to a more public acclaim - even in newspapers and magazines. Gradually the exuberant "innocence" became overshadowed by commercialisation and repressive campaigners - and most people retreated from the more public fora.
Without digital reproduction such pictures were eventually destroyed or forgotten - at best they were momentoes of a happy time. However any contemporary circulation by an errant partner still reached a significant number of the subject's peers.
Nowadays the means of production are commonplace in digital cameras, webcams, and mobile phones. Production and distribution needs no technical knowledge - and can be instant and global.
People haven't changed in over a hundred years - they still want other people to admire their bodies - or even be shocked - but preferably at a safe distance.
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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.
I will say that once my girlfriend moved out of her parents home it was her that wanted to go and buy porn films (which she enjoys) because the trashy novels were ok but its not the same as seeing it. Strict to the stereotype she comes from a catholic background and is adventurous by her own suggestions. Its always the quiet ones!