“I’m even interested in what is inside the disc. Come and play it for us”.
That was my mum talking to me. The disc in question is a DVD containing collections of pornographic videos.
Don’t blame my mum. She’s too innocent. And, I guess, she thinks all her kids are, too. But with the disc in my hand, the seal of her innocence was about to be tampered with . . .
“You don’t want to see this kind of movie, Mum” I told her.
“Put it jare, I even want to know what exactly they do in all these blue films”.
My Dad just sat on the couch, silently. I guess he was still baffled with the shock that any of his children will bring in a pornographic material into his house (as if that was the first time . . .).
Don’t label us too soon. We are great kids. Admirable. All of us! A Banker. An Engineer. 2 Medical Practitioners. A Pastor, and an Economist. We are outstanding kids! But, you know, even great kids do stuffs they aren’t proud of . . . and stuffs they don’t want their parents to be aware of. But somehow, this one broke out.
One of my siblings had brought in the forbidden disc. I guess he was seeing it in the midnight before there was a blackout. The disc is stucked in the DVD player. And worse still, the culprit left the TV and the DVD player on . . . and went to sleep. Maybe he was hoping that the power will be restored soon for him to continue feeding his mind . . . or maybe his mind was so full already that he had no spare thinking space to remember to put off the TV . . . Whatever.
So, here comes Kola Ola. I came home the next day from school really tired. I’ve been away from home for over a week. I came to pick a few things. As I opened the door with my key, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The plasma screen welcomed me with some . . . You guessed right—some porn! Live! In the “holy apartment” of the Olas. Porn in broad day light. Power had been restored and the disc had resumed playback.
I’ll be lying if I said that I switched it off immediately. No. I first ensured that the door was well locked. Then I picked the remote control and flipped backward and forward a couple of times. Scanned through the disc. Paused at some “interesting scenes”. And ejected the disc!
I kept it on my dad’s table with a note to him.
“Dear Dad,
I saw this disc in the DVD player when I came home. It’s a pornographic CD. Please take some time to talk to my brother about it. It could be dangerous.
Yours,
Kola Ola”
After a week, I came back home again and asked if Dad saw the note and the disc. Alas! He hasn’t. (I guessed I kept it too well). I went to his room and fetched it and brought it to him at the living room. He and my mum had a strange look. They couldn’t believe their ears . . . and soon, they wouldn’t believe their eyes!
“I’m even interested in what is inside the disc. Come and play it for us”.
“You don’t want to see this kind of movie, Mum” I told her.
“Put it jare, I even want to know what exactly they do in all these blue films”.
“Ok!”
I inserted the disc and . . . PLAY. Then I hurried away from the living room to my room.
The disc had nearly played for 15 seconds when I started hearing my mum shouting“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” and gasping. (She calls my Dad “Daddy”. . . lol. Don’t call her old skool o . . . lol). She was about to faint. I rushed to the living room and pushed the STOP button.
She had never, I can tell, imagined the possibility of what she was seeing . . . a lady on all fours with her mouth wrapped around a guy’s . . . you know the rest. (Bad you!)
I rushed to my mum and calmed her down.
“But I told you that you don’t want to see what was inside the disc . . . you insisted”.
_______________
Let me stop it there.
What am I driving at?
Most parents have no idea what their children are going through! They don’t know a byte of what their kids know about sex and sexual matters. And it’s disturbing!
I read a write-up by Anne Marie Miller earlier today and it moved me to pick up my pen and write, too! At 33, she calls herself “a recovering addict”. Pornography was her drug of choice.
A youth pastor sexually abused her while in junior high school. She turned to the Internet for education. She didn’t know what certain words meant or if what the youth pastor was doing to her was good or bad and she was too afraid to ask. But before she knew it, in her own words, what started as an innocent pursuit of knowledge quickly escalated into a coping mechanism.
In her over six years of sharing her story with various young people at various kinds of gatherings and doing a lot of counseling, here are some of her findings:
THERE ARE MORE STUDENTS COMPULSIVELY LOOKING AT PORNOGRAPHY AT YOUNGER AGES AND WITH GREATER FREQUENCY THAN EVER BEFORE.
GOOGLE IS THE NEW SEX-ED. When a student hears a word or phrase they don’t understand, they don’t ask you what it means (because they fear getting in trouble). They don’t ask their friends (because they fear being ashamed for not knowing). They ask Google.Google won’t judge them for not knowing. Because of our short attention spans and desire for instant gratification, they don’t click the first link that shows up – they go straight to Google Images. In almost all of the stories she has heard, this is how someone was first exposed to pornography – Google Image searching. And the average age of first exposure in her experience was 9 years old.
AS A PARENT, IF YOUR CHILD WAS EVER MOLESTED, YOU LIKELY DON’T KNOW: According to her, another extremely common theme was children being inappropriately touched, often by close family members or friends. The stigma and shame of being a victim coupled with the trauma that happens with this experience is confusing to a child of any age: our systems weren’t made to process that event. Meanwhile, while a child can look at pornography without being abused, children who have been molested by and large look at pornography and act out sexually.
MOST PARENTS LIVE WITH THE BELIEF THEIR CHILD IS THE EXCEPTION. (My parents did). But guess what? We weren’t! Chances are (if you’re a parent, too) thatYour child is not, either!
Here’s a snapshot of a few things she heard from these students:
They’ve sent X-rated photos of themselves to their classmates (or received them).
They’ve exposed themselves to strangers on the Internet or through sexting.
They’ve seen pornography.
They’ve read pornography.
They’ve watched pornography.
The girls compare their bodies to the ones they see in ads at the mall or of actresses and keep those images hidden on their phone (or iPod, or whatever device they have) so they can try to imitate them.
They question their sexuality.
They’ve masturbated.
They know exactly where and in what movies sex scenes are shown and they watch them for sexual gratification.
They’ve had a same-sex experience.
And they’re terrified to tell Their parents!
Like Annie, I am more aware now more than ever before in my ministry how little parents know about what’s happening. And like Annie, because I’m not a parent, I feel terribly inadequate in telling parents this.
From the statistics of my facebook friends, and the people that visit my websites and blogs, majority of the people that will read this are either young parents or parents-to-be . . . and that makes it good! There’s still some time to fix this when we become the Dads and Mums of growing-up kids. We must not allow our kids to repeat our errors!
After seeing the innocence in the eyes of ten year olds who’ve carried secrets nobody, let alone a child, should carry; after hearing some of the most horrific accounts from church members I’ve ever heard in the last one year, I can’t not speak! I cannot go one more day without pleading with you to open up when the time is right and have these difficult conversations with your children (when you have them). Would you prefer your son or daughter learn what a “fetish” is from you or from searching Google Images? Talk to them about abuse. Talk to them about trafficking. Talk to them about masturbation. Talk to them about sex! Your children need to know. If not for them, maybe for a friend. Maybe they can help bring context or see warning signs for another child.
Ask them what they know. Ask them what they’ve done. Ask them what’s been done to them. And very importantly, SHOW GRACE AND LOVE. Stay far away from judgment and condemnation.
If you feel ill equipped, ask a pastor or counselor for help. If you hear an answer you didn’t expect and your first instinct is to dismiss it – don’t. Find a counselor. Look for resources. Continue following up.
And, quite honestly, if you struggle with this, too (and let’s admit it, statistically, a lot of us do), get help too.
Do the right thing. Do the hard thing, for the sake of your children. If we don’t do it, I am terrified of how the enemy will continue stealing hope and joy from our youngest generation and how they’ll be paralyzed to advance the Kingdom of God as they mature.
Will you watch that happen?
dzeuzIf 2/9/13.
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