Naked Pixels
When I was growing up, there was Playboy magazine. Back then in the Sixties they photographed their models in such a way as to leave something to the imagination. Today, magazines take a near-gynecological view. Subtlety has completely disappeared. And the same salacious stuff is profusely available for free on the Internet.
So what are you parents gonna do about it? Tell your children that they can’t go on-line until they’re eighteen or twenty-one or married? That’s not the answer, folks. You have a Hobson’s Choice, and you must choose reality over your feelings, however justified they may be. You can’t let your uptightness get in the way of your children discovering the value, power, and scope of the Internet as an information tool.
And since you can’t keep your children from running into naked people cavorting on the Internet, you can either ignore the subject, or speak to them about it. I’m saying this as an adult who has never had children. Plus, my education about sex was self-taught and replete with miscues, so consider the source.
That said, here’s what I would tell my children if I had any. First, I would give them the clinical facts. Tell ‘em what goes where, how it works, and what its purpose is. This, before I gave them a social context for it.
Second, I would explain that human beings have strange urges and weird thoughts. It’s natural. You are not an evil person simply because you have a dream about having sex with your mother. What my children would learn is that we have reached a point in civilization where we are responsible for what we do with our instincts, feelings, and thoughts.
And I would tell my children that men like to look at pictures of naked women. They like to think about having sex with a great many of them, usually just one or two at a time, as they simply come into their field of vision. It’s part of men’s primal make-up and has something to do with keeping the species going. Enlightened men blend that innate predilection with the realization that women are more than sex objects.
I don’t know if my explanation would be heard, but it would at least provide a foundation for further information. And it would lead them to understand about seeing a person as a complete human being.
Parents, you won’t stop your children from seeing naked people on the Internet, but you can provide them with an understanding of what is appropriate. Be careful, though, and warn them that not everyone is as enlightened as you and they. That if they’re at the library looking at an image of Michelangelo’s David, a local volunteer might scream "Pervert" and pull the plug on their computer.
And that’s SetonnoteS...I’m Tony Seton.
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