Answer

Impacts of Pornography on Children

Introduction

Pornography refers to the depiction of an erotic behavior including display of sexual practices in pictures or writing with an intention to cause sexual excitement in the targeted audience (Short, 2012). Notably, infiltration of pornographic materials into the public domain have tremendously increased over the past decade thereby increasing the accessibility of pornography to both children and adults. Indeed, the growth of mainstream pornography is attributed to the fact that the pornographic materials have not only been made more accessible but are also affordable, and anonymous.  The accessibility of pornographic materials is underpinned by the use of Internet by both children and adults thereby making pornography to be a few keystrokes away on the Internet (Ross, Månsson, & Daneback, 2012).  Similarly, the affordability of pornographic materials is also attributed to the Internet use whereby online sites seek to lure viewers to their websites by offering free pornography. Indeed, by offering free pornographic materials, the consumption of pornography among the children population is underpinned by the ease with which such materials can be accessed at a lower or no cost. For instance, some websites simply post third party videos and allow access to such materials without charging the viewer for web traffic. Also, another aspect that has significantly promoted the growth of consumption of pornography among both children and adult populations is the fact that pornography is anonymous as it can be viewed in the privacy of an individual’s home (Ross, Månsson, & Daneback, 2012). This way, children can easily view pornography in their private rooms or through their mobile phones without their parents noticing as there is no longer the need to visit the local XXX Theater or an adult book store. This essay seeks to explore the impact of pornography on children by holding the thesis that consumption of pornography by children negatively impacts on children emotionally, psychologically, as well as physically.

Argument to Prove the Thesis Statement

Consumption of pornography by children negatively impacts on children emotionally, psychologically, as well as physically by increasing the rates of anxiety, depression, acting out and violent behavior as well as younger age of sexual debut among children (Horvath, 2013). Moreover, pornography also affects children negatively by increasing the risk of teen pregnancy and sexual promiscuity as well as distorting the children's view of the relationship between men and women. It is also important to note that the impact of pornography on adult parents, including increased likelihood of divorce, directly impacts negatively on the children's physical, emotional, and psychological wellness (Shumway, & Daines, 2012). Indeed, consumption of pornography by children puts such children at risk of developing a range of maladaptive behaviors and psychopathology. For instance, children exposed to pornography are at risk of experiencing all symptoms associated with anxiety and depression. Such children are more likely to adopt maladaptive behaviors including being obsessed with acting out the sexual acts displayed in the pornographic material that they have seen Horvath, 2013). The result of this would include sexual harassment of peers by such children thereby not only being disruptive but also disturbing to the child’s peers victimized by this behavior.

Children exposed to pornographic materials are more likely to develop violent and sexually aggressive attitudes towards members of the opposite sex. Indeed, male children who consume pornography tend to contextualize what they see in such sexual displays thereby adopting the rape myth ideology that holds women as not only the sole cause of rape but also as actually enjoying rape or sexual assault (Foubert,  Brosi, & Bannon, 2011). This kind of attitude would lead to increased sexual offenses among the children population leading to their arrests and subsequent prosecution and imprisonment that will not only affect their emotional wellbeing but also their psychological and physical wellness as they serve their jail terms (Diamond, Jozifkova, & Weiss, 2011). Evidence from past studies posits that exposure of children to violent pornography induces sexually aggressive behaviors in both adults and adolescent populations. For instance, pornographic movies commonly portray verbal and physical aggression of males against the females besides displaying acts that are overtly degrading to women. This characteristic feature of pornographic materials influences the male children to believe that it is normal and a form of masculinity to be verbally and physically aggressive with females during sexual intercourse and therefore, the children grow into adulthood with a degrading attitude towards the females (Arakawa, Flanders, & Hatfield, 2012). Moreover, exposure of children to pornography increases their likelihood of having more than one sexual partner thereby putting them more at risk of acquiring sexually transmitted infections such as HIV/AIDS thereby negatively impacting their physical, emotional and psychological health by inducing more anxiety and depression. Besides, such children are more likely to get into drugs and alcohol use during sexual activity. This problem is underpinned by the influence on such children to act out like the pornographic superstar in the pornographic movies they had watched thereby striving to achieve the same performance during their sexual activities (Arakawa, Flanders, & Hatfield, 2012). As a result of this desire, such children seek out for aphrodisiac substances leading to drug and alcohol abuse. It is also important to note that pornography influences the children psychologically by tuning their mindsets towards sex as demonstrated by the increased incidences of teenage sexting whereby the child sends sexually explicit images, photos, text messages as well as emails through mobile devices (Mitchell, Finkelhor, Jones, & Wolak, 2012). This psychological influence on children presents several negative effects on children including a decrease in brain capacity of the affected child leading to poor academic performance that ultimately induces more anxiety and depression among children. For instance, prolonged exposure to internet pornography results in addiction among children that affects the brain by decreasing left striatum activation, decreasing brain volume in the right striatum as well as lowering functional connectivity to the prefrontal cortex. Indeed, according to research evidence, high consumption of pornography may lead to smaller gray matter volume in the viewers besides down-regulating the brain's response to the erotic material (Kühn, & Gallinat, 2014). Therefore, it is evidently clear that consumption of pornography by children will adversely affect their brain capacity and reduce their academic performance.

