Seeing as we discussed sexual content in class the other day it made me think about my trip to Dublin this past weekend. My companions and I stopped in a convenience store so that we could pick up a few things before heading to our hostel. I was standing by the front of the store looking over the magazines when something in the upper left corner caught my eye.
It was porn.
And when I say porn, I mean more than your average Playboy magazine, it was just straight on nudity, in the middle of a little convenience store in Dublin. I was shocked, I even called one of my friends over to make sure what I was seeing is actually real. I know that sex can sell but to see that in the middle of the day was to say the least a huge alarm.
Even though they are more liberal about many things over here than we are in the states, I still can't believe that they wouldn't at least censor these magazines slightly as they do with the magazines that are openly sold in the states, simply because they are in public where children have access to them rather easily. There should be more barriers so that children's wandering eyes don't find something that could be mentally disturbing.
I feel like what sexual material is being thrown out there, whether it be here or in the states, should undergo more censorship. If I were a parent living in Ireland or here in the UK and my children were seeing those kinds of things very blatantly on the magazine shelves, I would be extremely distraught from that exposure.
I had a very similar experience this weekend in Paris when I went to visit the Moulin Rouge. The fact that the street I was walking on was filled with sexual ads was one thing. But the fact that the street I was walking on was also filled with children is completely another. To be fair, I think most of the kids I saw were there with their parents and were only in the area to visit Moulin Rouge, but still. You would think there would be some kind of regulation on what can and can't be shown in advertisements for sexual material.
ReplyDeleteIt really makes you wonder about how the children who grow up being exposed to that kind of sexual content (for example, maybe the kids in Ireland) are different from the children who aren't. We discussed in class about how kids who are exposed to more sexual content tend to be more mature in their behavior towards the opposite sex. But could viewing that amount of sexual content encourage sexual behavior at a younger age? Personally, I see how both outcomes could be a possibility.