In Brooklyn, Ohio, a high-school teacher, in an attempt to teach his 14- and 15-year-old students about the harmful effects of pornography, assigned them to research pornography on the Internet and write about what they find and how they feel about it.
Big surprise: Parents were not keen on the idea, and the assignment was canceled.
On the whole, though, health and physical education teacher Scott Gioia got off easy: In a more over-reacting community, he might have been fired at best and charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors at worst. As it stands, he faces no punishment at all. Perhaps the parents were realistic enough to know those porn sites were probably already in their kids’ bookmarks.
I’m curious about what the “harmful effects” are that he thinks would occur. Blindness? Carpal Tunnel syndrome? Unrealistic expectations? What possible benefit could such an assignment bring? A very foolish teacher. At least he (heh heh) got off easy.
Not to mention it’s quite possible that there aren’t any harmful effects. “Porn is bad for you” isn’t exactly something science has proven. I think the age requirement is more because it’s considered “immoral” than because it’s harmful per se. And because we don’t want to give young kids any ideas too early (though anybody in their mid-teens is already going to have those ideas).
A lot depends on how you define “pornography”. The casual defintion, that includes photos of naked people, is largely benign. Once you get to the further reaches of what’s available on the Internet, perhaps not so much. Pretty much anyone can find SOMETHING that bothers them, but someone else totally digs. For example, some people like strippers with big snakes (not a metaphor), but they just creep me out.
Please, God, don’t let this morph into a discussion of everybody’s pornographic likes and dislikes…
C’mon. Don’t you wonder what Blondie looks like naked? Don’t you fantasize what LuAnn and Bernice do on those long afternoons in her room? Now, I DON’T,absolutely not, but if YOU do, there’s nothing wrong with that.
I was more into the girls of Apt. 3G.
Blondie’s over 75 years old. Luann, on the other hand, is over 18 even though she still looks 16. She’s no Jane Jetson, though…
Do we even want to think about how old Betty Rubble is?
I had 5 or 6 examples, and cut them all except, obviously, for the one that was left. My point was that even people who like at least some “porn” can find something they find distasteful on the Internet.
On the whole, the sites are probably more dangerous to your computer.
This was exactly the point I was going to make.
For longer than I’ve been able to orgasm I’ve had a constant supply of sex in the form of porn. It’s almost unimaginable what life was like before this…
I have heard of harmful effects: porn addiction is a real phenomenon. But that seems to happen to older guys who all their lives viewed nudity as something rare to be treasured and suddenly have free access to it.
Youths as far as I know just use it to get off, in which case it’s just a faster, easier alternative to fantasy.
“Research for a report”? Now I know what to say when I get caught looking at pr0n at work …
I’m bothered by this. It’s not so much that it involves an assignment about porn research but, assuming it’s a public school, but that it involves teaching kids in an area that should be handled by parents. Just like teaching about the benefits of a particular religion or how to properly wear a condom, it has no place in a classroom.
Nothing stops the parents from teaching this subject. Schools started teaching sex ed because parents weren’t, and the result was a fairly high teen pregnancy rate.