Posted on 03/05/2013 5:29:55 AM PST by IbJensen
LONDON, March 4, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pornography and depictions of sexuality have turned more than 4,500 British children – some of them as young as five – into sexual offenders, according to a UK-based child welfare charity.
A Freedom of Information Act request showed that 4,562 minors – 98 percent of them boys – committed 5,028 sexual offenses over a three year period, from 2009-2012.
Three separate police forces reported five-year-olds committing sexual offenses.
However, the London Telegraph reports, “the true figure” of total offenders “could be even higher as nine forces, including the three largest – the Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester Police and West Midlands Police – could not provide the relevant figures.”
Twenty percent of cases reported involved a family member. In another third, a family friend was victimized.
“We know that technology and easy access to sexual material is warping young people’s views of what is ‘normal’ or acceptable behavior,” said Claire Lilley, policy adviser at The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).
The report's content, though specific to Great Britain, contains universal truths.
“Child-on-child sex abuse and rape is a growing problem in every culture where pornography flourishes,” Patrick Trueman, a former federal prosecutor in the Reagan administration and president of Morality In Media, told LifeSiteNews.com.
“Children act out what they see. If they see acts of love and charity, they will mimic those,” Trueman said. “But when they see sexual violence, domination, rape, and other similar acts so commonly depicted in modern-day pornography, as today's children do, they will act out those, as well.”
The British report joins an accumulating mound of heartwrenching stories showing how pornography has permanently scarred children around the world – both the victims and the perpetrators.
In the Australian state of Victoria alone, 414 minors were referred for sexual offenses to the Centres Against Sexual Assault (CASA) last year. Just more than half could be placed in rehabilitation programs.
Therapists continually cite the role access to pornography and sexually explicit television scenarios play in sexualizing children and, in some cases, triggering them to exploit others.
Child therapist John Woods of London reported a case of a 13-year-old boy who raped his five-year-old sister after developing a “complex fantasy world” warped by “two years of constant porn use.”
Similar reports come from North America.
In Canada, a 13-year-old boy said his gay porn consumption led to his repeated rape of a four-year-old boy who lived in his foster home.
The omnipresent flickers of porn have caused alarm at the highest levels of European government.
A cross-party report from the British parliament found most boys learned about sex by watching pornography, an influence that “negated the primacy of relationships whilst promoting a self-centered focus of sex.”
That influence magnifies anti-social behavior. A 2010 study from Australia's La Trobe University found boys who watch porn are more likely to harass girls. Nearly one-third of British girls aged 16-18 said they experienced unwanted sexual touching in a 2010 YouGov poll.
“We must do more to shield young people from an increasingly sexualized society,” Lilley said.
As a result of cases such as these, Iceland is considering banning pornography because of the harm it inflicts on women and children.
The move touched off fierce debate in the UK. This report elevates that discussion to a new importance.
“The world is suffering an untreated pandemic of harm from pornography and children are suffering the most,” Trueman told LifeSiteNews.
A Clockwork Orange in your computer.
Without government filtering, overseas websites will still be accessible here. Bandwidth is so cheap that they offer full movies completely free with no payment or age verification. They make all their money from ad revenue and these free porn sites are consistently some of the most viewed sites on the net.
Even if you somehow banned all the websites in the world, people will continue to privately trade files forever and ever more anonymously. The horse left the barn long ago with the creation of the global internet.
The only solution is to encourage parents to actually watch what their kids are looking at online and have a real talk to them about porn. More legislation will do NOTHING but make things worse.
Trouble is, a lot of parents are stupid enough to let their kids have computers and smartphones in their rooms. Computers need to be password protected and in a downstairs room and they should only have basic model phones for texting and calling.
and likely also turned millions into victims too
How many people can’t say “no” to their child?
