On Sat, 2003-11-15 at 21:42, Andrew McNabb wrote: > I'm not sure if you've all seen the Slashdot article tonight, "Rules for > Teenage Internet Access," but every once in a while I get pretty > surprised at just how far society has gone. For every comment arguing > for morality there are 10 advocating pr0n. I'm not so naive that I > would think that everyone agrees with our values, but I'd hope it were a > little better than what I'm seeing.
Amen. Just thinking about that tonight. Every empire that has ever arisen on the face of the earth has fallen because of the very things that the comments (well, the pr0n advocates) in that story advocate. How, Mr. AutoPr0n (you've all seen his posts) guy, does pornography help you in your life and in your relationships. In the end it is a poor substitute for intimacy. His chances of any sort of successful relationship are greatly diminished. <preach to choir> Hopefully you'll all pardon my bluntness in what I'm about to say. When I'm not coding or chatting on #utah, I do have close female friends that I have deep conversations with. Almost all of them have remarked to me that the number one thing about marrying that frightens them the most if pornography and it's effects on their husbands before and after marriage. It's a difficult and sensitive thing, as many have struggled to overcome this addiction. Clearly women will have to be patient with us men, and compassionate. But the effects will still pose a huge challenge to a relationship. One of my friends married a man who had been upfront with her about his previous challenges with pornography. However on their wedding night, his past pornography problem greatly colored his expectations and desires of her. She ended up being frightened and frustrated with sex. You see, even without realizing what was happening to him, he was reprogrammed by pornography and other things to treat sex and women in a very objectifying and personally gratifying way. Instead of the goal of intimacy being her satisfaction, he was trying to get her to satisfy his desires and lusts. They divorced shortly after their wedding, as these problems resurfaced and totally destroyed their relationship. Anyway, President Hinckley has given us warnings and we need but heed them. And share our beliefs with others. Help them overcome these things. Help them avoid them. Show how we can trust our kids but yet teach them moral standards at the same time. The following slashdot quote is mostly correct and I'm glad he was modded up to +5: Start the policies before they start walking... (Score:5, Informative) by flogger (524072) Alter Relationship <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Saturday November 15, @10:59PM (#7484638) (http://www.alchurch.net/ | Last Journal: Friday October 04, @09:21AM) I don't want to preach; but, to me, the trust issue (as mentioned earlier) is the key to raising children. Trust them and let them know you trust them. But, children will screw up and loose that trust. Let them know that the trust is gone and let them know what it will take to get that trust back. And LET THEM EARN THE TRUST BACK. I have seen many parents that "give up" when a child becomes untrustworthy. When that happens, the child doesn't have anything to strive for in his/her parental relationship. Is this "Trust See-Saw" easy to handle? No, of course not. Let me get back to the topic: Start young with teaching children what is appropriate and inappropriate. (For the parents with teens, it may not be too late to start, but it will be tough if you have to convince you child that certain clothes he/she has been wearing for two years are now inappropriate.) Is it easy to discuss this with children? It shouldn;t be hard. Let me use a personal example: My son, at the time was age 9, went to spend the night at a friends house. While there they watched an austin powers movie. This came out in conversation a couple of days later. My wife and I were horrified that this happened, but we didn;t yell and hoot and holler. We asked about the movie and he told us about it (We had seen this movie a couple of years before at a friends house (Strange how things work out)) During this conversation we talked about attitudes toward women and sexuality. And we talked about whe we found certain things objectionable. But it wasn't a lecture. we were having a conversation and he understood why it was inapproriate when we had finished. You may say, "Bah, kids can't handle that kind of talk." Well, you'd be suprised. It you are honest and open with your children in ALL areas, they will learn and respond in this type of conversational enviornment. A few months ago, My son was at an overnight with a few friends and a movie was going to be shown. He asked what it was rated and got a couple of friends to go into another room and play cards (or a board game, I can;t remember. He's in bed now, or I would ask him). But I think that takes some maturity. Maturity that comes from learning how to think along the lines of what is appropriate and what is not. How does one get to a point where we can trust the kids to make good choices? As parents we should make good choices ourselves and explain these to the kids. Dinner is a great time for these discussions. And whenver something comes up, don;t hide it from the kids. Let them in one what is happeneing. Another example: A student from where I teach was kicked out of his house. We let him stay with use for a bit while things got straightened out. My children were, of course very curious about what was going on, and we told them about the neglect, abuse, and everything going on. My children were very welcoming and treated this person as a brother fot the time he was here. Since then, my son has volunteered his time at some charities in the area for other "transients." Again, bak to the topic: In the manner of the internet, as with all areas, be open and honest. When you are deleting spam from your email, there is a great learning experience for the kids. "Look at this junk. Enlarge your breasts..." and get into a discussion about the previlence of sexual attitudes in society. It works, kids listen, and they will understand. Yesterday, When I was playing my father-in-law on some online chess and my kids were helping out, I got an offer across AIM (Through trillian) to check out some girls webcam. (Yea right.) Well what a great learning experience about the inappropriateness of the internet. We even went to the link, and sure enough, it was filtered out. which leads me to... Don;t let children surf without proper filtering. All of our computers run through an E-Smith server [e-smith.org] (modified red-hat small office gateway and server) which runs an excellent free SquidGuard filter. This doesn't mean that you don;t trust your children; it means that you don't trust the rest of the world. Another side thought, for every inapropriate thing I discuss, I discuss several possitive items as well. TO hear about doom and gloom all the time isn't that fun. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ -- Michael Torrie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
