I am not bragging but there is one skill in life I had, but like piano playing, I can no longer really remember how to do it. My fingers are instinctive on this keyboard but no longer on piano keys. Piano playing is not like riding a bicycle.
My skill was sex. I was rather good at it. I don't think I ever didn't enjoy sex and I hungered for it. Sometimes I wanted sex again with the same person but generally it was the thrill of new. Repeats, only if I had connected with them. With much relief, the hunger started to ease off in my early fifties to almost non existent now. Almost. I was so full of myself that I would think, I would like to have sex with me. Now it is who would want sex with me. Not me. Not anyone. I am nothing if not a realist.
I still find it such an interesting thing that humans do and how it can drive people.
This post was inspired by an article in a newspaper I just skimmed through headlined, When Should Parents Talk to their Children About Internet Pornography. An age wasn't specified but I would guess as soon as they begin to use the internet. It was phrased like to children 'If you see naked adults doing things with each other that you don't understand or makes you feel uncomfortable, tell your parents or a responsible adult'.
At the age of twelve, maybe younger, that would have been a red rag to a bull for me. What is this uncomfortable stuff? What are naked adults doing? I want to know. I want to see. I have been warned about this, so it must be interesting.
Being a child rearing expert without having had children, here is what I would tell my children at an age I can't judge.
My dearest child, you do know that what you have seen is a movie made for adults? It is scripted, there is a director, a producer and camera operators. The performers are professional paid actors in the movie and their acting can be very convincing, just like with most movies. Dearest child, you know that movies are not real life and pornography is no different. Interesting and enjoyable perhaps to view, but it is not real life and not how things actually work in real life. It's just like movies/films, tv, music clips, influencers and video gaming.
I really think the worst thing about the very young is seeing well produced pornography is that it is real life, and we of a certain age know sex is a very much more complicated beast.
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There is a heterogeneity in population. So, there won't be one rule to fit it all. To government speak, there is yet evidence there is a need to do so or not.
ReplyDeleteRoentare, I do think there is a need for the conversation with all children, perhaps part of a bigger picture. The are growing up in times unimaginable to me when I was young.
DeleteI am glad the internet wasn't a thing when my kids were young. Whew.
ReplyDeleteSandra, I am kind of glad it wasn't around when I was young.
DeleteMy mother said something very similar to me when I was an adolescent. She caught me with a dirty magazine that my down-the-street friend Billy gave me, and she said, "I just want you to remember that real women aren't like this. This is not reality."
ReplyDeleteOf course neither of us knew at the time that women wouldn't ultimately interest me in that way -- but the overall message about pornography is the same, whether gay or straight.
Steve, what I wise mother your was at the appropriate time. I thing straight pron is worse the gay pron in many ways. There is less debasement in gay pron.
DeleteIt comes back to the advice our parents gave us…..don’t believe everything you read, see or are told. Nothing is the way it appears
ReplyDeleteCathy, they were very wise words from your parents.
DeleteNot just sex. Kids these days are given unrealistic expectations about everything.
ReplyDeleteQuite true Caro, yet strangely they seem to survive and become adults.I am not sure about the current very young generation.
DeleteI like your idea of what you would say. I might add that this is the sort of thing people do privately and the ones you see here are paid actors.
ReplyDeleteRiver, that does simplify it for children. I like it.
DeleteWhile I understand your discussion and agree with it in large part, I would say that sex on the internet has another component, and one that is even more frightening. On line predators are a thing, and they are looking for children to exploit. They frequent sites that younger kids use, and they are quite dangerous. I am not afraid of WIlliam seeing a naked human body, but I do worry a great deal about the fucker that followed him around Roblox trying to engage.
ReplyDeleteDebby, you have a good point and to that I don't have easy answers beyond the child needs to communicate with adults.
DeleteWe are all good at things we enjoy;-)
ReplyDeleteI do fear for our young, though, but sensible parents who have themselves been sensibly parented, will cope.
Jabblog, I do keep in mind that not all present day parents are digital natives and some would not fully understand the www.
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