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Effects of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Part 1

April is designated as abuse prevention month for the state of Texas.  Therefore, the majority of posts for this month will orbit around childhood abuse and the effects of such abuse.  I pray that our world can come to a place where no child is ever abused again!

Effects of abuse, part 1
By Paul Irby Special to the Abilenian
Abilene Reporter-News
Posted December 3, 2008 at 11:21 a.m.

It seems the sexual abuse of children is an epidemic in our society. This evil respects no boundaries of gender, race, ethnicity or socioeconomic status. The Mental Health Association of Abilene recognizes thousands of people in the Big Country have been impacted by this epidemic. Therefore, executive director Kirk Hancock has commissioned the penning of six articles over the course of six months for the purpose of educating the general public regarding the potential developmental impacts of sexual abuse on its victims.

When approaching the discussion of this subject, it is important to note there are no standard or predictable outcomes, and some seem to adjust better post-abuse than others.

For the next five months, Mental Health Matters will have articles highlighting how specific dimensions of a person can be impacted by sexual abuse. These articles will take a “shotgun” approach to describing potential impacts. It should be noted not all survivors of sexual abuse will experience all the effects discussed, and the intensity with which others endure their respective impacts will differ. Therefore, it stands to reason that we first answer the question of what factors influence the intensity of the adverse developmental impacts on a child who has been sexually abused.

The duration and frequency of the abuse is one important component to consider. Some children experience the abuse on a daily, weekly or monthly frequency for a duration of months or years. Others have endured less chronic or isolated instances of abuse. It is this latter group that has the least amount of susceptibility to adverse consequences down the road.

Another consideration is the kind of abuse perpetrated. Survivors with the most intense developmental impacts are those who sustained penetration orally, anally or vaginally. The invasive nature of these acts adds to the already deep sense of violation, both physically and psychologically. Sexual abuse can include less invasive, yet still horrific, forms such as manual stimulation and groping over the clothes.

The response of adults to the child’s disclosure of the abuse is another vital piece to understanding the resilience of some abused children.

Common mistakes parents and other significant adults make when a child musters the courage to disclose the abuse are not believing the child, blaming the child or defining the child by the abuse. The lack of support, blame and even punishment of the child can have just as devastating impacts as the actual abuse.

Other factors include the age and temperament of the child, the presence of violence or intimidation, along with the sexual abuse and the relationship of the abuser to the abused.

While nothing positive exists in an abusive situation, there are “best case” scenarios. Bear in mind, even children who come from a “worst case” scenario who access quality professional help and have a solid social support system can not only survive, but thrive.

Next month we will explore possible mental or cognitive impacts sexual abuse can have on a child.

Paul Irby, M.A., is a licensed professional counselor with the Ministry of Counseling and Enrichment. Mental Health Matters is facilitated by the Mental Health Association in Abilene.

Original article found here:
http://www.reporternews.com/news/2008/dec/03/effects-abuse-part-1it-seems-sexual-abuse-children/

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Toxic Porn, Toxic Sex: A Real Look at Pornography

Toxic Porn, Toxic Sex: A Real Look at Pornography
Find freedom from porn addiction, see the 9 lies of pornography and how to break free.
By Gene McConnell
Originally posted to: http://www.everystudent.com/wires/toxic.html

Porn & addiction…sex out of context

effects of pornography - porn addiction - pornography addictionOn a cold, dark night, there’s nothing better than a blazing fire in the fireplace. You can pile on the wood and let it burn nice and warm. It’s safe, warm, relaxing and romantic. Now take that same fire out of the fireplace (which was built for it) and drop it in the middle of the living room. Suddenly it becomes destructive. It can burn down the whole house and kill everyone inside. Sex is like that fire. As long as it’s expressed in the protective commitment of a marriage relationship, it’s wonderful, warm and romantic. But porn takes sex outside that context.

It’s a big business that makes a lot of money and doesn’t care how. They’ll show you whatever they think will make you come back and buy more. “There were 11,000 porn video titles last year versus 400 movie releases from Hollywood last year…[and] 70,000 pornographic web sites.”1

What Fuels Porn Addiction

One of the most vital parts of mental environment is a healthy idea of who we are sexually. If these ideas are polluted, a critical part of who we are becomes twisted. The porn culture tells you that sex, love and intimacy are all the same thing. In porn, people have sex with total strangers — people they just met. All that matters is my satisfaction. It doesn’t matter whose body I’m using, as long as I get it. Porn gets you to think that sex is something you can have anytime, anywhere, with anyone, with no consequences.

