Children are routinely exposed to porn. At school, on the school bus, the school camp, the sleepover at a friend’s house. It can happen at home too – and even when they aren’t searching for it, porn will find them. That’s the business model of the global porn industry – to build the next generation of consumers.
Despite a solid body of evidence now on the many ways early porn exposure harms our young people, the Federal Government has refused to implement a trial of an age verification system as one obstacle in the way of children being exposed. A pilot program was recommended by its own eSafety Commissioner – but the Government, which is supposed to care about its most vulnerable citizens – said no.
We don’t accept that. And we know the majority of Australian parents don’t either. We think our Government needs to hear the devastating stories of Australian parents whose children were exposed. Are you one of them? If so, please tell us:
- How did porn find your child?
- How was your child affected?
- What did it mean for you and your family?
We will get your stories to the Communications Minister Michelle Rowland and demand urgent action to protect our kids.
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Darling, innocent elementary school daugher loved Pokemon – she google searched Tracy West.
Tracey was the main writer of Scholastic’s Pokémon books from 1999-2006.
Of course, these images were infiltrated and then turned into pornographic filth.
I was SO angry when I discovered how insidious the internet can be even when filters are on – coz it managed to find it’s disgusting way through to her 7yr old beautiful (but now blemished by unnecessary filth) eyes.
The blessing was she experienced my appalled reaction, heard me speaking out loud and stridently about this incident and was mortified but determined not to be caught out again and agreed to turn off whatever came up which was not appropriate.
Praise the Lord!
However, many children do not have such watchful, alert parents who have the time to monitor every single moment of their young child’s life…..
And then the cycle of pornographic addiction begins….
This IS WHY an Age Verification System is SO necessary.
Sadly and embarrassingly, I was a child abuse detective with over 8 years experience in this space at the time.
I had conversations with my daughter previous to this incident. She knew what porn was and I thought I had covered all bases with her potential exposure and to keep her safe. Unfortunately, she still managed to see it due to the lack of age verification on pornography sites.
One day, she came into my bedroom as I was folding washing and said… ‘Mum, I need you to sit down’.
As a child abuse detective, my brain went to the worse case scenario, that she had been sexually abused. However, thankfully that was not the case, but she was still about to break my heart all the same.
She said, ‘Mum, I googled Sex and I saw porn and it’s making me feel yucky in my stomach and I can’t stop seeing the man doing that to the lady, why was he like that with her’.
I was heart-broken that despite me doing MORE than the average parent does for their child when it comes to talking about and protecting their child from exposure to pornography, she was still exposed and it left her upset and confused.
I am not going to lie, I felt so upset with myself. I should have done more but it turned out that because she had been having her ‘sex’ and puberty education at school at the time, it had left her curious. Hence the google search.
My job had enabled me to know what early exposure to porn does to children. How it affects the brain, how it can leave children with flashbacks and sometimes causes sleep regression with them seeing the scene as they try to sleep. It can also cause children to be traumatised.
Depending on the porn, it can also be a reason for children to start engaging in Harmful Sexualised Behaviours, as I had seen in my job. Especially if they are left without help, support and explanations from a safe adult.
Thankfully, my daughter came to me pretty much straight away. She told me what she had seen (a women giving oral sex, a man having penal/vaginal sex in multiple positions) and that it was only for a few minutes.
Because she felt safe to tell me, I was able to talk her through and explain what she had seen. I was able to control the narrative and help her young brain understand what she had seen with little repercussions (thankfully).
But only because we talked it through and she felt safe to do so.
However, as a result, I went on a journey of trying to better protect her device to ensure she never ‘accidentally’ saw porn. I downloaded and trialled many 3rd party protective/blocking apps but was able to bypass and override all of them.
In fact, with one of these apps running and apparently blocking inappropriate and dangerous content, I was able to view a video of a man engaging in sexual acts with a goat (to completion) on YouTube.
The video hadn’t even come up with the ‘sex’ search on the platform and came up under a completely different search name.
I reported it immediately to the platform but that video still runs rent free in my head and I cringe imagining if a child or young person had seen that.
Even with all my experience, all my knowledge, all my protective measures and the amazing relationship I have with my daughter, I was still UNABLE to stop her from being exposed to pornography at a TOO young age.
I worry about all of the little Australian children without help, support and communication and how they must be dealing with it or NOT dealing with the absolutely inappropriate crap floating around on the internet.
What I know from my experience investigation child sexual abuse is that early exposure to pornography is enabling the over sexualisation of our children and its grooming our children for abuse.
In fact, in my time as a police officer, I saw groomers use porn as a way to normalise sex with adults and ‘clear’ the way for abuse.
I am a highly intelligent and motivated parent due to my experience and position in the community but not every parent has that motivation, nor that education and there are children at risk of exposure when it should simply not happen.
It’s WAY past time for easy measures like ‘age verification’ and if our government doesn’t stop the tsunami of early exposure, than we are going to be seeing another few generations of kids being victims of child sexual abuse.