As someone who has been addicted to porn myself, I recognize the harm it can do; however, I have to disagree with the article:
“But when they see sexual violence, domination, rape, and other similar acts so commonly depicted in modern-day pornography, as today’s children do, they will act out those, as well”
I can honestly say, in all the years I had an addiction, I never saw any of this sexual violence, rape, etc. Anything out of the ordinary you have to seek out. I think anyone viewing and getting off on rape was probably already sick and didn’t just become violent by looking at niche porn. Kind of a chicken/egg argument.
Porn causes a lot of problems, but for the millions of people that look at it and are not rapists or have any disire to rape or view rape, blaming porn on this is not helpful to the argument that it has its evils.
...and I kept hearing that porn is a ‘victimless’ crime.
You may have not been looking on those specific websites. But please don’t go searching now.
It’s no different than blaming video games, movies, or the gun itself for violence. No one is willing to blame the underlying idiocy required to allow such things to come to pass.
I’m not saying the websites don’t exist. I know they exist. I am saying that 99.99% of people who view porn never rape anyone, don’t watch porn depicting rape, and don’t have a desire to do so. My argument is to blame porn for the real problems it causes with families and relationships, not for problems the vast majority of people don’t have and can’t relate to.
porn did no such thing.
The truth is Britain is being flooded by radial Muslims who ENCOURAGE their kids to rape the infidels in their mosques and madrases
Years ago a politician claimed that porn magazines sold in the base exchanges was causing sexual assaults in the military. Well, all magazines were banned decades ago and the sexual assaults have gone thru the roof.
I agree with you in that you do have to look for all the sicko stuff and if you do you have other issues besides being a pornaholic.
radial Michelins.
The mooselimbs would be hard pressed to find infidels in their mosques and madrases.
Stop picking on our muslim brothers. They like a little variety in their bland sex life. Humping camels can get a bit monotonous.
That's true because I was stupid enough to do that. Even my kid's hand held games had access to the internet.
I think if anyone could come up with a filter for wireless so the whole house was covered by a net filter, they'd become instant millionaires.
I smell rats here. The entire argument is based on the definition of “sex offenses”, which in Britain have been reduced to any not just sexual offense, but *gender* offense. Hopelessly politically correct.
Without permission, a young girl hugs a classmate. A sexual offense. A five year old boy tells a five year old girl that she is “cute”, which is clearly “gender harassment”, a sexual offense. Boys don’t invite girls to play ball, a blatant sex offense.
All attributable to pornography, mind you.
The original article, in The Telegraph, is hopelessly nebulous. (emphasis mine)
“The children *may* have seen pornography...”
“...shared a bedroom with teenagers and witnessed inappropriate behaviour, or could have been allowed in a room while parents were watching sex scenes on the television.”
This is crap journalism.
What about these wierdos who tire of watching people engaged in sexual intercourse with young girls and those who grow tired of watching homosexual sex acts. Then they migrate into chat rooms with their skulls full of fantasy and strike up internet relationships with young and stupid children.
There are problems other than those caused within families by gorging on internet porn. It’s quite easy for one’s mind to wander from internet lust to other sinful sexual outlets.
It’s the same thing in the military. They changed the definition of what is considered sexual assaults so all the soldiers look like a bunch of rapists.
Neither liberals nor many conservative libertarians will like this. It is true that without gov. control of the Internet it may not be stopped, and it is the work of the NT type church to bring souls to be controlled from within, so that they need not be controlled from without, but for those who will not be governed by God and conscience, harsh penalties should be meted out to those who publish porn, and esteem of modesty be what is manifest.
But the perhaps they will think the first lady in beach clothing would get more approval ratings.
Should take the typical leftist approach, and just start referring to it as “Big Porn.”
Very good point.
I can remember one of the first ‘men’ to go on the new sex offenders register here in Scotland. A 17 yr old boy who had (very willing) sex with a 15 year old girl. The age of consent here is 16. The boy broke the law, but the idea that this lad was/is a ‘dangerous sex offender’ is ridiculous.
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