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A Plea to Parents
Governments and IT companies aren’t responsible for protecting your children — you are!
Yet again, we hear of parents and social workers and other groups screaming at governments and IT companies: “Our children are being exposed to pornography on the internet! Do something about it!”
Now I am not about to debate the issues around pornography -that’s already been done too often to mention. It is clear that ‘hard core’ pornography has deleterious effects on its consumers and is exploitative and abusive of those who appear in it. It is also equally clear that, like prostitution, pornography is as old as civilisation. Both of these have, at different times and in different places, been driven underground, tolerated or celebrated. Neither has ever been completely expunged, nor ever will be unless the human sex-drive diminishes radically.
However, there has almost always been, except in the most decadent of civilisations, a general acceptance that such things are the province of adults. Though the idea of when childhood ends has varied from culture to culture, this has pretty much been a constant. The other constant has been the notion that the primary responsibility for the discipline, moral education and protection of children rests with their parents (with exceptions such as ancient Sparta).
