“Affection is being lost”, due to exposure to pornographic content
Pornography ‘is completely transforming’ relationships between young people, warns president of the National Commission for the Protection of Children and Young People Rosáro Farmhouse.
In an interview with the Lusa news agency to take stock of her seven year tenure of the entity known as the CNPDPCJ, Ms Farmhouse warned of the impact on children and young people of exposure to pornographic content online.
It “is completely transforming relationships between teenagers because, when they start to reach puberty, the example they have is based on content they have seen that is inappropriate for their age”, she explains.
What this boils down to is that “affective relationships are being lost and teenagers are experiencing “serious problems with initiating their (sex) life.
“They don’t know how to start because they want to replicate what they’ve seen, because they think that what they’ve seen should be the model” when obviously it should not, as it involves subjugation and often violence.
Rosário Farmhouse said some teenagers “end up getting into relationships they don’t want because they think it’s normal.
“They feel violated. Many girls complain about it. Boys feel enormous frustration at not being able to respond, and all because they haven’t had any training and because they haven’t realised that there’s a whole path to follow before they can do what they want with their bodies”.
There is still no data on this reality in Portugal. The most recent studies are based on experiences in Australia and the UK.
The Council of Europe is trying to develop material to help countries deal with these ‘new challenges’ so that there can be age-appropriate sex education for all children.
Ms Farmhouse told Lusa that the Council of Europe is trying to reach a consensus with the 46 member states, creating “structuring documents that allow children to grow up healthily in all environments.
“It’s one of the biggest challenges at the moment”, she pointed out, stressing that the issue is related to parents’ lack of digital skills and supervision (of what their children are accessing online)
For Rosário Farmhouse, the only way to counteract this phenomenon is with “very close education”.
Children with digital skills can learn not only the benefits but also the dangers of the internet, she said – as well as the precautions to be taken when accessing certain content. Training in this area should also be extended to parents and/ or guardians.
“Only with this education can we protect, because we are facing a world that has no borders, that no longer has any way of stopping anything. Either we can get there through education or we’ll all be unprotected”, she said.
Regarding sex education in schools, the president of the commission believes that the content has to be age-appropriate – and prepared by people who know how to talk about the subject.
Alongside sex education, she stressed that intercultural education is “absolutely fundamental”, pointing out that schools are increasingly “plural and diverse”.
“We have to teach them to live together. Respect for others, not generalising, not judging before knowing, celebrating differences is fundamental – and schools that manage to take advantage of the opportunity of diversity are schools where everyone wins,’ she said.
Source material: LUSA
