Internet pornography scars children to no end

Karan Thakur is, for the most part, a regular 16-year-old urban teenager: juggling tuitions, hanging out with friends and wondering what to take up in college next year. What sets him apart is that, unlike most of his peers, he does not stealthily prowl cyberspace for a fix of pornographic content.

It’s not that Karan has turned asexual or has lost interest in girls or is ignorant about the explicit content that the internet has to offer for those seeking vicarious pleasures. “I’m simply bored of online pornography,” say the teenager, who overdosed on the X-treme stuff for nearly three years.

With the internet making the transition from luxury to necessity in urban Indian households, numerous young users, sometimes less than 10 years, are encountering explicit content on the net. Sometimes by chance but mostly by design, these kids are accessing a dark and potentially dangerous world where explicit video clippings, interactive sex-related chatrooms and other adult sexual content abound.

“There has been, in the last three-four years, exponential growth in the number of children being exposed to pornography,” says Dr Kersi Chavda, a psychiatrist at Hinduja Hospital. “These kids are not just in the 15-16 age group, but 12 and 13.” Chavda adds that the average age when kids in Mumbai learn about sex and access pornography has dropped from 16 to 13 years. 

The big reason why this has happened is, according to many, the internet, with its mind-boggling number of sexually explicit websites. Add easy access and lax supervision to the mix and it’s no wonder the boon of the 20th century is turning into a curse for parents trying to strike a balance between regulation and freedom, between authority and trust. 

Besides the majority view that watching porn is ‘wrong’ for kids coming of age, the concern is the effect an internet awash in X-rated content has on easily influenced minds.

Doctors say people exposed to pornographic material at an early age are susceptible to deviant sexual behaviour. “This sometimes manifests itself when the individual gets married or develops a relationship,” says Dr Chavda. “Other common fallouts include an addiction to pornography and underperformance at school.”

The frantic fare of orgies, paedophile acts, interactive sex and more — often violent and disturbing — that the internet also serves up makes matters worse. “Online material is a distorted, perverted version of sex,” says Geeta Ajit, a 45-year-old college lecturer. “That’s not how I want my son or daughter to view sex.”

Troubled parents may know what their kids should not watch, but they don’t know how to tackle the issue. Take Rikhav and Shikha Shah, a 30-something working couple with a 13-year-old son who is often at home unsupervised. “Six months ago, my husband realised our son had visited pornographic websites,” says Shikha. “He claimed he had chanced upon them while searching for information for his school project. There’s no knowing this won’t happen again.”

The Shahs have now installed software that blocks access to certain sites. That’s an option a number of parents are taking refuge in — software that monitors and filters internet usage — but there’s no guarantee their tech-savvy children can be shackled this way.

Aware that she couldn’t out-surf her kids, aged 17 and 12, Ajit shifted their computer to her bedroom. “This way we know what the kids are doing online,” she reasons. “My husband and I often inspect the sites and check who they are chatting with. At home, at least, they cannot do anything naughty.”

While Prabha Ravi is not worried about her 14-year-old daughter surfing the internet for porn, her long chat sessions are a different matter. “What is the assurance that the person chatting with my daughter is not a paedophile or a criminal,” asks the homemaker. So Ravi now plans to install a ‘parental check’ software her sister-in-law has told her about.

“Instead of relying on software, parents should talk about sex openly and warn their children about the perils of the internet,” says Anupama Desai, a student counsellor. “There is a fine line between monitoring a child and invading his or her privacy. It could damage the child if the parents don’t handle the issue sensitively.”