THE EFFECT OF PORNOGRAPHY ON SCHOOL CHILDREN IN MOMBASA COUNTY

THE EFFECT OF PORNOGRAPHY ON SCHOOL CHILDREN IN MOMBASA COUNTY
By
VERONICA ONJORO

ABSTRACT

Consumption of pornography is associated with many negative emotional, psychological, and physical health outcomes.  These include increased rates of depression, anxiety, acting out and violent behavior, younger age of sexual debut, sexual promiscuity, increased risk of teen pregnancy, and a distorted view of relationships between men and women.  Healthcare professionals should communicate the risks of pornography use to patients and their families and to offer resources both to protect children from viewing pornography and to treat individuals suffering from its negative effects.  The instruments for use in the study included questionnaires, focus group discussion and interview schedules. The target population of the study was primary and secondary  students in Mombasa County. The study was done in schools around Mombasa Island from children of classes 4 to form 4 and it involved school children from the ages of 10 years to 18 year. The study was through random sampling. The study used both qualitative and quantitative methods. Over 150 children were interviewed both at home and at school. Results of the current investigation raise important questions for further inquiry. Findings from these cross-sectional data provide justification for further studies aimed at sensitizing parents, guardians and teachers the need to safeguard our young ones.

Key words:Pornography,children, internet,cyber cafe,anxiety

INTRODUCTION

According to the report of the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on the Sexualisation of Girls (APA, 2007), the cumulative exposure of children and young people to sexualised images and themes has negative effects in many areas, including self-objectification, links with eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression or depressed mood and diminished sexual health. Small children typically view pornography accidentally at home by clicking a link or mistyping a Google search. Concern has been raised that this increased accessibility may lead to a rise in pornography seeking among children and adolescents, with potentially serious ramifications for child and adolescent sexual development. Most parents would be shocked on how pornography is just 2 clicks away 2 clicks away on some of the most popular sites. Pornography may be defined as “the depiction of erotic behavior (sexual display in pictures or writing) that is intended to cause sexual excitement” in the viewer. Over the past decade there has been a large increase in the pornographic material that is available to both adults and children.  Mainstream pornography use has grown common because it is accessible, affordable, and anonymous.  It is accessible because it is just a few keystrokes away on the Internet.  It is affordable because many online sites offer free pornography to lure viewers to their web sites.  Other sites simply post third party videos and do not charge the viewer for web traffic.  It is anonymous because it can be viewed in the privacy of a person’s home.


 Children the ages of 10yrs  20% viewed pornography greater than once per week.
Children the ages of 11  20% viewed pornography greater than once per week.
Children the ages of 12  25% viewed pornography greater than once per week.
Children the ages of 13  30% viewed pornography greater than once per week.
Children the ages of 14  35% viewed pornography greater than once per week.
Children the ages of 15    36% viewed pornography greater than once per week.
Children the ages of 16    37% viewed pornography greater than once per week.
Children the ages of 17    38% viewed pornography greater than once per week.
Children the ages of 18    40% viewed pornography greater than once per week.



PRESENTATION
The study was done in schools around Mombasa Island. The place where most children were exposed to pornography was in cyber cafes which have saved the pornographic videos and charge children 10/- to view for 20-15 minutes.These children in turn recruit other children in this vice. School children are sometimes exposed to pornography accidentally when they view material on the Internet. They may also come into contact with a parent’s or close adult’s pornographic material. 10% of children in the upper classes have started watching enough porn for parents to get concerned that they may have an addiction issue and not be able to stop. Recently 10 children from a primary school in Nairobi were found in a home of one of them engaging in sex. There has been an increase of rape  and killing of young children around the country. The increasingly violent nature of much pornographic content, serious concerns are now emerging within and beyond psychology about the impact on young people’s expectations of sex and sexuality, the role pornography plays in facilitating and normalising violence against women, and how it contributes more broadly to representations and normative understandings about sex, sexuality and gender in society. Pornography has thus been implicated in a number of social issues that have been the subject of recent government inquiries. Many experts believe this is due to two primary issues: mobile accessibility and desensitization at an earlier age. “Young people are turning to the internet to learn about sex and relationships. We know they are frequently stumbling across porn, often unintentionally, and they are telling us very clearly that this is having a damaging and upsetting effect on them” Sexual predators have purposefully exposed young children to pornography for the purpose of grooming the children for sexual exploitation. Pornography exposure at these young ages often results in anxiety for the child. Children also report feelings of disgust, shock, embarrassment, anger, fear, and sadness after viewing pornography. These children can suffer all of the symptoms of anxiety and depression.  They may become obsessed with acting out adult sexual acts that they have seen, and this can be very disruptive and disturbing to the child’s peers who witness or are victimized by this behavior.  Children under twelve years old who have viewed pornography are statistically more likely to sexually assault their peers. In sum, children exposed to pornographic material are at risk for a broad range of maladaptive behaviors and psychopathology.

