Sexual images graze the covers of magazines, play throughout movies and television shows, and pop up in thousands of websites. Media today is filled with sexual content demonstrating how society’s standards on sexual material has lowered. Nowadays since sex can be seen everywhere, society’s children will learn that this type of material is harmless and are likely to expose themselves to it. Some may say, the increased acceptance of sexual material is only part of modernity, and we must allow for things that were once considered taboo to move out, change, and progress. However, other believe that these images will pervert the minds of our children and affect their behaviors and positions in society.

            Another reason that children may access pornography is because of the lack of education on the sex. As children develop into teenagers, they are curious about sex. However, most children do not seek out their parents to teach them about this topic. Parents are also uncomfortable with the idea of talking with their children about sex. Since there is a lack of sexual knowledge, youth seek out understanding for themselves. Youth can access information on sex directly through the Internet. Although the Internet does provide knowledge, the consequence of using the Web is that youth may gain a twisted understanding about sex. They may research the topic and end up on a porn site, which can lead a child to make unhealthy choices, affecting them physically and mentally.

            Not all children who are exposed to pornography will be affected detrimentally; however children should still take caution and be wise about surfing the Web. According to www.protectkids.com as more children are being exposed to porn, they are more likely to believe that “Sex without responsibility is acceptable and desirable.” However, irresponsible sex leads the youth of today into acquiring STDs and getting pregnant. Exposure to pornography can also direct kids to act towards other children in a sexual manner. According a study done on 600 US high school students, Dr. Jennings Bryant found that 91% of males and 82% of females have viewed pornography. Of those, 31% of males and 18% of females wanted to imitate what they had seen from these websites. (5) Pornography can also become addictive, and some children will become obsessed with these inappropriate images.

           Since conducting a study on a child’s behaviors towards sexually explicit images would be unethical, I will show an example of a study done on a group of adult males. In one study, “…male subjects were exposed to as little as six weeks' worth of standard hard-core pornography. They developed an increased sexual callousness toward women, began to trivialize rape as a criminal offense or no longer considered it a crime at all, developed distorted perceptions about sexuality, developed an appetite for more deviant, bizarre, or violent types of pornography (normal sex no longer seemed to do the job), devalued the importance of monogamy and lacked confidence in marriage as either a viable or lasting institution, and viewed no monogamous relationships as normal and natural behavior.” (5) Although this study was done on adults, we can assume that since children will grow to become adults, these behavioral effects will indeed be similar.