Restrictions on access to online pornography?
Two youths received lengthy prison sentences in Dublin last week after being found guilty of the sexual abuse and murder of 14-year-old Ana Kriegel in May 2018. They were 13 at the time. The case triggered a fierce debate in the country about the impact of pornography on youths. Commentators call for restrictions on access to pornographic content.
Restrictions needed on what children can watch
It's high time for access to online pornography to be restricted, columnist Fintan O'Toole stresses in The Irish Times:
“If, a decade ago someone had proposed to flood the brains of adolescents with endless streams of extreme, misogynistic and addictive sexual imagery as an experiment to see what would happen in those brains, would this experiment have been countenanced for one second? ... We have been sleepwalking into a new world while our children are already out in it, wandering without maps or boundaries. ... The Government should establish a citizens' convention to hear evidence from experts in psychology, technology, and child protection and deliberate on what can be done to create those boundaries.”
Clueless when it comes to sexual gratification
Online pornography conveys a completely distorted image of sexuality, columnist Stella O'Malley complains in The Irish Independent:
“Teenage girls might be very impressive these days when they speak about the gender pay-gap or when they speak about feminism, and yet, when it comes to their own sexual gratification, they seem entirely clueless. ... Adults of my generation thought that once we shed the heavy weight of Irish Catholic guilt toward sex we would then at last be free to enjoy satisfying sex, cheerfully and without any hang-ups. ... If we are to overcome the relentless sexualisation of teenagers' lives, perhaps removing easy access to hardcore porn from children's lives is a reasonable place to start?”