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Lies and secrecy are at the core of pornography addiction, said members of a community summit.
More than 100 people gathered at BYU on Saturday morning for the first annual Communities for Decency Technology Summit. The conference focused on teaching parents to understand how to use technology to control access to Internet pornography and protect children from exposure and potential addiction.
"Don't be afraid to set rules and control access and get involved," said Davis County prosecutor Troy Rawlings. "Don't be afraid as a parent or as a spouse or as a student with roommates."
Exposure to pornography causes a paradigm shift in the viewer, and can affect the mental development of youth, he said.
"I'm convinced this problem is huge, and we have to begin to deal with it," he said.
Rawlings talked of his experience in recent months prosecuting 28 kids, mostly between the ages of nine and 13, from nine different schools who were creating and distributing, using cell phones, nude and sometimes sexually positioned photos of themselves.
What the kids didn't realize is that once such an image is distributed, it does not go away.
"They lose control of where that image of them in a sexual position goes in the electronic world," he said.
One of the most disturbing parts of the investigation was that boys were pitting girls against each other, telling one girl that another had sent them a nude photo via cell phone, instructing a second or more girls that they too had better send photos.
Keynote speaker Fraser Bullock, who was CFO of the 2002 Winter Olympics and is founder of Citizens Against Pornography, said parents should keep computers with Internet access only in the kitchen, "where everyone can see, never hidden in a room. I can't think of a bigger threat to youth than pornography."
Exposure as a youth leads to adults who are "sexually promiscuous with multiple partners," he said.
Bullock said he was a bishop in the LDS Church when the Internet first came to prominence. Before long, youth who had viewed pornography began coming to see him.
"I was foolish enough that I would try to counsel them out of it," he said.
He has since learned that intervening early with professional counseling for the youth is the best start, he said. "Without that, in my opinion, it is virtually impossible to conquer," he said.
Parents who have both the Internet and youth in their home probably have a pornography problem on their hands, whether they have yet discovered the problem or not, he said. "It is the hidden plague," he said.
Several speakers said parents have to be very careful in addressing the issue with their children.
"We tell our children that sex is wrong and sinful and bad -- save it for someone you love," he said. "Instead, we need to talk about sex as an important part of life."
Parents must teach that while sexual desire is natural, control is necessary, he said.
"If it is abused, it can destroy your life," he said. "It can be a problem throughout life."
Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, who has also worked as a police officer and forensic sex crimes investigator, said pornography is at the root of many crimes, "and the media seems to cover it up .... I have never arrested someone for child molestation who has not had pornography as a part of their life. Secrecy and lies are the core of this issue." |
