So, in order to get around this DNS-based filtering, all a teenager has to do is change the DNS servers on their computer or device to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4? This seems like a move designed to placate rather than provide any real protection - like all such schemes.
There's no alternative to supervising young people's internet use. Teenagers will look up porn - it's best to be adult and intelligent about it, and protect them from its worst effects, rather than trying to filter the content itself.
Ironically, one cause of sudden unexpected porn in the UK is apparently content filters on mobile internet access. Like all content filters, they have both false positives and questionable classification decisions, except that some of the mobile providers apparently decided it was a good idea to use the blocked-content page to advertise the hardcore porn you can buy from them.
By making it require a work around to view even mild pornography, the work arounds will inevitably lead to areas of the most hardcore right in your face.
Say some 12 year old wants to look at naked ladies, what's he gonna be doing? Probably google image search boobs or some soft core pinup girls name, relatively harmless and have his curiosity satisfied. However if the lower levels of that are blocked the work around with inevitably lead to a much bigger source with the violent pornography just a click away from the more regular.
Same thing happened with P2P, we used to have services where it was easy to download a single mid quality song, companies put an end to those so we found a much more efficient way to shift much larger amounts of data. Now it's hard to steal a single song but really easy to steal a full 320 album rip.
Well, if an impressionable youngster's only experiences about sex are from porn, it increases expectations. Take anal sex for example. I've heard that it's increasingly expected of teen girls (by teen boys) due to its prevalence in porn. Not only that, but if you only learned about anal sex from porn, you wouldn't realize that you that 'ass-to-mouth' is probably a bad idea, wearing a condom is probably not optional, lubricant is probably not optional, etc.
This isn't to say that porn is inherently a bad thing[1]. The issue is that if the teens aren't getting good information elsewhere (other than the base 'here are some anatomical diagrams of sex organs' teaching), porn becomes a learning tool, which isn't necessarily a good thing.
[1] I realize that the production sucks in a lot of people that suffered from abuse, and it's debatable whether or not large 'porn houses' are just exploiting these people.
If your concern is children's expectations being set to unrealistic levels, Disney should be the first to be go. Magazines and advertising should be banned from using Photoshop, too.
Being exposed to a variety of options and ways to have sex isn't bad. Anal sex can be quite fun, and if someone doesn't like it they're quickly going to say no. Rimming has its risks (like everything else) and isn't for everyone (like everything else), but it's pretty common and not horrendously unsafe. If you try to have sex without lube, you're quickly going to discover the problem. I can't speak for straight porn, but most porn that involves penetrative sex features condoms; if you're watching porn that was made in the last 10-20 years, it's really difficult not to see condoms in action.
Just about everybody reading this grew up with porn as teens (and possibly before) and we're not broken or messed up. Before the internet, teens got their hands on magazines and those generations aren't damaged by it either. If anything, I'd suspect teens today are better educated (and having better sex) than any generation before. Porn, together with improved sex education, has had a large role to play.
Saying that porn is bad because it teaches people different ways to have sex doesn't make sense. However, I will concede that the key here is sex education. If someone isn't receiving sex education they're not going to know about safe sex anyway, and restricting access to porn isn't going to make the situation any better. Porn should be supplemented by a decent sex education, and thankfully an adequate sex education is provided in the vast majority of the developed world.
If anything I'm grateful for all the porn I watched as a teen, and I think my sex life today is significantly better because of it. It taught me more than my prudish religious parents would (or could) and combined with my school's sex education classes, I was good to go have fun, figure out what was right for me, and do it without getting diseases along the way!
| Saying that porn is bad because it teaches
| people different ways to have sex doesn't
| make sense.
This is not my intention. I actually wish that people would get over a lot of their sexual hang-ups. My thoughts:
1. I am against censorship.
2. I don't think that porn by itself dangerous to humans in some sort of Puritanical way of thinking.
3. My thinking is that a lot of porn out there is all about the male dominating the female, and basically just using her. Allowing young children to have access to this shapes their views on sex. The older the child, the more prepared they are to deal with this. Taken with a healthy dose of discussion from parents that aren't afraid to talk sex with their kids this might not be so bad, but a lot of parents are averse to these discussions, so the child is only left with porn as a teacher.
4. Porn is all about fantasy, so if you are using porn as a guide (e.g.) for anal sex, you're not seeing the prep that is needed for the scene. There are videos out there of unprotected anal sex, unprotected ass-to-mouth, anal sex where the guy just jams it right in, etc. None of these show the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making those scenes safe (anal douching, warming up rather than instance penetration, etc), or are just showing people being unsafe without any context for learning. It's not meant to be a how-to guide.
