Porn: An Update
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Porn: An Update
Porn is one of the biggest issues kids and teens deal with, and last fall I dedicated two Worth Your Time emails to it (which are available here and here). Next week, I’m going to share an excellent podcast that discusses the combination of porn and AI, both where it’s currently at and where it’s quickly heading. This week, I’m sharing a “boots on the ground” update as well as a few other insights.
Two of the saddest stories this year involved preteen girls in Christian schools. After chapel one Friday, a very brave 6th grade girl asked for help with her smartphone porn addiction, even though the topic wasn’t brought up at all that week. During the conversation, she remarked sadly, “I just never thought this would happen.”
The other incident involved a 5th grade girl who opened up to one of our female team members about her experience being sexually harassed by boys in her class. This is hard to read, but it’s important for adults to know that kids can be impacted by porn even when they’re not the ones looking at it. Our team member recounted the conversation this way: “A sweet ten-year-old nervously approached me after hearing one of my answers during Q&A. She wanted to talk. She got really nervous. She said that she didn’t like how the boys in her class treated her. After lots of pauses and frazzled mumbles she shared that she was sent some inappropriate things. The boys sent her a link and she opened it when she got home. She was expecting something silly, but it was not. It was pornography. She quickly shut it off, but it left her feeling extremely nervous and uncomfortable. The next day the boys wanted to know what she thought about it. They wanted her reaction. Her mother later found it and helped her clear it away but the whole experience really upset her. After more conversation, tears, and mumbles, she confessed that the boys also made inappropriate jokes. They had this game where they’d lift up her chin and joke about putting their private parts in her mouth. Unfortunately, there was more. Aside from the links and jokes, they decided to try things out themselves. One day when she was innocently dancing, a boy grabbed and smacked her butt, catching her totally off guard…. Her story contained all this and more. We talked for hours about the things on her heart. All she kept saying was, ‘It’s just too much.’ She felt so overwhelmed.” Since these 5th grade boys can talk about it and share it with each other and with an unwilling female classmate, it's clear that porn has become normalized among them. It’s also leading to unacceptable behaviors at the age of TEN – behaviors that will get them fired as adults.
At camp this summer, an incoming 8th grade guy (who attends public school and is raised in a Catholic family) brought the topic up and sincerely asked whether porn is wrong, whether it’s a sin, why it’s a sin, and how big of a sin it is (“Worse than fighting? Worse than something else?”). Again, it’s been so normalized that he genuinely wasn’t sure that it’s wrong, and there was no consideration of short-term or long-term consequences. This is the environment in which young men and women are growing up.
There were also several incidents in the news this winter and spring involving “deepnudes,” also known as “undressing” or “nudify” apps/websites. These often-free apps/websites allow a user to upload a photo and “undress” the person in the photo using AI. The stories that make the news typically involve teenage guys using the apps on photos of girls in their school and then sharing them and somehow getting caught. As a teacher said to me, “So even if someone doesn't send a naked photo, they can be undressed from the software and then posted or saved by someone else.” When the photos get shared around, the innocent victim is publicly humiliated. Young people, including middle schoolers in Christian schools, have voluntarily sent nudes for many years, but now AI-generated nudes of them can be shared against their will. ANY young person can now be a victim of AI-generated porn.
Finally, I heard this insightful comment this year: “Sexting (sending nudes) is the new first base.” It’s not uncommon for teens to exchange nudes before a relationship begins.
All of this should disturb us; however, where porn is going with AI is equally or even more disturbing. I highly encourage everyone to look out for next Friday’s Worth Your Time email and listen to the podcast I’ll recommend. This issue is not going away, and adults need to be aware and proactive in helping kids and teens navigate this minefield. Awareness of the seriousness and depth of the problem is the first step. Next week’s podcast is a chance to get slightly ahead of the curve.
“27%, if you look at the unfiltered internet, 27% of all video content on the unfiltered internet is pornographic or explicit in some way. If I imagine every day growing up, there was a coffee table in my living room and there were four magazines on that coffee table, one of them was pornographic and three of them weren’t, and my parents just hoped every day that I didn’t look at the wrong one. That is what the unfiltered internet is for kids today. We have put little boxes of porn in their pockets, under the guise of safety, under the guise of over-protection, under the guise that I have to get in touch with my kid all the time, every day 24/7. We have given them access to pornography that far exceeds anything that we ever were exposed to." - Chris McKenna in the 2020 “Childhood 2.0” documentary