Food for Thought: Follow up on effect of Pornography

Dear all,

I thought that you might be interested in following on your thinking from Thursday morning's session with Robyn. I believe that it is important to be engaging this topic, because as you saw in the statistics on pornography, it is one of the fastest growing industries and it is, and will, further impact society, relationships and the way males and females see each other because of the pervasive manner in which it is becoming embedded in the media. Following Robyn's talk, whilst chatting the question was raised, how can we talk to students when most of us have never talked about this with our partners or other adults? Well, hopefully these three TED's will help to make you feel more comfortable, and as Ran Gavrieli concludes encourage you to start those conversations.

This 5 minute TED talk by Philip Zimbardo, The Demise of Guys was the first that I watched several years ago, when I was doing some research about why boys appear to be failing both in school and society these days. It was the first time that I had heard about the impact of pornography and the internet on this trend. Made in 2011 Zimbardo shares worrying statistics about boys and suggests a few reasons for this, including pornography and the internet.

http://www.ted.com/talks/zimchallenge

This second TEDX talk, 17 minutes, is one I watched in 2012 as a follow up to the Demise of Guys. It is by Gary Wilson and it goes through the research that was behind Zimbardo's conclusions and explains what happens in the brains of boys and men who constantly watch and become addicted to porn. This talk certainly illustrates why school's and teachers need to be at least talking about porn on the internet and engaging our students in these discussions. As well as being worrying it does provide hope as well.

http://www.ted.com/search?cat=talks&per_page=12&q=Gary+Wilson

This final TED X talk, Why I stopped watching porn, that I want to include was shared with me following Robyn's talk on Thursday. It is a very personal talk that brings much of the previous TED's together and provides a sensitive level of understanding. It is by Ran Gavrieli who studies gender at Tel Aviv University. Ran writes and lectures about emotional and physical safe sex; porn and porn-influenced cultural damages; gender and power relations; and sex and intimacy. He works with youth and adults all over Israel in sex and gender studies and in building positive self image in a world inundated by sexual imagery with negative connotations. His conclusion that we need to talk about this topic holds great resonance with Robyn's week in ISHCMC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRJ_QfP2mhU

Have a good Sunday,

Yours

Adrian