Dirty Laundry

A blog by Heidi Davoren in SMH. About the pornography encountered by children in their daily lives. She includes links to stories from ex-sex workers, and an article by Andrea Dworkin about Glasgow banning lap-dancing. I think this issue is gaining traction.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/lifematters/blogs/dirty-laundry/sexploitation-overload-porn-and-public-places/20100712-1080y.html?comments=24#comments

Sexploitation overload: porn and public places
July 13, 2010 - 8:42AM



When your child spies a trashy porn mag in a servo and asks out loud: “Mummy why is that lady not wearing a shirt?”, should you give her the honest answer? Say, “Well sweetie, men take those magazines home and masturbate over them”?

Hmmmm. No, maybe honesty is not the best policy in this scenario.

Should you lie to her? “Well, darling it must have been a very hot day that day.” No, not really cutting it.

Should you divert her attention to a giant chocolate bar instead? Oh, no wait, they’re right next to the 50 other porn mags sitting in the magazine stand and now she is confronted with a dozen more pictures of half-naked women, a couple of spread-eagled vaginas and some oiled-up backsides.

Better still, if your daughter can read she’ll be privy to headlines like Finally legal – don’t tell my dad and Bangkok over this hot Asian.

So you pay your bill quickly, trying to block her view, and head back to the car hoping an upbeat version of Cold Spaghetti might erase her short-term memory.

On the way back to your vehicle you pass a P-plater’s car with a “Porn Star” bumper sticker and a ute full of boys who yell “show us your tits” to the young female driver.

Where is a mother to turn in these days of sex, sex and longer lasting sex, not to mention sex tapes, sex dolls and sex shops?

Oh that’s right, it’s a free world and people can access porn if they want to so long as it’s not hurting anyone.

So is it hurting anyone?

If viewing pornography leads to an increased likelihood of sexual assault, pedophilia and marital breakdown then the answer is simple: yes.

But that’s just what the research tells us - maybe we should hear from some people in the sex industry themselves.

There’s this from some ex-prostitutes, or this from ex-lap dancers, or this from ex-porn stars, and let’s not forget the female staff who work in our servos, some of whom are under 18, who are forced to handle porn that is legally only suitable for people over 18.

Despite this contradictory legislation, or thousands of first-hand accounts from beaten, abused, fragile women, it seems nothing is going to stop the juggernaut that is the porn industry - there’s far too much money to be made.

So in this free world that I and my children also live in, if I don't want to access porn, how can I avoid it?

It’s impossible to close my eyes and blindfold my child while I pay my fuel bill or pick up a newspaper from the newsagent.

I want to raise my two daughters to believe they are worth more than what is between their legs, but as children they will be confronted with this and this, as teenagers this and as women of the world the bombardment continues.

This month the UN created the “UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women”, in a bid to “promote gender equality” according to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Let’s help the Secretary-General out and get this trash out of our servos and off the shelves of our convenience stores and into adult shops where it belongs away from the eyes of our children.

You can join the growing movement to protect our kids from porn and other psychologically-damaging images here.

Now bring on the femi-Nazi labels and the pot shots at my sex life and call me a prude as much as you like. Given 100% of men view pornography by the time they’re 15, I’m not expecting the male population to applaud such a move.

Any men care to prove me wrong?