Say ‘no’ to pornography

Miran PERERA

Porn is the name of a dangerous game. To eradicate porn parents as well as teachers need to be strong. For parents who have porn addicts in their families must realise that patience is king in such circumstances. When you cultivate patience you can change a whole army of addicts.

Elders should not panic. Those dealing in porn sense the weakness of others with poor human relationships. All must firmly say ‘No’ to pornography. When elders find young people using porn, they must not shout at them. Elders should not use body langauge that can send young people using porn into spasms of fear and acute embarrassment. Elders should not physically or verbally abuse those using porn.

Those of responsibility must give porn users a good example of fairness and tolerance in the way they deal with them and with other people. If you are a teacher, a police officer, a member of the media or a community health worker learn well the regulations pertaining to pornography and other stringent laws needed and specially in your field of work.

Those responsible must be vigilant of those porn users who are enjoying their share of media freedom, specially the porn user who is difficult, the porn user who is agreeable. They may be the son or daughter of your brother or sister, or the son or daughter of your opponent.

Roots of conflict

The porn user could be quick or else retarded. Such persons could be aggressive or shy. As for sexual abuse all have to remember that rights violated today are the roots of conflict tomorrow. Hence we have to protect the rights of everybody.

As supporters of rights against sex abuse we should advocate and insist on laws to punish those who violate the rights of the victims and we must insist on fair and effective implementation of the laws.

We need to teach the people how to obstruct and prevent being exploited from large scale distribution of pornography.

Young women who want to be mothers need to think about this very seriously. Men who want to marry need to find out whether they can be responsible fathers. In such situations men and women should say ‘no’ to pornography where young children are used.

After marriage comes reality, responsibility and reasoning. The children should be brought up with good behaviour in speech as well as actions which leads to perfection during the growing years of children. Pornography should not be allowed to intrude into young healthy lives but basics of reproductive health should be taught.

Sometimes after watching phonographic films, young people use bad language not knowing the place to say it. Parenting against pornography is a responsibility that goes to make the strongest foundation for young people to build their lives on. Whatever the elders do they need to maintain standards. Young people should not get dragged away by the jet set group of porn viewers to be one of the gang.

They have the freedom to be fashionable and in the meantime say ‘no’ to pornography. Society will take no blame for the part it has played in bringing up young people addicted to porn movies.

The sole person that the society will point its finger at will be the parents. Young people should do well and reject porn. Women should have the regal task of not only giving birth but to bring up children to perfection without porn.

Diverse issues

Television has become a site for diverse issues involving many stakeholders. This is understandable given the diversity of interests and ideas involved. Regarding sensually provocative films many stakeholders wish to use the TV for achieving their sectarian objectives and others tend to worry about the likely implications of the ensuing intense competition. It is due to these reasons that TV and the internet has become a subject of much discussion and controversy regarding pornography. Media institutions have proliferated in recent years in Sri Lanka.

There are 30 titles of daily and weekly newspapers on the stand and other sensually provocative papers and magazines circulating privately, about 15 radio and nine television channels fighting for airwaves. The competition is tough. Hence media is certainly a major influence on children and young people searching for pornography. What is evident is not just an expansion of the media but also a clear segmentation in terms of ownership or control implicit and explicit interest and ideologies they represent. The competition among media institutions has compelled the latter to cater to diverse demands. This is particularly evident in the electronic media and newspapers.

The media house owners appear to make every effort to broaden their clientele. TV stations are busy making programmes targeting specific population groups such as women, children and youth. There is no doubt that the electronic media has already had a major impact on young persons.

Children’s questions on pornography serves an important function.

They do not respect the insularity of disciplines normally taught in our schools and colleges. That might be the reason for many discipline imprisoned scholars feel uncomfortable with pornography.

We cannot stay within a culture where life as it is lived is considered to lie completely outside the hallowed grounds of schools and universities.

Discipline

This is not to imply that we do not get into the depths of various disciplines.

But it has been found that sensuality often resides at the oundaries of discipline.

We do end up worrying about geology, archaeology, sociology, biology, chemistry, physics and cosmology. But such connections are seldom made in organised disciplinary courses.

Children’s questions on porn keep reminding us that interconnections are necessary for the human mind. To the extent we deal with these questions we end up enriching the knowledge of adverse effects of pornography.

That is often the real source of excessive sexuality. We should take it for granted that one of the major objectives of education should be to encourage the emergence of well balanced individuals.

Knowledge

A comment has been made questioning that knowledge can be provided by children because we do not have it encapsulated in our genes.

True our genes have no knowledge of our culture, our religion or caste, no subjects such as physics or algebra, no history or geography but as for pornography many react very sensitively to this subject.

But there is immense capacity in everyone to avoid using porn as it has many debilitating factors which ruin the moral lives of the reader or viewer.

Many are capable of observation and perception and urge to experiment with porn which dim with age. Some of this losing interest is the result of how we try to educate our young on the dangers of pornography.