The problem with porn’s shallow perspective is that relationships are not built on sex, but on commitment, caring and mutual trust. In that context, like fire in the fireplace, sex is wonderful. Being with someone who loves and accepts you, someone who is committed to you for your whole lives together, someone you can give yourself completely to, that is what makes sex really great.

To Find Freedom from Porn Addiction: Recognize the Lies

You can’t learn the truth about sex from pornography. It doesn’t deal in truth. Pornography is not made to educate, but to sell. So, pornography will tell whatever lies attract and hold the audience. Porn thrives on lies — lies about sex, women, marriage and a lot of other things. Let’s look at some of those lies and see just how badly they can mess up your life and attitudes.

  • Lie #1 – Women are less than human The women in Playboy magazine are called “bunnies,” making them cute little animals or “playmates,” making them a toy. Penthouse magazine calls them “pets.” Porn often refers to women as animals, playthings, or body parts. Some pornography shows only the body or the genitals and doesn’t show the face at all. The idea that women are real human beings with thoughts and emotions is played down.
  • Lie #2 – Women are a “sport” Some sports magazines have a “swimsuit” issue. This suggests that women are just some kind of sport. Porn views sex as a game and in a game, you have to “win,” “conquer,” or “score.” Men who buy into this view like to talk about “scoring” with women. They start judging their manhood by how many “conquests” they can make. Each woman I “score” with is another trophy on my shelf, another “notch” in my belt to validate my masculinity.
  • Lie #3 – Women are property We’ve all seen the pictures of the slick car with the sexy girl draped over it. The unspoken message, “Buy one, and you get them both.” Hard-core porn carries this even further. It displays women like merchandise in a catalog, exposing them as openly as possible for the customer to look at. It’s not surprising that many young men think that if they have spent some money taking a girl out, they have a right to have sex with her. Porn tells us that women can be bought.
  • Lie #4 – A woman’s value depends on the attractiveness of her body Less attractive women are ridiculed in porn. They are called dogs, whales, pigs or worse, simply because they don’t fit into porn’s criteria of the “perfect” woman. Porn doesn’t care about a woman’s mind or personality, only her body.
  • Lie #5 – Women like rape “When she says no, she means yes” is a typical porn scenario. Women are shown being raped, fighting and kicking at first, and then starting to like it. Porn teaches men to enjoying hurting and abusing women for entertainment.
  • Lie #6 – Women should be degraded Porn is often full of hate speech against women. Women are shown being tortured and humiliated in hundreds of sick ways and begging for more. Does this kind of treatment show any respect for women? Any love? Or is it hatred and contempt that porn is promoting toward women?
  • Lie #7 – Little kids should have sex One of the biggest sellers in pornography is imitation “child” porn. The women are “made-up” to look like little girls by wearing pony tails, little girl shoes, holding a teddy bear. The message of the pictures and cartoons is that adults having sex with kids is normal. This sets the porn user up to see children in a sexual way.
  • Lie #8 – Illegal sex is fun Porn often has illegal or dangerous elements thrown in to make sex more “interesting.” It suggests that you can’t enjoy sex if it isn’t weird, illegal or dangerous.
  • Lie #9 – Prostitution is glamorous Porn paints an exciting picture of prostitution. In reality, many of the women portrayed in pornographic material are runaway girls trapped in a life of slavery. Many having been sexually abused. Some of them are infected with incurable sexually transmitted diseases that are highly contagious and often die very young. Many take drugs just to cope.

Bottom Line of Porn Addiction

Pornography makes a profit from the ruined lives of young women and entraps men who will spend lots of time AND money succumbing to their product.

effects of pornography - porn addiction - pornography addictionWe might think that the things we see and hear don’t affect us. Yet we all admit that good music, good movies and good books add a lot to our lives. They can relax us, educate us, move us or inspire us. Just as uplifting media can benefit us, pornographic images can negatively affect us.