5. I keep focusing on anal sex because it's so prevalent in porn now vs. the past. There are many other things that could also be bad[1] (e.g. skat), but it's less likely that kids/teens will come across them.
6. Many women are against anal sex because of bad experiences. If teenagers start engaging in more anal sex, it could just as easily have the opposite affect on 'uptake' of anal sex: inexperienced, uninformed teenage boys attempting painful anal sex with teenage girls that then grow up with a bad view of anal sex. Or teenage girls getting painful UTIs due to unsafe practice of anal sex, and writing it off.
7. I'm also envisioning teenage boys demanding anal sex, and teenage girls going along with it even though it is uncomfortable and/or painful as some sort of bid for acceptance or because they like the boy (possibly not even telling the boys that they don't enjoy it because this might be viewed as a bad thing; i.e. peer pressure to grin and bear it). I'll admit that this is not really based on any evidence and I (hopefully) wouldn't legislate based on just my unfounded opinions.
8. I'm often found to be a contrarian. If someone puts forth an idea, sometimes all I can see are edge cases.
9. Most of the porn that I found as a child was relatively tame, and there wasn't such free access to video porn as there is today with the 'tubes.
10. I realize that a lot of this isn't at some 'sky is falling' level like many anti-porn conservatives would have people believe.
| Before the internet, teens got their hands on
| magazines and those generations aren't damaged
| by it either
The variety of porn in the pre-Internet age was nothing compared to the variety of porn now. Sure, not everything is 'new,' but the availability has increased tremendously for non-vanilla sex acts. This could be good, bad or have no effect, but you can't claim that it's the same. Also, pictures are different than videos:
1. In a picture, you don't pick up on the manner-isms and general body language that you would see if you were watching the same thing in video form. E.g. you see an even starker picture of 'the woman is an object' when you watch a video of a guy berating a woman while dominating her vs. just seeing a few snapshots of the same act.
2. Going back to the anal sex example (yeah, yeah, beating a dead horse), seeing a couple of pictures of anal sex, you know that you're missing out on the full act and just seeing a snapshot. If you watch a video of anal sex from start to end, you could easily not realize all of the steps involved (before, after, in the middle, but cut out in post-produc...
I have a feeling that in spite of all this teens google (or back in the day, AltaVista'd) how-to guides about what they're seeing. There are tons of resources online and, perhaps I may have been in the minority, but I was Lycosing all kinds of guides about anal sex, safe sex, different kinds of kinky sex, etc if I saw something that piqued my interest. Porn showed me what was possible and written articles gave me more details about what I was seeing. I tried all kinds of stuff because of the porn I watched and I believe I'm better off for it. I had a lot of fun because of it.
It seems that what you're really arguing for is not a restriction on adult content, but more of it in the form of better and broader sex education. If that is the case, I couldn't agree more. If half of these [1] books were available to teens as part of sex ed I think they'd be getting a better sex education because it's mixing naughty pics with good information.
I have almost no exposure to straight porn so I can't speak for that side, but I don't see this kind of degrading behavior in gay porn that you're talking about. Maybe there's some kind of difference here that's coloring my opinion but I really don't think I have a clue what you're talking about in regards to men dominating women in porn. (If you want to link to some examples, this might be the only time NSFW content is appropriate in a HN comment!)
What kind of porn did you watch as a teen, and how has it affected you as an adult? I'm willing to wager you watched a lot of stuff and haven't been negatively affected as an adult.
You really are looking for the edge cases and disregarding the general benefits of porn. It's hard to imagine that society is being horrifically damaged by porn, and in fact I'd argue that society shapes porn to a greater extent than porn shapes society. If women are degraded in porn (as you say they are), it's likely because that's a reflection of society.
I think that the biggest point of my position is education. There should be an on-going dialogue between parents and children.
I wouldn't be so concerned with children stumbling across certain types of porn if the realities around the porn were explained to them via their parents and/or sex education classes. To use the anal sex example, if the sex ed classes addressed not just the 'pros and cons' of anal sex, but explained that the anal sex they might encounter in porn excludes a lot of things that happen off-screen (lest teens hear something in sex ed, but see something different in a porn, and think that sex ed class is just a 'bunch of bull' or fearmongering).