  EFFECTS OF PORNOGRAPHY EXPOSURE AND USE

The effects of pornography on the children who frequented the cyber café was truancy, experiencing sexual feelings in class, no concentration,theft,no interest in learning, being rude,stealing, lack respect, fighting in class and do not carry books or pens in class. This is associated with increased confusion and anxiety as young people feel pressured to behave in ways commonly displayed in pornography. Children or adolescents may experience autonomic sexual arousal at the sight of pornography, which can confuse them into thinking they “like” what they see, when in fact their bodies are reacting instinctively without the “approval” of their brain. Children and adolescents can become “de-sensitized” to pornography exposure and this can result in acting out sexualized behaviors with other children and engaging in high-risk sexual experiences by adolescents.The effects of pornography exposure upon older adolescents and young adults were recorded in a series of studies conducted by Dolf Zillman and Jennings Bryant in the 1980’s.  There are several factors that make the Zillman/Bryant studies noteworthy.  First, they were controlled randomized studies dealing with objective exposure to pornographic material, as opposed to convenience sample surveys about pornography exposure and attitudes.  Second, they were conducted before the age of Internet pornography, so the participants would likely have had less exposure to pornography compared to the average young adult today.  These studies involved recruiting college students and non-college students from the community.  Subjects in the experimental group viewed pornographic material for a period of six weeks, while the control group was exposed to more common movie and television content over the same period of time.  Afterwards, participants were asked a series of questions to evaluate their attitudes regarding relationship and family issues.





IMPACT OF PORNOGRAPHY ON CHIDREN

Pornography eliminates the warmth of affectionate family life, which is the natural social nutrient for a growing child. Other losses and traumas related to the use of pornography when a child is young include:
• encountering pornographic material a parent has acquired;
• encountering a parent masturbating;
• overhearing a parent engaged in “phone sex”;
• witnessing and experiencing stress in the home caused by online sexual activities;
• increased risk of the children becoming consumers of pornography themselves; • witnessing and being involved in parental conflict;
• Exposure to the commodification of human beings, especially women, as “sex objects”; • increased risk of parental job loss and financial strain;
• increased risk of parental separation and divorce;
• decreased parental time and attention—both from the pornography addicted parent and from the parent preoccupied with the addicted spouse.3


CONCLUSION
Raising sexually safe and healthy children is a key to preventing sexual abuse. Parents should not let the pornography industry be a primary sex educator of their children and must speak up, in their homes and in their communities. All children deserve a great childhood and exposure to any aspect of pornography gets in the way of that goal. A recent primary research article in JAMA Psychiatry shows that pornography consumption is associated with decreased brain volume in the right striatum, decreased left striatum activation, and lower functional connectivity to the prefrontal cortex.  High pornography consumption is associated with smaller grey matter volume in the viewers, and is associated with down regulation of the brain’s response to erotic material.  These neural changes in the brains of pornography users do not prove causation but they are similar to the changes seen in brains of individuals addicted to cocaine, alcohol, and methamphetamines, and this association is one more way regular pornography use mirrors the use of addictive drugs. This scientific data is consistent with the observed findings in a study of pornography showing 20% of regular pornography users preferred the excitement of viewing pornography over being sexually intimate with a real person. The observation that male pornography users become addicted to their cyber-sexual activity and lose interest in actual women has obvious deleterious effects on relationships and society at large. Pornography use by adolescents and young adults often leads to a distorted view of sexuality and its role in fostering healthy personal relationships.  These distortions include the overestimation of the prevalence of sexual activity in the community, the belief that sexual promiscuity is normal, and the belief that sexual abstinence is unhealthy. These perspectives are likely to make it more difficult for young people to form lasting, meaningful relationships with the opposite sex, which will ultimately result in more anxiety, depression, and overall life dissatisfaction
Children suffer many negative effects due to modern society’s exposure to and acceptance of pornography.  These negative effects include mental disturbance and unrest for the young school age child, including acting out and violent behavior.  Because of its harmfulness to children, pornography must never be used as a tool to teach children human sexuality.  For older adolescents and young adults, pornography teaches a false narrative regarding human sexuality and how men and women form healthy sexual relationships.  This makes it more difficult for young men and women to form authentic, stable relationships.  For parents, pornography is divisive resulting in a decreased quality of marriage and increasing the likelihood of divorce and separation which has been well documented to be harmful to children.
RECOMMENDATION
o    Pediatricians should be equipped to discuss with parents both how and why to prevent pornography exposure for both children and parents.  Because the Internet is the primary medium for pornography exposure, home computers should be located in public spaces (not in a child’s bedroom), and equipped with Internet filtering and monitoring software to reduce exposure.  There are a variety of parental controls and filtering systems available to parents, and some current software vendor’s offer filtering and monitoring of smart phones which are now the primary technology used by adolescents to access the Internet.  Also, there are software services which offer the ability to create accountability partnerships so as to increase the success of breaking free from pornography addiction.  Pediatricians and pediatric healthcare providers should understand the negative impact that widespread use of pornography is having on today’s children and their parents and how they can help stop this destructive influence on the family.
o    Model positive behavior you want your child to emulate. Parents know that small children mimic what they watch. If a child sees love, kindness, and cooperation, these traits are copied. If you want your child to only watch G-rated videos, make sure those around your child’s young eyes also limit the content to G-rated options on their screens.
o    Take preventive measure by locking PCs, tablets, and smartphones with a safe browser or Internet filter to eliminate the availability of pornography for kids and teens. To see a list of parental controls software from a third-party review website,.
o    If the images they view are explicit and don’t depict love, explain to your kids that this is not a sign of a healthy and happy relationship. Explain to them age-appropriate ways to express love and affection to others.
o    It is never too soon to have a conversation on what is appropriate to share with others. If your child is old enough to understand, let them know it is illegal for them to take explicit pictures or videos, view pornography, or share pornography as a minor. Most importantly, explain to them why pornography is dangerous behavior and there are bad consequences that can come later.


REFERENCES
1.American Psychological Association. (2014). Report of the Task Force on Trafficking of Women and Girls. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/trafficking/report.aspx
2.American Psychological Association. (2007). Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.html
3.English, B. (2005). The secret life of boys: Pornography is a mouse click away, and kids are being exposed to it in ever-increasing numbers. Cited in the American Psychological Association. (2007). Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualization.html
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