Images are not always neutral. They can persuade us. Businesses know that if they can get a persuasive image of their product in front of you during a highly emotional moment, it will sink into your subconscious mind. The advertising scientists are so good at what they do, they can predict just how much more of their product you will buy if you see their ad. Sometimes, viewers don’t even see the name of the product. Reese’s Pieces paid a huge price just to have their candy shown for a few seconds in the movie “ET,” and sales of Reese’s Pieces skyrocketed. Why? Because the emotions connected with watching that small boy reaching out to the alien were transferred to the visual image of the candy. If a split second view of a product — even when it’s not the center of attention — can affect people’s behavior, imagine the effect of a movie that keeps your attention glued to the screen for an hour and a half with sexually explicit images.

What are the effects of pornography on a man?

What kinds of ideas is porn putting into our heads? If the wrong things keep getting dumped in, your mental environment can get so polluted that your life is going to have problems. One of the most vital parts of mental environment is a healthy idea of who we are sexually. If these ideas are polluted, a critical part of who we are becomes twisted.

Porn Addiction: The Pull of Pornography

Not everyone who sees porn will become addicted. Some will just come away with toxic ideas about women, sex, marriage, and children. However, some will have some kind of emotional opening that allows the addiction to really grab hold. The porn companies don’t mind at all if you become completely addicted to their product. It’s great for business. Dr. Victor Cline has divided the progress of addiction into several stages; addiction, escalation, desensitization, and acting out. For porn addicts, I’ve found that there is another stage that comes first — early exposure. Let’s look at these stages:

EARLY EXPOSURE Most guys who get addicted to porn start early. They see porn when they are very young and it gets its foot in the door.

PORN ADDICTION You keep coming back to porn. It becomes a regular part of your life. You’re hooked and can’t quit.

ESCALATION You start to look for more graphic pornography. You start using porn that disgusted you earlier. Now, it excites you.

DESENSITIZATION You start to become numb to the images you see. Even the most graphic porn doesn’t excite you any more. You become desperate to feel the same thrill again, but you can’t find it.

ACTING OUT SEXUALLY This is the point where men make a crucial jump and start acting out the images they have seen. Some move from the paper and plastic images of porn into the real world, with real people, in destructive ways.

Porn Addiction: Am I Addicted?

If you see any of these patterns in your life, you need to put the brakes on right now. Is porn becoming more and more in control of your life? Do you have trouble putting it down? Do you keep going back for more?

Porn Addiction: What Can I Do?

The first thing you’ve got to do is admit that you struggle with pornography. Believe me, you are not strange or unusual if you do. Millions of men are at various stages in the struggle with porn. It’s really not surprising. The porn industry has spent billions of dollars trying to snare you. Is it really shocking that they have succeeded? For some of you there may also be issues in your past, such as abuse or sexual exposure, that makes porn addiction even harder to shake. There is only so much you can do in fighting addiction without help.

You need someone to help you break this addiction. Overcoming the secrecy is absolutely vital. You probably can’t escape addiction without it. That doesn’t mean everyone has to know you’re struggling. Pick someone you can trust who counsels men who are having problems with addiction — a pastor, youth group leader or counselor. Someone you can completely trust, feel safe with and has experience in the area of addiction isn’t going to be surprised.

Is There Any Freedom from Porn Addiction?

Pornography entraps you with lies. In contrast, God can lead us into truth. Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”2 Those who heard Jesus say this were offended and countered, “We have never been slaves of anyone, how can you say that we shall be set free?”3 And Jesus explained that people are enslaved to sin, but that He can set you free.4

Sin not only enslaves us, but it distances us from God. And no one is perfect. No one is righteous in God’s eyes. Instead we’re told that “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way.”5 We all deserve God’s judgment and punishment. Yet God, who is holy and loving, provided a solution for our sin, so that we would not have to be justly condemned. He personally took the punishment for our sin on Himself. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was tortured and died on the cross for our sin so that we could be forgiven. Three days later Jesus rose from the dead, just as He said He would. And He now offers you a relationship with Him. One of the most amazing statements in the Bible is this one, “If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”6

The Most Important Relationship

In your search for intimacy and love, pornography is an empty substitute for real love. We have been created by God to have our intimacy needs met most deeply by God Himself. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”7 In contrast to the darkness and destruction that pornography can bring to people’s lives, Jesus said, “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.”8 God offers you his forgiveness through a relationship with Him. Do you want to ask Him to forgive you and come into your life? You can tell Him right now. If you need help putting this into words, here is prayer that might help:

“Lord Jesus, I am aware of my sin, and I know that you are also. I ask you to forgive me and cleanse me. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. I ask you to come into my life right now and begin to work in my life. Direct my life as you see fit. Thank you for your forgiveness and for coming into my life right now.”

