PT:You’ve recently created Creepy Naked Stuff. Tell us about this resource...
NC: The NSPCC has done some really great videos called ‘The fight against porn zombies’ for young people over 13 who have already watched pornography. The idea is that if you watch too much porn you become a porn zombie – you start seeing girls and boys as objects. I felt that I couldn’t show the videos to my own children who are 12 and nine. We’ve had conversations about pornography, but I was wondering what was out there to start proactively responding to this issue, and to give children a language to have conversations about pornography before they’re watching it. By the time they’ve started watching it, the horse has already bolted.
I was very conscious that it’s quite a sensitive issue. A lot of people will think that we’re destroying children’s innocence if we even begin a conversation about this. I know from my own children that their innocence hasn’t been destroyed but we have upskilled them to be aware if they come across this stuff that it’s not ok, and that they need to find someone to talk to. I wanted to create something for parents who maybe haven’t got the skills and who haven’t really thought about this before, to be able to start having these conversations. I created the video, really wanting to make it clear that nakedness isn’t bad. I think the Church isn’t great at making nakedness and sexuality and sex good, despite the fact that God made it. The first people were naked, - so nakedness isn’t the problem; it’s sin that has co-opted nakedness into something bad.
So, I created the video with the purpose of beginning those conversations. It is something that you could show to younger children to help them talk about naked stuff; it doesn’t talk about sex. It talks about how being naked is good in an appropriate way. It discusses how we wear clothes to keep warm and to cover up the wrinkly bits of old people. It then goes on to say that you might be on a tablet or phone and come across something that isn’t very nice. It might be people being unkind or nakedness that’s not very good or that makes you feel bad, and it’s ok to talk to somebody about that.
I was speaking to a youth leader who was talking about how he first came across pornography when he was 11 when a friend of his showed it to him. He didn’t have any context in which to validate the feelings that it wasn’t ok. He assumed that his feelings must be wrong, because the only context he had was his friend saying, ‘Oh this is really good.’ He ignored his feelings and ended up watching more and more of it because he hadn’t had anybody saying or giving him any proactive conversation that it wasn’t ok. The idea with this resource is really to start having conversations with children at a much younger age.
PT:You mention that the viewing age is getting younger. Have you heard of any statistics confirming that?
NC: The fact is that at six or seven children might be coming across stuff that is unsafe because lots of people don’t have filters on their computers.
I’ve heard stories about kids typing in ‘boys weeing’ or ‘poo’ into their tablet; kids search for things that they think are funny. But if you’ve got no filters what’s going to come up is hardcore pornography without any context. Children will then feel that they can’t talk about it because there is this sense of shame. The Bible tells us that sexual sin and sexual stuff affects us internally in a way that nothing else does. I think that even when a very young person comes across things online that are unsafe, there’s an inbuilt sense that it’s something that’s not ok and shouldn’t be talked about.
One of the big issues I’ve found in terms of trying to address pornography, especially in the Christian world, is that we rarely talk about what pornography is. Very few adults are having conversations in primary schools with children about sex. We don’t have any chance to pre-empt this and start to have good conversations about healthy relationships or nakedness being good, but the things on the Internet being bad. By the time the NSPCC is creating resources, they’re for young people who are currently shaping their lives around pornography and that’s really too late.
PT:Some people say that we shouldn’t be talking to children about pornography because then they’ll be aware of it and intrigued by it, and then we’ll sexualise them through the process. What would you say to these people?
NC: I think my response to the Church would be that we don’t shy away from talking about sin with children. We don’t say things like, ‘We must not mention sin until they’re at least 15!’ As the Church and as Christians, we recognise that this is a part of life. Actually, most kids, when you start to talk to them about sex say, ‘That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard! ’
The fact is that they are going to be sexualised, unless we’re going to lock them in the house and not let them be part of wider society. It’s just like there are roads out there and we give children the skills to cross them safely rather than saying, ‘Children don’t get run over because they’re not old enough to cross the road!’ Actually, even when children are very tiny we talk about how they need to hold someone’s hand and we show them how to press the green man. We know that they’re not going to start crossing the road on their own until they’re a little bit bigger, but we show them because we want to keep them safe and give them the skills to manage this world in a safe way. It’s the same with sex and pornography, and relationships, sexuality and nakedness. The problem is not exposing them to the fact that these things exist but how they’re exposed to them, and how we protect them in a way that gives them the foreknowledge of what’s going on, rather than just saying we’ll wait until they’re 15, because it’s definitely too late by then.
In the Christian world, we rarely talk about what pornography is
PT:When we talk to young people, should we talk about the addictive nature of pornography, and how it can start to take over your life and start to control you?
NC: There are three facets to it. We’ve got the addiction stuff, which is about how it affects the people watching it. We’ve got the exploitation of the workers within pornography as the second prong and we’ve got the impact on the young people who are affected by the person watching that pornography – in essence the girlfriend of the boy who says ‘you have to have anal sex with me because that’s what porn stars do.’ So you’ve got the way that sex and relationships are being reshaped and warped as a result of pornography. I think you’ve got to use those three strands in equal measure. But the addiction model is really important: the research is showing us the severe way in which pornography is impacting our brains, young people in particular.
PT:What can children’s workers do in this area? Do you think that it would be appropriate for children’s workers to broach this subject?
NC: I would say it’s about vigilance, so if a conversation is started by a child in a group then you’ve got an opportunity. We can either turn that into an obstacle or an opportunity. If we see awkward conversations with children as obstacles then we’re going to shut them down and say: ‘No, little Sophie, that’s not something to talk about here! Let’s talk about Jesus!’ Or we can see it as an opportunity to say: ‘Oh, Sophie that’s really interesting. Has anybody else seen what Sophie is talking about?’ It does require bravery. It also means that if parents say that they’re not happy with it being talked about, we can respond by saying that it was the child who started the conversation. That’s different from saying that you’re going to run a session for your six year-olds on Sunday about pornography!
It’s a case of listening to those opportunities and seeking to open up conversations rather than shutting them down. I think if we have an attitude of honesty and openness as practitioners then actually that’s enough for children. The video and resources that I’ve produced are free for anyone to use. Someone who’s a children’s worker can present that material to the parents in the church. There’s a PowerPoint and accompanying leaflet that people can take away. I wanted to create a whole way of resourcing everybody at churches but also for wider society to start thinking about these conversations with children. A lot of parents won’t even realise that their kids are likely to be accessing this stuff. If churches could be talking to parents about the fact that they’re conscious that this is an issue in society at the moment and give them resources to raise awareness, then the Church would be further along than the rest of society, because the schools aren’t doing it. This is an opportunity for the Church to become more cutting edge than the rest of society. We’re supposed to be a prophetic voice.
For more information about Creepy Naked Stuff, visit dayprogramme.org
