Morality by proxy

[DavidS]

Have you ever noticed how people who take an extreme moral line, particularly regarding porn and television output, always justify their case by saying it is to protect chidren? What they really mean, of course, is we don't like this stuff, so you are not going to watch it if we can stop you. However they know that the majority of people are not interested in what others do in private, so they justify their bigotry by saying it is for the sake of children. This argument ignores the fact that in countries where censorship is more lax than the UK, there is no evidence that children are more at risk than here. Furthermore, it ignore the fact that adults have rights too. These people are trying to create a world where we are all restricted to viewing things that are suitable for 5 year olds. They are trying to create a dictatorship on viewing standards by children.

[DavidS]

Of course that is the case, and more should be done in this country to prevent child abuse, but that is not what I meant. I was meaning extreme moralist who use children as a reason for surpressing the rights of adults to view what they wish within reason. Parents and guardians are responsible for their childrens viewing, not society as a whole. Most comparable countries understand this but because of a small number of pressure groups, seemingly not the UK.

[DavidS]

Somethings are rightly banned, that is correct. I am not talking about extreme stuff, just the things which are featured on BGAFD & EGAFD. The debates going on on the British Girls Forum clearly show that it is not as easy to obtain adult material as you assume it is.

[DavidS]

This topic was not intended to be a debate on child welfare. It was about how Mary Whitehouse, her heirs and successors always use children as a reason for curtailing adult rights. Mrs Whitehouse did at least manage to put over her views in a reasonably appealing way. That is more than can be said for the present bunch.

[Peter Woods]

DavidS - I know exactly what you mean. I believe that the "explicit porn harms children" argument is used because it's impossible to refute. The argument that "explicit porn harms adults" was thrown out during the BBFC High Court case in 2000, because there is no clear scientific evidence that it does. With children, it's rather different, because, as far as I know, there have been no studies in which children were deliberately exposed to explicit porn.

Common sense would suggest that some children could be harmed by exposure to some porn but my guess is that most might be curious initially but rapidly become bored.

Personally, I'm far more concerned about protecting children from exposure to extremely violent material, over which there is far less control. The BBFC have become much more lenient over the last few years and appear to be making an effort to pass all the "video nasties" with minimal (or no) cuts. Of course, I applaud this (if only so that everyone can see how crap most of those films really were) but some of those films are genuinely quite nasty and have the power to traumatise a child far more than the sight of a bit of bonking.