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Porn Turned Thousands of British Children into Sex Offenders, Report Says

by Ben Johnson
Mon Mar 04, 2013 17:27 EST

LONDON, March 4, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pornography and depictions of sexuality have turned more than 4,500 British children – some of them as young as five – into sexual offenders, according to a UK-based child welfare charity.

A Freedom of Information Act request showed that 4,562 minors – 98 percent of them boys – committed 5,028 sexual offenses over a three year period, from 2009-2012.

Three separate police forces reported five-year-olds committing sexual offenses.  However, the London Telegraph reports, “the true figure” of total offenders “could be even higher as nine forces, including the three largest – the Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester Police and West Midlands Police – could not provide the relevant figures.”

Twenty percent of cases reported involved a family member. In another third, a family friend was victimized.

“We know that technology and easy access to sexual material is warping young people’s views of what is ‘normal’ or acceptable behavior,” said Claire Lilley, policy adviser at The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC).

The report’s content, though specific to Great Britain, contains universal truths.

“Child-on-child sex abuse and rape is a growing problem in every culture where pornography flourishes,” Patrick Trueman, a former federal prosecutor in the Reagan administration and president of Morality In Media, told LifeSiteNews.com.

“Children act out what they see. If they see acts of love and charity, they will mimic those,” Trueman said. “But when they see sexual violence, domination, rape, and other similar acts so commonly depicted in modern-day pornography, as today’s children do, they will act out those, as well.”

The British report joins an accumulating mound of heart wrenching stories showing how pornography has permanently scarred children around the world – both the victims and the perpetrators.

In the Australian state of Victoria alone, 414 minors were referred for sexual offenses to the Centres Against Sexual Assault (CASA) last year. Just more than half could be placed in rehabilitation programs.

Therapists continually cite the role access to pornography and sexually explicit television scenarios play in sexualizing children and, in some cases, triggering them to exploit others.

Child therapist John Woods of London reported a case of a 13-year-old boy who raped his five-year-old sister after developing a “complex fantasy world” warped by “two years of constant porn use.”

Similar reports come from North America.

In Canada, a 13-year-old boy said his gay porn consumption led to his repeated rape of a four-year-old boy who lived in his foster home.

The omnipresent flickers of porn have caused alarm at the highest levels of European government.

A cross-party report from the British parliament found most boys learned about sex by watching pornography, an influence that “negated the primacy of relationships whilst promoting a self-centered focus of sex.”

That influence magnifies anti-social behavior. A 2010 study from Australia’s La Trobe University found boys who watch porn are more likely to harass girls. Nearly one-third of British girls aged 16-18 said they experienced unwanted sexual touching in a 2010 YouGov poll.

“We must do more to shield young people from an increasingly sexualized society,” Lilley said.

As a result of cases such as these, Iceland is considering banning pornography because of the harm it inflicts on women and children.

The move touched off fierce debate in the UK. This report elevates that discussion to a new importance.

“The world is suffering an untreated pandemic of harm from pornography and children are suffering the most,” Trueman told LifeSiteNews.

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Porn Apps Pose Rising Risk to Mobile Users

Remember those awful pop up attacks when web browsing “free” porn sites on your computer?  Get ready to get attacked again if you use porn apps on your smart phone!

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/03/02/mobile-attacks-click-jacking-data-theft/1957905/
by Byron Acohido, USA TODAY

SEATTLE – Cybercriminals are stepping up the spread of data-stealing programs via pornographic content optimized for viewing on smartphones and touch tablets.

What’s more, free apps and mobile ads are being pervasively manipulated by scammers bent on redirecting your clicks to web links you had no intention of visiting. Known as click-jackers, these scammers get paid by an advertiser for each such click.

Those two developments — outlined in recent reports from network security firm Blue Coat Systems and anti-virus giant Trend Micro — underscore how cybercriminals have begun adapting tried-and-true scams  from the  PC browser world to mobile devices.

“Mobile threats are following the money,” says Kurt Roemer, chief security strategist at Citrix Systems. “With mobile becoming the centerpiece of digital life, attackers are  flocking to this target-rich environment in new and innovative ways.”

Mobile attacks, for the moment, are largely focused on handsets and tablets that use Google’s open source code Android operating system, and fall mostly into the category of nuisances, says Sasi Murthy, Blue Coat’s director of product marketing.