Note: When I say children I'm talking maybe 12+ or 13+ here, though I would probably prefer that they didn't get into porn until they were at least 15 or 16.
1) it depends on the age of the consumer
2) it depends on the porn. Much freely available sits somewhere between aggressive and violent, and potrays women in a derogratory and demeaning way. That is not "normal", and potentially is damaging in so far as it results in very unhealthy attitudes towards women and sex.
At least with gay porn, this generally isn't the case. (The amount of straight porn I've watched is close to zero, so I can't really comment with respect to this.)
Porn has a very long history and is pretty normal. Humans really, really love to make graphic depictions of sex. Before the internet there were magazines and VHS, and before that there were photos. (Go to any museum of sex and you'll see that Victorians weren't quite so Victorian.) Keep going back through history and it's pretty much always existed in some form with varying degrees of prevalence. [1]
If I were a parent I would have absolutely no problem with my kid accessing porn so long as they had a decent sex education. I don't want to essentially write the same comment twice, but I explain my position reasonably well elsewhere. [2]
There is such a wide range of porn now through. A lot of it is quite antisocial.
Having a child look at Playboy or those low budget late night tv softcore movies is one thing, or even something more graphic. It's not really about the sex or nudity that's the problem. But imagine children on 4chan. A lot of that stuff can't be healthy.
Yes it is impossible to completely block the distribution of such content, and yes maybe this is a particularly weak solution. But that doesn't mean that this or simialr efforts should not be made: they will reduce the ease of availability which will cut down exposure to this type of material.
I actually believe that all pornography should be behind a paywall, and any which is not is blocked (somehow). And no I am not abdicating responsibily of my children to the state - they still need to be taught responsible online behaviour - as I agree above such material will always be available for those who make the effort to circumvent restrictions.
We don't not lock our houses because someone can still break in - but it dramatically cuts down on such attempts (and we still educate our children on why breaking into other peoples homes is a bad thing to do).
>I actually believe that all pornography should be behind a paywall
That's absurd! Really? Cutting off huge portions of the internet for 'safety' is both wrong and impossible. That's the beauty of the web: Nobody decides 'what gets put up' and what doesn't. Guess what would happen if a country implemented such a thing? People would just use international sites as many do already.
While it is likely to be because I come from a country/culture where porn isn't considered to be an issue, I would appreciate an explanation as to why "cut[ting] down exposure to this type of material" is desirable at all. When kids decide that they are mature enough to consume such content, I don't think it should be turned into a controversy.
Personally, I decided to wait until I was seventeen to explore that part of the web, as I matured fairly late. I never "stumbled upon" sexual content by accident, despite making heavy use of the Internet. If people, regardless of age, are looking for sexual content they will find it. If they want to avoid it on the other hand, "accidental exposure" shouldn't be an issue either. There is no need to police the Internet.
It depends on the porn. Much at the harder and violent ends of the spectrum portray a very demeaning attitude to women. That i would argue _is_ wrong, particulat if, as many studies are begiining to show, it is gravely distorting young people's attitudes to women and theur understanding of sex. Most women, for example, don't want to have their faces spunked on by 10 guys simultaneously.
This is particularly naughty, ought to be censored:
> Yet she multiplied her prostitutions, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted on their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus you called to remembrance the lewdness of your youth, in bruising your teats by the Egyptians for the breasts of your youth.
The burglary analogy rests on the assumption that we must leave the house unattended - it doesn't carry over to children surfing the net. No filter will work reliably enough to allow worry-free unsupervised access. Making porn harder to find might just make people look harder. Consider the implications of every young child downloading Tor and checking out the services their parents think don't exist or are blocked.
I doubt that'll work - the PirateBay is currently blocked in the UK. If you change your DNS settings to use a non-UK server, it still returns the filtered IP address as they're silently intercepting lookups for banned domains and returning a non-authoritative answer.
All they'd need to do is add in the 'adult' domains and that'd block the simplest workaround.
You could still set up a non-UK VPN and bypass it entirely though ;)
The Pirate Bay blocks actually use CleanFeed IIRC, which is the system originally put in place under the premise to block known child pornography domains.
> I doubt that'll work - the PirateBay is currently blocked in the UK. If you change your DNS settings to use a non-UK server, it still returns the filtered IP address as they're silently intercepting lookups for banned domains and returning a non-authoritative answer.
Not on my ISP (A&A), though that may be the case for the big six.
