Surrounded by Trash
How can you patrol boundaries when there are non?
by Gil Reavill


PARENTGUIDE News May 2005

At an open meeting of parents who had children entering our local middle school, I heard widely articulated despair and disgust about the trashy tone of popular culture, with television and the Internet singled out as particular problem areas. Coupled with the disgust was a sense of powerlessness that went way beyond frustration.

“How can I patrol the boundaries of my kid’s world when there are no boundaries left?” asked one father, and there was rueful agreement with his concerns.

I didn’t contribute to the discussion. I was something of a Trojan horse at the meeting. For a couple of reasons, I wasn’t yet comfortable talking about my book with my fellow parents and townspeople. One reason is that I reside in an upscale village in suburban Westchester, and my friends and acquaintances here are predominantly liberal. I didn’t want to get into shouting matches over free speech and censorship. Another reason is that I had no interest in being pigeonholed as a “sex industry insider” in my small-town environment.

But I should have spoken up. Today I think I would feel more comfortable doing so, and I’ll tell you why. It may seem strange to take parenting advice from a writer who regularly contributes to Maxim magazine, that cheesecake-heavy favorite of the 20-something American male. But because of my familiarity with the landscape of smut, I know whereof I speak. I know the strategies, rationales and conduits by which sexually explicit material comes into our children’s lives.

Am I a hypocrite? Sometimes I think accusing a human being of hypocrisy is like accusing him of breathing. Both seem to be inevitable handmaidens of the human condition. But in this particular case, I advocate different standards for public and private expression. I don’t think that makes me a hypocrite. I think it makes me civilized.

Think of it in terms of the owner of a car dealership, who nevertheless believes 9 year olds should not be allowed to hit the road driving the family SUV. Or a whiskey distiller who draws the line at the idea of a 15 year old getting blind-eyed staggering drunk every weekend.

Two things, right up front. I am a die-hard advocate of free-speech protections, and I think that consenting adults should have free access to all kinds of material, sexually explicit or otherwise. So, no government-mandated censorship, and a strict avoidance of limits placed on the expression of adults.
The problem is, for many people, the discussion ends there.

That’s the source of the paralysis I detected in that parent meeting. People have a sense that something is gaggingly wrong with American culture, but at the same time they have been checkmated out of any sense they can do anything about it. They can no longer utilize such concepts as “good taste,” “decorum,” “decency.” They don’t want to be labeled censors, prudes or old fuddy-duddies. So they express their disgust at the trash they see inundating their children’s lives, but then are helpless to mount any community-based action to address it.

Most of us deal with the problem on an individual basis. We gauge the personalities, capabilities and maturity of our children, and we try to limit the outside input to material we think they can handle. It’s not an exact science. Sometimes we are lazy, uncertain or asleep at the switch. But generally, most parents take personal responsibility for the kind of world they want to create for their kids.

But lately, we need help. In the face of an increasing barrage of sexually explicit material, we need society to acknowledge our intent as parents and make it as easy as possible for us to patrol the boundaries of our children’s lives.

What can a parent do when their job as a guardian is compromised by a sexually aggressive media climate?

•Don’t give up. In modern society, we are exposed to more bits of information in a single day than our ancestors were in their entire lifetimes. It’s a welter of hype, spin, babble and spew, with occasional shreds of useful facts and superb entertainment thrown into the mix. Facing of this barrage is exhausting. In the case of the Internet, there may be a learning lag, too, where our grasp of the technology might fall short of what’s required for effective parenting. But as long as we live in the modern world, and unless we retreat to a walled compound (or, like the souls in the recent M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Village, seek to create a Utopian community outside the bounds of modern society), there is no other choice. We have to stay engaged and vigilant. One way to do this is lay down clear and consistent rules about media content. For example, make it a house rule that there be no R-rated movies, and no M-rated video games. Explain to your child that some material is simply not appropriate for kids. A good question to ask: “Do we allow kids to drive cars?” It’s a simple comparison that even a young child can grasp.

•Use the tools you are given. Even though the V-chip is approaching 50 percent penetration in American homes (meaning that 50 percent of all televisions in use are equipped with V-chips), only about half of the families who have V-chip capability, use it. The same goes for Internet filtering devices: capability far exceeds use. The only coherent model for dealing with the exploding amount of sexual content is with “end-user” controls, which means you as a parent must assume the responsibility to control what kind of material you allow into your homes. The V-chip is as much a tool for modern parenting as is a baby monitor and an old-fashioned hug.

• Don’t allow yourself to be bullied. When we raise our voices to request— demand— that society help us in our task of patrolling our children’s world, there are plenty of people on hand to shoot us down. Let me just quote an expurgated example from a Blog: “Over-reacting wacko conservative parents of the world, if you want to keep your kids from ever viewing images with sexual content, you basically have two options: either sear their eyes out while they’re young with hot burning coals, or lock them away in your basement until they turn 18 or die from the loneliness, whichever comes first. Pick one and then shut up, or join the rest of us who like sex in the liberated 21st century.” In the face of such loopily self-righteous froth, we have to calmly and firmly insist on our prerogatives for other options apart from the ones so starkly laid out here. Don’t expect a level-headed response, but don’t be swayed by spittle-flinging rhetoric, either.

There are broad regions of modern life where sexual content has become ragingly out of control: television, Internet and public signage, to name only three. To the extent that children 12-and-under are exposed to these areas, we have to insist on a voluntary policy of G-rated content, through such measures as a reconstituted “family hour” on television, or an easily filtered kids.com domain on the Internet. Collectively, these areas represent our “public commons,” and as such, they must be transformed into safe, welcoming terrain for our children.

Gil Reavill is the coauthor of Raising Our Athletic Daughters: How Sports Can Build Self-Esteem and Save Girls Lives and SMUT: A Sex Industry Insider (and Concerned Father) Says Enough Is Enough (Sentinel). He lives in Westchester, NY, with his wife and daughter.