The cybercriminals spreading corrupted links, via mobile porn content, appear to be after your phone number and list of contacts to sell to spammers, for instance. This ultimately can  lead to your friends receiving more spam on their mobile devices, but nothing more serious than that.

“It’s a mistake to trust that apps you download to your mobile device are inherently trustworthy,” says Jamz Yaneza, Trend Micro’s threat research manager. “Folks are having to learn the hard way that that’s not necessarily true.”

In fact, much of the malicious activity in the mobile space currently revolves around either stealing address book contacts and profile information, or tricking users into clicking to certain weblinks to generate advertising payments to the scammer.

In the end, “someone other than the legitimate developer is compensated for ad impressions,” says Kevin Mahaffey, founder and chief technology officer of Lookout Mobile Security.

In the current mobile environment, consumers ought to exercise healthy skepticism around any offer that seems too good to be true, says Mark Risher, CEO of data integrity  firm Impermium.

“On small screens it can be hard to see the signs of a scam, so when in doubt, try viewing the Web page for that app from a full-sized laptop and look for the tell-tale signs,” Risher advises.

Be suspicious of sloppy writing or descriptions and any security warnings that appear in your full PC Web browser, he says.

No one in tech security or law enforcement expects mobile threats to remain relatively benign for long. “Any mobile device that’s accessing the Web and accessing Web downloads is, in fact, exposed,” Murthy says. “And that presents a very real and immediate danger to mobile users.”

One big security hole cybercriminals are expected to increasingly focus on is the fact that the operating systems of mobile devices are cumbersome to upgrade. A recent survey by security firm Rapid7 revealed that 67% of devices using the revered Apple iOS platform, which powers iPhones and iPads, are running without the latest feature upgrades and security patches.

“Mobile devices are typically required to be updated by employees and patches can’t be pushed by organizations,” says Giri Sreenivas, mobile vice president at Rapid7. “Because of this, there is a high percentage of devices running out-of-date firmware.”

Android devices are difficult to upgrade because neither the carrier nor the handset maker have much of a financial incentive to push out security patches in a timely manner, says Chris Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union.

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Child Predators Over The Internet

Originally posted by Mahamas Earth on 09/13/2012

Human Trafficking!

With more than one billion internet users around the world, the internet has become an integral part of our daily lives. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote in his best selling book The World is Flat, the internet has leveled the playing field, creating a convergence of people, places, knowledge and information. As individuals, we have good global. However, there is a dark side to this globalization.

Criminals are readily making use of the internet, to carry out activities, ranging from computer intrusions to money laundering. Terrorists around the world are recruiting, training, and planning attacks, armed only with laptops. One of the most insidious uses of the internet is for Child ” Sexual ” exploitation. According to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), an Organization that works internationally to remove child Sexual abuse images from the internet, graphic images of child abuse are growing significantly in number on the web. The latest report published by the IWF, claims that the percentage of abusive websites had increased almost 28 percent in 2009. On these reported websites, 73 percent of the persons subjected to abuse appeared to be under age of 10 years.
Approximately 65 percent of the images and videos depicted sexual activity between adults and children, including rape and sexual torture of the children. In total, 715 unique sources of commercial child sexual abuse websites were identified. Each of the webpages or websites is a gateway to hundreds, or even thousands, of images or videos of children being sexually abused. These websites are, unfortunately, supported by layers of payment mechanisms, content stores, membership systems and advertising frames. Payment systems may involve Prepay cards, credit cards, ‘virtual money’ or e-payment systems, with transactions being carried out via secure webpages or e-mails. Case after case, we see adult predators taking advantage of the weakest among us, the proliferation of mobile phone and multimedia messages add another twist to the story. Recently, The Concise Oxford English Dictionary introduced several new words in its latest edition of dictionaries. Among these is the term ‘Sexting’ which is defined as the act of sending Sexually-Explicit text messages or pictures of individuals ( including minors ) via a mobile phone.
These messages and pictures are generally passed from mobile phone to mobile phone until they end up being uploaded on (and downloaded from) the internet. After this, these posts are extensively redistributed online, which makes stopping them or removing them from the internet, virtually impossible.
Modern technology has given users unprecedented ease and ability to become photographers and publishers. Unfortunately, having access to technologies and tools, and using them responsibly are two very diverse concepts.