As you say, the VPN option is an easy way around. <hat material="tinfoil">Until the government mandate that ISPs should block anything like that unless you have a license for encrypted traffic, of course.</hat>
If these filters are opt-in, as the article suggests, what's the problem? They might not be particularly effective, but if they're not active by default, and no-one's forcing them on anyone, this hardly seems like news.
Because the foreseeable next step is "hey, these filters are already in place we should at least block out cp". They are building up the infrastructure up to the stage where a transition to the next step is going to be with no cost to providers and immediately doable. It just needs the political opportune climate to push it through. A sort of being ready for the "happy accident".
Did not know that. But then again the slippery slope argument totally lives up to my expectations:
* In the UK the use of Cleanfeed was later extended to block websites that link to (without necessarily themselves hosting) copyrighted material distributed without its owner's authorisation.
I've been put behind opt-out filters (Three mobile). Only found out I had this filter randomly browsing and facing their wall page (it wasn't even porn or anything remotely questionable, just a suspect URL name).
Me too, and getting the filter removed on pre-pay either costs money by way of an insignificant charge to a British credit (not debit) card which is added to your account (foreign credit cards don't work) or a trip to a store with ID that takes 15-20 minute in which they attempt to upsell you on other products.
The only reason I'm with them is because I get truly unlimited data and flawless coverage.
Note that, last time I checked, the 3internet APN gets you a globally routable IP address that isn't behind any firewall. Which is handy but you need to be a little careful about it.
It's not certain that they are opt-in and if they were opt-out for new customers I wouldn't be surprised. TalkTalk already has parental content filters which you have to opt-out of when you are first setting up an account with them. They inform you about the filters during the call but you have to make the decision that you don't want parental content filtered or they will leave it on.
As long as its opt-in then I am all for giving parents the choice to filter their networks, but as soon as it becomes opt-out I will be very angry about it.
Because an ISP should be dumb pipe. They should only provide connectivity and not mess with people connections. Opt in is enabling. Opt out is intrusion.
Here here, meddling with SMTP connections to my own servers one minute so to ensure they get sent via their own (and often blacklisted) servers, the next they're hijacking DNS and taking further measures to filter and control what I can and can't see. It's infuriating!
you cannot broadcast what you want on radio or television, you cannot print what you like in newspapers or magazines - there are rules and regulations governing content. why should the internet be any different?
The internet is dead folks the only way it will ever be free is if we find a way of transmission of data that cannot be modified mid transit or blocked.
Otherwise you will eventually only be able to read what other people want you to read.
SSL can prevent modification mid transit, of course you can still technically be MITMd if your ISP gets issued a cert which is valid for every domain but this would be detectable.
You can circumvent blocking with proxies/VPN, your ISP would have to block all proxy/VPN services to prevent this.
Umm.. that is precisely what it is! TCP/IP maybe directionally agnostic, but application layer protocols vary. HTTP for example is very much a broadcast protocol.
Well you're just arguing semantics. Just because HTTP is a 1-to-1 connection doesn't mean web content is not "broadcast". It's there for anyone that wants to view it, so functionally it is exactly the same as traditional broadcast media - it's just the mechanics of delivery which are different.
A broadcast, by definition, is a data transmission initiated by the broadcaster to a number of recipients. HTTP doesn't fit this definition in any way, shape, or form. Every transaction is initiated by a request from you, the client. Right now radio waves are being forced through you and your computer by radio and television towers. Those are broadcasts. Hacker News is not. You made a specific request for the content of news.ycombinator.com. If you do not specifically ask for all this violent pornography you seem so concerned about, it simply can not find its way to your computer. Know why? Because it's not being broadcasted.
Beyond the "semantics" (your dismissal of which indicates you don't hold much regard for the rule of law), you are sorely mistaken if you think state censorship will be used exclusively to guard our fragile, sexually frustrated youth from gangbang clips. This is how a marketplace of ideas becomes a menu of state approved thought.
There was a survey a few years ago in the UK where over like 70% (maybe 80%) of parents were in favour of having access to porn via their internet connection. The results were slightly lower with those who didn't have children, presumably because they thought they'd change their minds after having kids.
Point being, I'm pretty sure the country isn't in favour of this. It's being thrust upon us because of two party system and a political class that seems to intent on listening to moral crusades. One can only hope Scotland gets a clue in 2014 but I'm not really that hopeful. :(
This is actually pretty accurate for when I was in school; I learnt a lot about proxies and networking whilst bypassing the school's content filters :D
Hey parents, instead of trying to filter your internet connection to 'protect' your child, why not... Er... Parent? Teach him/her what not to do online, why, and how to stay safe. Filters will always be on step behind.
What is "unsupervised"?
Children today are given a tablet at the age of three and they tap on it happily.
Do you seriously suggest all people with kids to have a full-time job of watching their kids tap on their tablets over the shoulder?
Who's going pay the wage?
I don't find the Internet tamer now than in the past. Maybe the ratio of non-porn sites to porn sites has increased, but it's trivially easy to find really hardcore porn in video form now with all of the 'tube sites.
I've also heard there have been increased expectations of anal sex from teen girls due to its increased prevalence in porn.
That might have worked when most households had 1 or 2 desktop PCs and a 56k modem between them.
Now, everything is starting to have internet access in one way or another including games consoles.
Whilst very young children might need a lot of supervision regardless, I don't think 12 years olds are going to be too happy with their parents sitting in their bedrooms with them all evening while they play xbox.
And, like lots of other things that shouldn't happen, they will. Their parent will be desperately trying to get some work done, or cooking dinner, or watching another child. Children now increasingly get to use tablets for entertainment, and a parent won't be constantly watching the screen, even though it can access the web.
I don't think network-level filters are the best way to address it. But let's stop pretending this is as simple as telling some lazy parents to get their act together.
Why? It's an interactive device that they can play Tetris or Angry Birds on. It's not a stick of dynamite. Most parents will be more worried about what the kid does to the tablet than vice versa. It's only a risky item because some people can't stand the idea of there being any way to access the internet that doesn't include all of the less salubrious bits.
In theory: No they shouldn't you're right. In practice: It doesn't matter. I'm not saying it doesn't have any effect, but me and everyone my age I know grew up with unsupervised internet. 'It never done me any harm.'
You would be surprised to find out how finely child steers away from "bad" content.
2 guys sharing body fluid are not on 4year old minds.
Only if you force them by prohibiting it.
I am a teenager, I enjoy watching pornography and I believe it has yet to mentally effect me in a negative way. These filters are just annoying if anything and take significant amounts of pleasure away from my life.
As an atheist, I have no religious grounds to forgo frequent masturbation and only partake in content that doesn't cross other laws. (Abuse, Child-Protection etc.)
I am able to have sexual intercourse myself and therefore see no reason why I shouldn't be able to watch it.
All UK ISPs have compulsory blocks already - courtesy of the unaccountable CEOPS under the guise of Thinking Of The Children/Child Porn. All sorts of URLs/IPs are blocked (many of which should be blocked because they ARE CP but some are not, just judged by The Powers That Be as being unacceptable [e.g. pirate bay]). There is no way to know what is on the list and no way to find out - anyone inquiring is automatically classed as a CP supporter and subject to investigation.
Coupled with the English removal of right to silence (discussed a few days ago), the UK long ago became a scary place for anyone interested in freedom and justice. [Scotland retains the silence right but don't expect that to help you much.]
We're just seeing an extension of this as people have been prepared already so it is time to extend the state monitoring and intrusion as everyone now believes it is a Good Thing(tm) because they know deep down that they truly love Big Brother.
As far as I know, the major change came in the 90s in the form of "it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court". In other words, the court can draw conclusions about something you initially refused to comment on, but then later answered as part of your defence.
"...many of which should be blocked..."
Nothing personal, but it's opinions like this that get us here in the first place. When you make it a matter of quality instead of principle, they've won. Child pornographers should be found, charged, and thrown in dangerous jails with people who hate them, but conceding that the state has the right to control information online makes censorship a matter of 'when', not 'if'.
Your first paragraph is inaccurate. The IWF[1] does operate such a blacklist, but it is not secret and they are not involved in the blocking of piratebay by UK ISPs.
Great another way for them to slip in a couple of websites that are not porn related like say... political parody.
Just look at T-Mobile for an example they block "objectionable content" like say... some links that show up on hacker news because they include "hacking".
Damn it now i need a VPN to the free internet.
103 comments
[ 5.2 ms ] story [ 189 ms ] threadThere's no alternative to supervising young people's internet use. Teenagers will look up porn - it's best to be adult and intelligent about it, and protect them from its worst effects, rather than trying to filter the content itself.
Any law or measure that lumps teenagers and kids together is a sabotage.
Limiting kids' discovery of porn is a worthy feat, but trying to limit teenagers is poinless and stupid.
"Suddently porn" is an annoying issue on many sites in the web that are on the side of shabby. Take torrent trackers for example.
My assumption is that it wouldn't be of interest to them and they'd move on, but that's pure speculation.
By sex live I mean the whole mental picture. If you start drawing it from accidental porn, you'll get it distorted.
You will get it distorted anyway when you'll seek porn, but now it would be your own decision at least.
By making it require a work around to view even mild pornography, the work arounds will inevitably lead to areas of the most hardcore right in your face.
Say some 12 year old wants to look at naked ladies, what's he gonna be doing? Probably google image search boobs or some soft core pinup girls name, relatively harmless and have his curiosity satisfied. However if the lower levels of that are blocked the work around with inevitably lead to a much bigger source with the violent pornography just a click away from the more regular.
Same thing happened with P2P, we used to have services where it was easy to download a single mid quality song, companies put an end to those so we found a much more efficient way to shift much larger amounts of data. Now it's hard to steal a single song but really easy to steal a full 320 album rip.
Of which there are none. Nudity and sex are normal, not damaging.
This isn't to say that porn is inherently a bad thing[1]. The issue is that if the teens aren't getting good information elsewhere (other than the base 'here are some anatomical diagrams of sex organs' teaching), porn becomes a learning tool, which isn't necessarily a good thing.
[1] I realize that the production sucks in a lot of people that suffered from abuse, and it's debatable whether or not large 'porn houses' are just exploiting these people.
Being exposed to a variety of options and ways to have sex isn't bad. Anal sex can be quite fun, and if someone doesn't like it they're quickly going to say no. Rimming has its risks (like everything else) and isn't for everyone (like everything else), but it's pretty common and not horrendously unsafe. If you try to have sex without lube, you're quickly going to discover the problem. I can't speak for straight porn, but most porn that involves penetrative sex features condoms; if you're watching porn that was made in the last 10-20 years, it's really difficult not to see condoms in action.
Just about everybody reading this grew up with porn as teens (and possibly before) and we're not broken or messed up. Before the internet, teens got their hands on magazines and those generations aren't damaged by it either. If anything, I'd suspect teens today are better educated (and having better sex) than any generation before. Porn, together with improved sex education, has had a large role to play.
Saying that porn is bad because it teaches people different ways to have sex doesn't make sense. However, I will concede that the key here is sex education. If someone isn't receiving sex education they're not going to know about safe sex anyway, and restricting access to porn isn't going to make the situation any better. Porn should be supplemented by a decent sex education, and thankfully an adequate sex education is provided in the vast majority of the developed world.
If anything I'm grateful for all the porn I watched as a teen, and I think my sex life today is significantly better because of it. It taught me more than my prudish religious parents would (or could) and combined with my school's sex education classes, I was good to go have fun, figure out what was right for me, and do it without getting diseases along the way!
1. I am against censorship.
2. I don't think that porn by itself dangerous to humans in some sort of Puritanical way of thinking.
3. My thinking is that a lot of porn out there is all about the male dominating the female, and basically just using her. Allowing young children to have access to this shapes their views on sex. The older the child, the more prepared they are to deal with this. Taken with a healthy dose of discussion from parents that aren't afraid to talk sex with their kids this might not be so bad, but a lot of parents are averse to these discussions, so the child is only left with porn as a teacher.
4. Porn is all about fantasy, so if you are using porn as a guide (e.g.) for anal sex, you're not seeing the prep that is needed for the scene. There are videos out there of unprotected anal sex, unprotected ass-to-mouth, anal sex where the guy just jams it right in, etc. None of these show the behind-the-scenes work that goes into making those scenes safe (anal douching, warming up rather than instance penetration, etc), or are just showing people being unsafe without any context for learning. It's not meant to be a how-to guide.
5. I keep focusing on anal sex because it's so prevalent in porn now vs. the past. There are many other things that could also be bad[1] (e.g. skat), but it's less likely that kids/teens will come across them.
6. Many women are against anal sex because of bad experiences. If teenagers start engaging in more anal sex, it could just as easily have the opposite affect on 'uptake' of anal sex: inexperienced, uninformed teenage boys attempting painful anal sex with teenage girls that then grow up with a bad view of anal sex. Or teenage girls getting painful UTIs due to unsafe practice of anal sex, and writing it off.
