Are Your Teens Sharing Reality Porn
Early March a video clip was viewed six hundred times on YouTube in London before it was reported. It showed a drugged mother in her mid-twenties being raped.
Paris Hilton was doing it in the US. Edison Chen was doing it in Hong Kong. If you think this is only happening to a couple of wild celebrities, just read on.
Last November, eight Australian boys drugged a 17-year-old girl. They filmed their sexual assault of the girl and distributed it via mobile phone.
Early March a video clip was viewed six hundred times on YouTube in London before it was reported. It showed a drugged mother in her mid-twenties being raped by three teenage boys. Her toddler-children were crying in the background.
Yes, I meant to shock you with those examples. In the US, Europe, Asia and practically every city and town, drunk or / and drugged boys are getting their mates to video them having sex with drunk or / and drugged girls in pub toilets or karaokes.
Our Village Earth, like her many inhabitants, is both good and evil. So is modern technology, the convenience of mobile phone with audio-visual capabilities and the ease one can disseminate information over the internet. The fact that you “can” do something doesn’t mean you “should” or “have to” do it. You might say, “What’s the big deal? Weren’t we all curious and reading soft, or even hard porn in some stages of our lives.” The main difference could well be that while we were having restricted access to choreographed (it’s all fictitious) porn, they are having easy access to reality porn and perverted porn (video recording of sexual offence which actually occurred). Unfortunately, to our teenagers, being able to do something often urges them to try to do it and prove that it can be done. I don’t have the answers to solving this problem. I am here to stimulate discussion and thoughts on the issue. Some of my readers and fellow-hubbers must have found ways to protect their teenagers and help them to think for themselves in this day and age that anything goes and leaves them dazzled. Please feel free to share on the topic. Readers who might be following my articles will know that my eldest son has recently turned sixteen and started to give me the teen-parent’s blues. Whenever I am not in self-pity, I am acutely conscious of the fact that I only have a couple more years left to exert my positive influence on him. I can still remember leaving home to study abroad when I was seventeen. Should my son do something similar, his “apprenticeship” at home would only have one year to go. Can we, the good master magicians, teach him enough tricks to survive the dark forces of the evil world in time (apologies to JK Rowling)? Here are some of my thoughts and some of the things that I’m trying to put in action:
1. Have fun together. For teenagers, having fun is so important. If you can show them life can be fun without alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, TV mini-series on seduction and murder and magazines featuring nothing but hot gossips, half the war is won. I am by no means standing on moral highland, on this count. I do plead guilty of having made the mistake of drinking too much in front of the children before. Fortunately, I had the chance to ask them their views on this. They told me I talked too much and looked stupid after drinking one or two too many. Your teens probably feel the same. If they don’t, you should be even more worried. They are likely to do the same.
2. Choose your descriptives carefully. Avoid using words that portraits the female (or male) body or part as a sex object and sex as a light entertainment activity, the way popular show-business magazines would.
3. Know what they enjoy doing and give them plenty of opportunities to develop these areas and hobbies.
4. Don’t trust them with the computer or internet. Use parental guidance features and filter features by all means, but you still need to pay attention to what they are doing with their internet browsers. Look out for signs that they are into adult contents. Carol Hunt shared the following practical hints in her article dated 16 Mar 2008, in the Independent.ie website: “Log on to the computer that he or she uses. Look up the history file. If it has been deleted, worry. Ask them for their Bebo / Facebook password. If their mates can access their page, why can't you? What's that? They are entitled to their privacy? Not if they are under 18, under your roof and you're paying for their internet access, they're not. Check the video and film images on their mobile phones. Yes, I know your little Jimmy/Chloe/Oisin wouldn't dream of downloading nasty video clips, but that doesn't mean they don't receive them from their less wholesome friends.”
5. Be your teen’s father (or mother). Show your disapproval gently when they share indescent jokes or expressions. It’s been lamented on how fathers become their teens’ mates these days because they lack the moral courage to be their fathers.
6. Be your teen's mate. It was a terrifying experience to be a teenager in my time. It still is these days. Put yourself in their shoes. Understand them. Help them. Compete with their mates for their trust so that you can influence them positively. Even without the bonus of being able to influence them, it feels great to be able to be my teen’s mate. This reassures me that I am not that old, strict, or boring, after all.
You may also be interested in Dr Benson Yeung's other hubs on parenting and teenager:
