Whether your daughter is seven years old or seventeen, our culture is grooming her for an appetite for pornography. If you have a daughter or know someone who does, listen up.
Millions of well meaning parents have a sincere desire to protect their daughters from pornography. They monitor their daughters’ internet usage, and even install protective filters, thinking they’re in the clear.
However, if you’ve believed the lie that pornography is something hidden in the deepest corners of the Internet, you’ve been duped.
Long before your daughter is ever exposed to a pornographic site, she has already gone through years of soft porn grooming. As a woman not too far past my teen years, I know this first hand.
We often think of porn as being some form of intense adult content only targeted at men…but it’s not.
With your daughter in mind, listen to how the dictionary describes porn:
“Sexually explicit videos, photographs, writings, or the like, produced to elicit sexual arousal.”
Did you catch that last part? “Produced to elicit sexual arousal.” How many mainstream movies, songs, books, TV shows, and magazines are created to elicit sexual arousal? Try…a large majority of them.
If your daughter is the the habit of watching mainstream TV shows, secular music videos, reading magazines like Glamour or Cosmo, and shopping at the mall regularly, she is being groomed for an appetite for porn. Welcome to the 21st century.
Your daughter’s innocent mind is being slowly desensitized one day at a time. If you want to spare your daughter from a future porn addiction, you have to do way more than guard her from the “biggies.” It’s the little things that will get her today.
Here are five subtle areas our culture is grooming your daughter for porn:
1. Mainstream Movies
When your daughter is little, Hollywood tells her that true love is nothing more than butterflies and happily ever afters. But, when she hits her teen years, true love is portrayed as steamy sex scenes and one night stands.
Chick flicks are a huge culprit and they’re targeted at your daughter. Many of these movies are filled with glorified premarital sex scenes, steamy adultery, sexual innuendos, and nudity. “Eliciting sexual arousal” is an obvious goal.
Every time your daughter watches these so-called “innocent” movies, her conscience and sensitivity to purity and morality is weakened. Her view of sex is watered down. She is one step closer to viewing porn as a harmless pleasure.
2. Secular Magazines
I was chatting with a young mom once who shared with me how destructive Cosmo magazine had been on her as a teen. She said, “I read that garbage and soaked up their worldview about love, sex, and happiness. As a result, I moved into my adult years with an extremely distorted worldview about sex.”
Magazines like Cosmo, Marie Claire, Glamour, and others are targeted at young single women. These magazines are filled with raunchy (premarital) sex advice, scandalous images, and dirty secrets. Nothing will groom your daughter’s appetite for porn quicker than reading this trashy material. “Eliciting sexual arousal” is an obvious goal.
The more she reads, the more her sexual compass is weakened. She is one step closer to viewing porn as a “harmless pleasure.”
3. Music Videos
Music used to be an experience for the ears. Not anymore. Music videos are now an extremely popular form of entertainment for young people. If you think your daughter is watching harmless videos on MTV or YouTube, think again.
Music videos aren’t about the music anymore…they’re about the sexualized dance moves and seductive clothing. If your daughter is a fan of singers like Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, and Rihanna, she is undoubtedly watching their music videos. And these videos are bad news. From total nudity to illicit sex moves, your daughter is being exposed to soft porn.
Every time she fills her mind with these raunchy and illicit videos, she is unknowingly building a craving for more. Diving headfirst into heavy pornography would not feel that extreme to her anymore.
4. Romance Novels
Girls are dreamers. We love imagination. We flock to “love stories.” Romance novels are written with the female gender in mind. They’re written in a way that draws the reader in and provokes her to vicariously experience what’s happening.
Secular romance novels (and some Christian) are written with the purposeful intent to “elicit sexual arousal.” I’ve heard it said many times that romance novels are porn for females. The recent mainstream acceptance of erotic books like Fifty Shades of Grey is as close as it gets to reading porn. If your daughter enjoys reading, there’s a good chance some of her friends have passed a copy of this terrible book her way.
Reading this explicit material will pollute her mind and leave your daughter with a strong desire for darker and heavier content. Romance novels and erotica push your daughter one step closer to falling into a porn addiction.
5. Social Media
If you have a daughter over 12 years old, chances are she’s on social media.
Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.) have a good side and a dark side. Unfortunately, there’s not a large chasm separating the two.
I have personally, and unintentionally, stumbled across nude and highly provocative images on several of these platforms. I was innocently going about my normal business, clicked on an innocent hashtag, and wham. I was shocked.
If you think all social media sites are safe, think again. It’s extremely easy to stumble across sensual, sexualized and even nude images. All it takes for your daughter is a little exposure to create an instant curiosity and appetite for more.
By seeing these unhealthy images on a regular basis, your daughter is unknowingly taught that it’s normal to see naked/half-naked people. And if she’s “accidentally” exposed to heavy porn one day, she will have been well groomed to receive it.
Living in a raunchy, sensual, and over sexualized culture isn’t easy. Especially for those who are trying to raise children.
I hope you can see that it’s not just the “biggies” that you need to be concerned about for your daughter, but all of the many little things that groom her appetite every day. If your daughter has a personal cell phone with Internet access, that’s most likely where most of her unhealthy sexual exposure will come from. And before you write off you daughter as being “smarter than that” or “wise enough to make good choices,” check these out:
- “In a 2010 national survey, over a quarter of 16 to 17 year olds said they were exposed to nudity online when they did not want to see it. In addition 20% of 16-year-olds and 30% of 17-year-olds have received a ‘sext’ (a sexually explicit text message).”*
- “After an analysis of more than one million hits to Google’s mobile search sites, more than 1 in 5 searches are for pornography on mobile devices.”*
- “More than 7 out of 10 teens hide their online behavior from their parents in some way.”*
So with all of this information in mind, what’s the solution? Hide your daughter in a box? Keep her away from all technology. Make her wear a blindfold? Probably not. The solution starts with your relationship with your daughter.
She needs you to guide her and protect her as you see appropriate for her age and season of life. She needs you to proactively set boundaries for her and lovingly hold her accountable. She needs you educate her on the dangers of porn and help her build a worldview that’s in alignment with God’s plan for sex. She needs your tough love to put your foot down and say, “no, you can’t watch that movie and here’s why.” These are some of the best ways you can help your daughter avoid getting groomed for porn.
I would love to hear from you now. Do you have a daughter or know someone who does? In what ways do you see the culture grooming her for porn? What solutions have you come up with to protect her from this sexual onslaught?
* Source: “Get the Latest Pornography Statistics”
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I know from experience that if you don’t talk about sex and associated topics appropriately with your children, they will be very curious and more likely to act on temptation. I grew up in a hyper religious home where sex was considered dirty and not discussed. Any questions were awkwardly answers or deferred and never revisited. As a teen my curiosity caused a lot of problems for me. I was always warned about how I dressed, not to wear makeup, not to date without marriage in mind, never be alone with a male, how to act so I wouldn’t give the wrong impression, etc. I was even heavily monitored when my high school taught sex ed. Trying to get along with my age mates while having such a narrow view of growing up and physical development was confusing to say the least. When I married my first husband I was not a virgin but after we were married i learned just how much I didn’t know. His sexual addictions plus my conservative upbringing led to a very unhealthy relationship for us both. We ended up divorced and I was convinced that I had lied to God when I took my marriage vows. I was told repeatedly I had no value seeing as I was ‘used goods’ and no one would ever love me or want me for anything other than sex. The next 12 years I lived my life as a thing. Still used and abused by my ex-husband. The one day I realized I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I raged at God that I was done with men. I was tired of living a double life. I gave up on love & men. Not long after that, I met my current husband and we have been married 7 years now. My point in sharing is to show that if we are so conservative that we refuse to teach our children accuratly about God’s intent and purpose for a marriage, sex, and judgment of others that we fail our children and leave them more susceptible to becoming jaded and used. They also need to be taught responsibility for making their own choices. As adults we need to be held accountable for what we teach and how we respond when we see anyone making secular choices. I made my choices based on a flawed understanding of what the Bible said on these topics. We are praying daily for increased understanding and wisdom to teach our sons accurately about these things. If they grow up and commit the same sins as I did, I have to answer to GOD for it. Now I am blessed to be in a Godly marriage with a much healthier view of love, sex and intimacy (which are different btw).
From the moment my daughter was born I have carefully crafted our relationship so that I would be the one she felt safe to come to for help and advice. No question went unanswered truthfully and honestly at any age. I started shaping the way a relationship should be between a man and a woman from a very early age explaining that sex was a lovely powerful thing that God, in his infinite wisdom and love for us, had created a rule that it was for the man you marry such was its power. Yesterday as we were in the grocery store and she asked if we could go look at an item I said jokingly “only if you tell me all your secrets”. She leaned forward and gave me this tight hug. I was taken by surprise but touched by this. Out of concern I whispered “I always listen, keep your secrets and not judge”. She replied “I know you will” I like to think that while I’ve messed up many things in my life, this was one thing I did right……
How did this happen? We went from an article about protecting young girls against porn, to a comment section about gender blame. This is wrong. We’ve lost the message here. Instead of discussing “who’s at fault” based on gender we should be discussing ways to save your children.
For example: when I was 16 I had an online boyfriend show me hentai, to “explain” it to me. It was cartoon porn. We were using Yahoo! Messenger. Perhaps this could have been avoided, perhaps not. If I had a stronger relationship with my Christian family — not one where my step-father thought “‘children should have a healthy fear of their parents'”, thereby causing me to believe I had to hide everything from him so I didn’t get found out and possibly hit by his fists, or spanked with a broom handle, all while he was angry — if I’d had a strong and actually healthy relationship with my Christian family then perhaps I would have understood the shame of seeing those images my online boyfriend shared, and trusted my parents enough to discuss it with them.
Instead, I let my online boyfriend influence me in the wrong way. And he turned out to be a liar in the end anyway.
I have a deadbeat father and I used to have a semi-abusive, egotistical, step-father. To all the moms and dads out there: I hope you love your daughters without hurting them. If you can do that, if you can give them a strength they can trust, the way Jesus/God would, perhaps they won’t seek a sexual pleasure because they’ll know there are wonders out there that can make them happy without dragging along guilt and shame that will horrify them later in life. I’m only 28 and the things I’ve done and gone through in life make it hard to just live and be happy. I don’t want that for your daughters. I want them to know the peace and infinite love God had for them, that’s greater than any earthly pleasure they might have, but that starts with YOU. The worse the relationship with their parents, the harder it is for them to understand a clean love that doesn’t take something from them, that doesn’t exact and exhaust their very soul. And that… missing a parents’ proper love and guidance, can lead to seeking out pleasured they’re not ready for. Because everyone wants to be happy.
Remember, even the wise King Solomon, wisest of all men, fell into sin. So your daughter can, too. Like this article said… she is vulnerable. She is exposed. And the devil is waiting, ready to patiently show her all these darker things, step by step, luring her with the so-called “promise” of pleasure, not telling her how horrible it will be later when she can’t forget the things that stole her innocence step by step, little by little. She won’t know until it’s too late. That’s how the devil works. Subtly…
I implore you. Protect your daughters (and sons) from porn. Please. Porn is not a person, it can’t feel or care about your daughter(s) and son(s). But you can care and you can protect them. Strengthen your relationship with them by talking with them, share and enjoy and celebrate the Bible and all the love and hope and wonder God and Jesus have in store for them. Rejoice in cleanliness, for God had made you clean. Share the Good News. And always pray. Do it now.
What dictionary are you quoting? Quoting something without referencing the source is plagiarism (which is an ironic ethics violation to find in an article about morality), and I just checked the main official dictionaries for the English language. None of them match your provided definition, which you outright admit comes from a single source by saying it’s from “the” dictionary.
As far as I can tell, you pulled from dictionary.com, which is an informal dictionary, but even so, you’ve plagiarized it. (It’s also not quite the same definition used by any of the official dictionaries.)
I also have to wonder if you’ve ever read the Song of Solomon, as by your definition (and others), it actually qualifies as pornographic, so by your own argument, that needs to be banned, too.
See how blaming things causes trouble?
That’s aside from the mirror imaging in assuming everyone processes material in the same way. Reading romance novels vicariously has to do with how the reader approaches the text, and lot of folks read them without it, where the point is seeing two folks have a happy resolution, not experiencing it themselves.
Different people have different stumbling blocks. Banning things, claiming X will necessarily cause Y (which, by the way, is also false witness), is just setting yourself up to be ignored later when the kid accidentally or intentionally experiences X without Y occurring.
If you’re seriously against X, presenting it as “X can lead to Y” is both more honest and less self-sabotaging.
In addition, your presentation of the sexualization of women’s bodies as how women end up with a taste for porn is saying females are innately aroused by the female body, i.e., you’re saying females are innately lesbian. I highly doubt you intended that.
My daughter became a believer in Jesus Christ at age 13. She is the one that curbed what we watched on TV YouTube e and other media’s. She is the one who is sensitive to the content and over the years has helped me be more sensitive to the hidden messages and the erotic that is all over our country in every facet of our culture today. Purity is hard to protect because my family has been going through the battle of protecting my daughter for years now and we are constantly challenged in our daily activities with images songs and videos of porn. Yes soft porn rules Hollywood. Mostly it has crossed over into straight porn in many films and their advertisements. What we see as normal family time television has gone off the hook. It isn’t about covering your eyes…..it’s about protecting your mind. Your mind is a sponge. What you see with your eyes goes in and circulates to your heart and all of your senses. It trickles down into your hidden emotions, your thought patterns and what triggers pain fear calm and what arouses. It’s a no brainier that if you see thousands of rape scenes on your favorite crime show then you see that ictim murdered afterwards you are going to end up with different senses attached to it depending on how it is presented. Was it presented as evil? Or erotic porn? The later creates a blood thirst and an addiction to porn. My daughter is the one that noticed that most of my favorite Clint Eastwood movies had rape scenes. It’s no accident. Wake up people. Your brain takes in whatever you let it. If you watch nothing but war what mental thoughts are going to be triggered in your life. If you watch murder you will become less and less moved or disturbed by it. If you are watching sex scene anfter sex scene oh and let me include listening to country music ( who’s lyrics are usually about sex) you are going to be next in line like lemmings like robots living and playing out the garbage you are fed. Wake up