22 9, August, 2020 C omment catholicweekly.com.au Belling the cat of Big Porn T he last tab that opened in my brows- er was a .gif file (an animated image) of a woman lifting her shirt and showing off her wares. I was looking up video tutorials on inserting a calendar in a OneNote notebook as I set up dates and events for my wed- ding and honeymoon. The .gif file popped up once I clicked on a top google search result. I wasn’t looking for pornography. Yet, there it was – unsolicited and on my browser. Pornography came into my house that night. It was unwelcome, unsolicited, and it was because of some person or some company. I didn’t give consent to have it on my screen. Yet there it was. There are two recurring arguments on the pro-por- nography side of things that might be paraphrased this way: • Don’t like pornography? Then don’t watch it. • What’s the big deal? There’s an age limit for those aged 18 and over. These arguments hinge on consent: turn it off, and one doesn’t consent. Likewise, the age restrictions are there to prevent those who think they can consent, but aren’t ma- ture enough, from consenting. Let’s examine this scenar- io a little differently. Imagine a boy between the age of eight and 11 (which is the average age of pornography exposure in the US) sees that looping .gif of a woman exposing her- self. It’s his first exposure to pornography. The child didn’t seek it out, nor did he consent to it being on his screen. If we’re honest with our- selves, no one in their right mind can say that an eight or 11-year-old has the matu- rity to consent to the view- ing of pornography. Yet, that boy has just been forced into viewing pornography. Keep in mind that acci- dental viewing is what, in one study titled Age and Experi- ence of First Exposure to Por- nography: Relations to Mas- culine Norms and presented at the 125th Annual Conven- tions of the American Psy- chological Association, 43.5 per cent of men said was their first exposure to pornography. An additional 17.2 per cent listed forced exposure as their first experience. What if we changed the industry that was forcing it- self into the home, badgering residents to try a free sample of their product? What if big One major US study reports 42 per cent of male respondents first encounter porn online between the ages of eight to eleven. PHOTO: FREEPIK.COM Wedon’t allowbig tobaccoormajorbreweries topromote theirwares toour children ... tobacco entered a house, un- announced, unexpected, un- solicited, and unwanted, and stuck a cigarette into a child’s mouth and suggested they take a drag or two? It would make front-page news and there would be outrage. Likewise, if a major brewer of beer did the same. The me- dia would discuss and debate the violations of rights and the autonomy of the household. But there’s little doubt there would be outrage over a child being offered cigarettes or beer by strangers while he is still developing both mentally and physically. Fortunately, some govern- ments have set up (admitted- ly imperfect) checks and bal- ances as best they can to help prevent big tobacco and big beer from doing such things. But substance use is different from internet pornography. You can’t get drunk look- ing at a can of beer, and if a 10-year-old tried to purchase beer or tobacco, he would be told to go home. The law helps protect the young who don’t comprehend the harm that will come from consum- ing alcohol at such an age. Yet, an industry is popping up based on filtering pornog- raphy and keeping it from sneaking into houses unex- pectedly because the govern- ment doesn’t see a problem. Even whole countries, Rus- sia being one, are banning some of the largest pornog- raphy sites, and according to fightthenewdrug.com , 15 US states have declared pornog- raphy a public health crisis since 2016. Most pornography falls under the protection of free speech in the US. Yet, we know that not all free speech is protected. For instance, sexual harassment and un- wanted sexual touching are not protected. The question must be asked: why isn’t unsolicited pornography, the kind de- scribed at the start of the arti- cle, a form of sexual assault or harassment? If an adult man or woman exposed them- selves in public to an under- age boy or even a noncon- senting adult, they would be guilty of several crimes. However, if it happens in video or .gif format, on a dig- ital screen then the culprits are given a free pass. To make matters even worse, Google Drive allows users to share folders with other users, but without parameters from the receiver’s end to prevent fold- ers from being shared - there- by opening users up to poten- tial entrapment. For instance, if a person shares a folder of underage pornography with a ran- dom Gmail address obtained during a website hack, Google has no settings to keep the re- ceiver safe from receiving the folder. An angry student bent on ruining a marriage or a career can simply drop a folder in his or her professor’s Google Drive and then call the police. The professor would be fin- ished in his or her profession. Even if found innocent the headlines would be damn- ing. What if it was the vice chancellor of a university or a minister who ends up being blackmailed because some- one dropped a folder into his drive? With the recent snafu on some pornography sites and social media sites which al- lowed for an underage girl to be seen engaging in sex with older men on their sites, there’s no surprise that the pornography and social me- dia industries don’t make protection of youth a priority. It is to the point that the only real way to defend one’s self is to remove one’s self from the internet altogether, which in today’s age is akin to asking someone in Australia to live without electricity. In the US, there is little rea- son to believe that pornogra- phy will disappear any time soon. In the meantime, could governments place stron- ger restrictions and regula- tions on pornography that are similar but also different from alcohol and tobacco on the grounds that substantial differences require different laws? Could they put tight restric- tions on internet pornogra- phy, mandating and a REAL ID for users and actors? Could they require the default posi- tion for all internet providers be one in which pornography is filtered from their service where a person over 18 would have to opt-out of that filter to access pornography? Could there be heavy pen- alties on companies who de- liberately and willfully seek to expose people to accidental pornography as a kind of sex- ual assault on the viewer? Paul Catalanotto, is a former school teacher who, after 14 years of teaching, recent- ly moved to Australia in March, got married during a pandemic and returned to university to research hu- man dignity in the writings of John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. He has walked the Camino de Santiago twice, climbed the Breithorn in the Alps, and slept under the stars in many locations in the southern United States. Learning to forgive T he programyou mentionwas for all whowatched it a great lesson in love and joy in a family, in the importance of faith in God and, as a result, in the ability to forgive someone who caused great harm. It was truly inspirational. How canwe learn to for- give like that? It is not easy. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus gave us the Our Father, inwhichwe say: “Forgive us our tres- passes as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Immediately afterwards he added: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father alsowill forgive you; but if you do not forgivemen their tres- passes, neither will your Father forgive your tres- passes” (Mt 6:14-15). These are strongwords and a reminder that for- giveness of others is es- sential if we expect God to forgive us. We desperately want God to forgive us our sins, andwe knowhewill if we are truly sorry, because he is ever rich inmercy. But thenwemust be ready to forgive our neighbour for his offences against us. To exemplify this teach- ing, Jesus gave us the par- able of the servant who owed hismaster 10,000 talents, an enormous sum, andwhen he pleaded to be given time to pay, themas- ter forgave him the debt. Even after that the serv- ant was unwilling to show mercy to a fellow servant who owed himamuch smaller amount. What Our Lord is telling us in this parable is that no matter howmuch some- onemay have offended us, it is nothing compared to howmuchwe have of- fendedGod. And forgive- ness of coursemeans that we do not seek revenge. Themorewe loveGod, the easier it will be to love our neighbour and to for- give him. Andwe should askGod too to give us this grace of forgiveness.
[email protected] Father Flader Columnist I recently saw the beau- tiful television program about the families whose four young children had been killed in an accident but forgave the driver. How can we learn to forgive like that? Paul Catalanotto Columnist Keep in mind that accidental viewing is what, in one US study ... 43.5 per cent of men said was their first exposure to pornography. An additional 17.2 per cent listed forced exposure as their first experience.”