Moreover, for the female children, exposure to pornography increases the likelihood of such children to undergo sexual manipulation by a male partner in future.  For instance, according to research evidence, most females consider anal sex unpleasant but after exposure to pornography, the females are increasingly participating in anal sex (Hald, Malamuth, & Lange, 2013). It is also worth noting that normalization of pornography in the society makes the society more hypersexualized thereby increasing the demand for sex trafficked children that significantly impact on the trafficked children emotionally, psychologically and physically as such children feel detached from their families, abused and rendered useless (Thabet, 2011). Besides, adolescents and young adults exposed to pornography are more likely to develop a distorted view of sexuality thereby missing the point about the role of sexuality in fostering healthy personal relationships. For instance, by watching pornographic movies, children overestimate the prevalence of sexual activity within their community and tends to normalize sexual promiscuity besides adopting the belief that sexual abstinence is unhealthy (Hald, Malamuth, & Lange, 2013). Consequently, such children will find it more difficult to form meaningful and lasting relationships with the opposite sex. This will ultimately induce more anxiety, depression, and overall life dissatisfaction. Moreover, pornography negatively impacts the marriages and long-term cohabitating couples by increasing the vulnerability of union to divorce or dissolution that in turn negatively affects the child emotionally, psychologically as well as physically. For instance, consumption of pornography in the marriage context is common among husbands with their wives being occasional co-participants (Shumway, & Daines, 2012). It is important to note that the use of pornography by men induces a feeling of betrayal among their female partners who perceive pornography as sexual objectification of women. Besides, exposure of women to pornography induces a feeling of inadequacy, low self-esteem among the women as well as making them feel sexually undesirable. These feelings, coupled with the negative perception of women on the husbands using pornography result in a lower rating of the relationship, in general, leading to poor overall sexual satisfaction by the woman due to the tendency of male pornography viewers to fantasize the pornographic world over actual sexual activity (Doran, & Price, 2014). Consequently, such marriages become shaky leading to dissolution or divorce that in turn negatively impacts the children involved emotionally, psychologically as well as physically by inducing more anxiety and stress in the children affected.

Conclusion

The growth of mainstream pornography is attributed to the fact that the pornographic materials have not only been made more accessible but are also affordable, and anonymous. This has encouraged the consumption of pornography by children. However, pornography negatively impacts on children emotionally, psychologically, as well as physically by increasing the rates of anxiety, depression, acting out and violent behavior as well as younger age of sexual debut among children. Indeed, consumption of pornography by children puts such children at risk of developing a range of maladaptive behaviors and psychopathology. Therefore, pornographic materials should not be used to teach children about sexuality.