Today, I am very careful with my own child who still at age 13 is not continuously exposed to mainstream media as we are blessed to homeschool thus we don’t have a tv nor does she play video games or read mainstream media of any source although she knows what it is. She has no social media but a huge social life!
She’s a very healthy and friendly 13 year old who is now enrolled in community college but she is not allowed a cell phone until she is 16. I am certain she will be exposed soon but I prepared her and if she does see something she tells me and we discuss it. We can talk about it. It not normalized to her like in so many other kids, adults. I can’t protect her forever, but I have been quite vigilant even telling her grandmother to stop displaying Vogue and Elle magazines, as I felt demeaning, not empowering to woman. Besides billboards in places like LA, London, and Paris, my daughters been fairly protected by me but that’s because I’m a literal watchdog, careful about friends and places she goes, but I can’t do this forever! I do think I kept her from being DESENSITIZED … which to me is the unspoken agenda. Recently we watched the film Avatar and she loved it except the sex scenes which I did not read about in reviews and it was completely unnecessary. I’m an uncommon parent I know, my daughter stands out and is amazing, people comment daily and I think a big part of it is that she is not exposed to what I call everyday pornography… that would include music pornography—Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Cardi B; commercial pornography (the Super-bowl is the worst); internet porno including Tick Tock and YouTube. She’s read every Shakespeare and is a huge fan of classic literature from
Steinbeck to Jane Austen.
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Also just the other day I caught a nephew with his mate in the spare room watching pornography on their phones. They are 9 yrs old. We managed to have a chat about same but it seems it’s quite common within the primary schools. My concern is for the image of young girls and future relationships. After having a beauty salon for 10yrs 8 can tell you about the ongoing problems with women and girls regarding body image…..
I certainly think an age limit should be put on pornography.
Thank you
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One picture was of a kitten
When she clicked on the picture to enlarge it porn came up.
Thankfully i was sitting next to her.
She practically threw the laptop at me in horror.
How disgusting that there are adults on the web deliberately linking porn to animal pictures to target children
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“I saw a guy jacking off on the phone.”
She repeated the exact same sentence three times.
She woke up 7 or 8 times that night in a state of distress. This distress continued for months. Despite this, the child protection services immediately closed the case and offered my grandchild no protection.
My daughter fought for two years for her daughter to see doctors and try to resolve why a two year old would say this.
It has devastated our family. My husband and I moved to be with our grandchildren to help our granddaughter to heal. We live in Canada and have had almost no support from the systems in place whose sole purpose is to protect children.
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His neighbours also showed him porn at the same age.
In year 6 my daughter reported boys discussing openly their porn watching habits and sexual fantasies about their teacher.
I was very proactive in discussing pornography with my kids at a young age – I started with my son at age 9 and kept up a dialogue with both children in the following years.
When my son was 9 the average age of kids being exposed to porn was 11. I think it’s now 8.
He chose not to watch porn after discussing how it hijacks healthy developing sexuality. He was considered abnormal by his high school peers who asked him incredulously what he masturbated to. He replied ‘my big brain’. He wears his Porn Kills Love tshirt at college and posted it his instagram account.
I purchased a program on sexuality by an Australian sexologist that is very comprehensive and set it up on our family laptop for any questions they might have if they can’t ask me.
I felt that since I could not control what my children were exposed to in my absence, I instead tried to discuss and influence the way they perceived things. It has worked out very well for us but I am aghast at how many parents are not having these conversations.
How many kids are learning about sex through porn.
Since that is the case we definitely need a more responsible approach to age verification. It is a huge problem in our schools. Kids are showing these things to other kids on the bus.
Thankyou for the work you do ♥️ Sincerely, Amy Ivey
More than one of my children was exposed to pornography at a young age- and not with permission/consent of myself or themself.
The first instance is my son in Grade 5, whose friend with an iPod showed him immoral female porn of adult women and introduced him to ideas and concepts which he was too young to handle, control and ask about. He also showed him how to access it himself. He was wrongly given the impression that porn was common and that relationships aren’t part of sex. Some of these videos were violent and all were degrading. He was only in Year 5.
How was your child affected?
He became unable to view women and girls are friends. He couldn’t hug his mother. He hid his actions in shame. He made degrading, sexual and inappropriate comments and actions towards other children as he matured which did not value or respect them. The same happens to my daughter in Year 4 through her iPod- targeted ads from music.
They both independently developed a sexual addiction. Both were deeply unhappy. Both struggled with self worth and relationships. Both learnt to lie and remove -isolate themselves from others. They couldn’t reconcile normal human relationships with what they had seen and began to mistrust adults.
What did it mean for you and your family?
It meant we had to spend a lot of time and money helping my son overcome his addiction and lead a normal life. His behaviour affected his younger brother too. We had to help him sort through failed relationships.
My daughter was abused online and taken Advantage of.
She ran away from home age 16 and makes no contact with her family. We lost a daughter! This was after years of struggling with self esteem and social inadequacy. It stems back to what she experienced daily online- despite our safe guards!
Our family is broken and we feel rejected as parents. Her education and future life is affected. We can no longer guide her and only hope she will be ok.