7. I'm also envisioning teenage boys demanding anal sex, and teenage girls going along with it even though it is uncomfortable and/or painful as some sort of bid for acceptance or because they like the boy (possibly not even telling the boys that they don't enjoy it because this might be viewed as a bad thing; i.e. peer pressure to grin and bear it). I'll admit that this is not really based on any evidence and I (hopefully) wouldn't legislate based on just my unfounded opinions.
8. I'm often found to be a contrarian. If someone puts forth an idea, sometimes all I can see are edge cases.
9. Most of the porn that I found as a child was relatively tame, and there wasn't such free access to video porn as there is today with the 'tubes.
10. I realize that a lot of this isn't at some 'sky is falling' level like many anti-porn conservatives would have people believe.
The variety of porn in the pre-Internet age was nothing compared to the variety of porn now. Sure, not everything is 'new,' but the availability has increased tremendously for non-vanilla sex acts. This could be good, bad or have no effect, but you can't claim that it's the same. Also, pictures are different than videos:1. In a picture, you don't pick up on the manner-isms and general body language that you would see if you were watching the same thing in video form. E.g. you see an even starker picture of 'the woman is an object' when you watch a video of a guy berating a woman while dominating her vs. just seeing a few snapshots of the same act.
2. Going back to the anal sex example (yeah, yeah, beating a dead horse), seeing a couple of pictures of anal sex, you know that you're missing out on the full act and just seeing a snapshot. If you watch a video of anal sex from start to end, you could easily not realize all of the steps involved (before, after, in the middle, but cut out in post-produc...
I have a feeling that in spite of all this teens google (or back in the day, AltaVista'd) how-to guides about what they're seeing. There are tons of resources online and, perhaps I may have been in the minority, but I was Lycosing all kinds of guides about anal sex, safe sex, different kinds of kinky sex, etc if I saw something that piqued my interest. Porn showed me what was possible and written articles gave me more details about what I was seeing. I tried all kinds of stuff because of the porn I watched and I believe I'm better off for it. I had a lot of fun because of it.
It seems that what you're really arguing for is not a restriction on adult content, but more of it in the form of better and broader sex education. If that is the case, I couldn't agree more. If half of these [1] books were available to teens as part of sex ed I think they'd be getting a better sex education because it's mixing naughty pics with good information.
I have almost no exposure to straight porn so I can't speak for that side, but I don't see this kind of degrading behavior in gay porn that you're talking about. Maybe there's some kind of difference here that's coloring my opinion but I really don't think I have a clue what you're talking about in regards to men dominating women in porn. (If you want to link to some examples, this might be the only time NSFW content is appropriate in a HN comment!)
What kind of porn did you watch as a teen, and how has it affected you as an adult? I'm willing to wager you watched a lot of stuff and haven't been negatively affected as an adult.
You really are looking for the edge cases and disregarding the general benefits of porn. It's hard to imagine that society is being horrifically damaged by porn, and in fact I'd argue that society shapes porn to a greater extent than porn shapes society. If women are degraded in porn (as you say they are), it's likely because that's a reflection of society.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/175-4932095-5801103...
I wouldn't be so concerned with children stumbling across certain types of porn if the realities around the porn were explained to them via their parents and/or sex education classes. To use the anal sex example, if the sex ed classes addressed not just the 'pros and cons' of anal sex, but explained that the anal sex they might encounter in porn excludes a lot of things that happen off-screen (lest teens hear something in sex ed, but see something different in a porn, and think that sex ed class is just a 'bunch of bull' or fearmongering).
Note: When I say children I'm talking maybe 12+ or 13+ here, though I would probably prefer that they didn't get into porn until they were at least 15 or 16.
I don't support any censorship. But if you were a parent, you might want to think twice about giving your 12 year old free reign on internet porn.
If I were a parent I would have absolutely no problem with my kid accessing porn so long as they had a decent sex education. I don't want to essentially write the same comment twice, but I explain my position reasonably well elsewhere. [2]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_erotic_depictions
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5832428
Having a child look at Playboy or those low budget late night tv softcore movies is one thing, or even something more graphic. It's not really about the sex or nudity that's the problem. But imagine children on 4chan. A lot of that stuff can't be healthy.
I actually believe that all pornography should be behind a paywall, and any which is not is blocked (somehow). And no I am not abdicating responsibily of my children to the state - they still need to be taught responsible online behaviour - as I agree above such material will always be available for those who make the effort to circumvent restrictions.
We don't not lock our houses because someone can still break in - but it dramatically cuts down on such attempts (and we still educate our children on why breaking into other peoples homes is a bad thing to do).
