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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (49399)	6/7/2002 1:40:54 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I'm not convinced one way or the other. But I am reminded that for many people in the world, even today, and definitely centuries ago, a one room house was all they had. The parents had whatever sexual relations they had in front of the children, because there was nowhere else to go. Privacy for bodily functions, for bathing, etc. was rare. And in agricultural societies, watching the mating of animals was nothing unusual. For centuries, in many societies children would marry as young as 11 or 12. In Greek culture, young boys openly had affairs with older men. So through the centuries, knowledge of the nature of the human body, of both sexes, and of sexual relations was normal for young children. But we have made it taboo, for whatever reason. Of course I wasn't involved, but I had friends who were sharing their fathers' Playboy issue pretty widely. Didn't seem to hurt them. In general, knowlege which is not forbidden or circumscribed is seldom harmful, IMO. It is the making of it off limits, the secrecy, the calling it dirty, that makes it harmful. IMO.

To: one_less who wrote (49399)	6/7/2002 2:15:21 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

You do realize that viewing sexually explicit material and engaging with sexual predators are entirely different issues, don't you? As far as porn goes, I'm not sure it's all that harmful. We looked at National Geographic Magazines when I was a kid. That was pretty tame compared to what's available now, but I'm not sure it's really more dangerous. AS for predators, we teach our kids in 3D not to talk to strangers and, my all means, never go off with a stranger. I don't know how much different that is from the internet. It's true that on the internet people are anonymous and it's harder to spot a dirty old man. You can't see the beady eyes or smell the booze. But as long as the kid doesn't arrange to meet the internet predator in 3D, there are limits to how much damage can be done. I do not want to minimize that damage, only to say that at least it won't be fatal and there are things that parents can do to avoid or mitigate the danger.