If I decide to post some naked pictures of myself online should I have to start processing credit cards and treating it as a business?
That's absurd! Really? Cutting off huge portions of the internet for 'safety' is both wrong and impossible. That's the beauty of the web: Nobody decides 'what gets put up' and what doesn't. Guess what would happen if a country implemented such a thing? People would just use international sites as many do already.
Personally, I decided to wait until I was seventeen to explore that part of the web, as I matured fairly late. I never "stumbled upon" sexual content by accident, despite making heavy use of the Internet. If people, regardless of age, are looking for sexual content they will find it. If they want to avoid it on the other hand, "accidental exposure" shouldn't be an issue either. There is no need to police the Internet.
You mean this?
http://uploads0.wikipaintings.org/images/henri-de-toulouse-l...
Or this?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/Gustav_Kl...
This is particularly naughty, ought to be censored:
> Yet she multiplied her prostitutions, in calling to remembrance the days of her youth, wherein she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt. For she doted on their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus you called to remembrance the lewdness of your youth, in bruising your teats by the Egyptians for the breasts of your youth.
All they'd need to do is add in the 'adult' domains and that'd block the simplest workaround.
You could still set up a non-UK VPN and bypass it entirely though ;)
I consider this an abuse of the CleanFeed system.
Not on my ISP (A&A), though that may be the case for the big six.
As you say, the VPN option is an easy way around. <hat material="tinfoil">Until the government mandate that ISPs should block anything like that unless you have a license for encrypted traffic, of course.</hat>
* In the UK the use of Cleanfeed was later extended to block websites that link to (without necessarily themselves hosting) copyrighted material distributed without its owner's authorisation.
The only reason I'm with them is because I get truly unlimited data and flawless coverage.
Change the APN to 3internet from three.co.uk
This hasn't caused me any problems on my "one plan" phone, I don't know if this will cause issues on lower tier plans.
I'm unaware of that, but that's a fair point.
>the next they're hijacking DNS and taking further measures to filter and control what I can and can't see. It's infuriating!
That's the thing: They aren't. It would only happen if you asked for it. They aren't filtering anything you don't want filtered.
You can circumvent blocking with proxies/VPN, your ISP would have to block all proxy/VPN services to prevent this.
Beyond the "semantics" (your dismissal of which indicates you don't hold much regard for the rule of law), you are sorely mistaken if you think state censorship will be used exclusively to guard our fragile, sexually frustrated youth from gangbang clips. This is how a marketplace of ideas becomes a menu of state approved thought.
Point being, I'm pretty sure the country isn't in favour of this. It's being thrust upon us because of two party system and a political class that seems to intent on listening to moral crusades. One can only hope Scotland gets a clue in 2014 but I'm not really that hopeful. :(
"So when did you first get into hacking Mr. Famous Hacker X?"
"Well, I remember that, like a lot of the lads in my generation at the time, I was trying to get round my ISPs porn-filters."
Do you seriously suggest all people with kids to have a full-time job of watching their kids tap on their tablets over the shoulder? Who's going pay the wage?
Actually the internet is much tamer now than in the 90-s. And we survived somehow.
I've also heard there have been increased expectations of anal sex from teen girls due to its increased prevalence in porn.
Now, everything is starting to have internet access in one way or another including games consoles. Whilst very young children might need a lot of supervision regardless, I don't think 12 years olds are going to be too happy with their parents sitting in their bedrooms with them all evening while they play xbox.
I don't think network-level filters are the best way to address it. But let's stop pretending this is as simple as telling some lazy parents to get their act together.
Finding it really hard to sympathise with these people who can't look after their own offspring responsibly
As an atheist, I have no religious grounds to forgo frequent masturbation and only partake in content that doesn't cross other laws. (Abuse, Child-Protection etc.) I am able to have sexual intercourse myself and therefore see no reason why I shouldn't be able to watch it.
Coupled with the English removal of right to silence (discussed a few days ago), the UK long ago became a scary place for anyone interested in freedom and justice. [Scotland retains the silence right but don't expect that to help you much.]
We're just seeing an extension of this as people have been prepared already so it is time to extend the state monitoring and intrusion as everyone now believes it is a Good Thing(tm) because they know deep down that they truly love Big Brother.
(edit:spelling, twice. That's embarrassing)
[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Watch_Foundation]
What passes as "parenting" in this country is an absolute joke.
Just set up broadband in a new house today, this news makes me ecstatic that I didn't go with BT and went with an independent instead.