Comments on: Feds, Kids & DOPA (Delete Online Pedagogues Act?)

By: Jared

Jared — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 18:28:19 +0000

Often kids aren’t very honest about what they do online, which would of course bring about questions as to what they do REALLY do online. To answer these questions many parents look toward programs such as the ones reviewed at http://www.YouthEye.com to give them the edge.

Hope this helps any parents looking for it!

By: Willy

Willy — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:43:24 +0000

Sharon, further to Judith’s comment… why even try to prevent whatever it is you are trying to prevent? Doesn’t it make more sense to teach kids from an early age just what sex is all about and how to do it safely and responsibly?

In my experience, most kids who allow themselves to become involved with an adult online do so looking for love, not specifically sex. The sex is just a means to an end.

Teach parents to stop denying their kids physical expression of love (how many Dads do you know who will hug a 12 y.o son, for example) and most won’t be interested in hooking up with online “predators”.

By: Judith Levine

Judith Levine — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 12:42:30 +0000

Thanks for this, Deb. Haven’t read all the reports yet, but this piece should be published. . .
Sharon, seems to me the question about “good prevention work” is: What are we preventing? Any sexual exploration at all on the Net? That would seem to be Finkelhor et al’s goal. Any “acceptance,” as Deb notes, is always in this resigned tone: lesser of two evils. I’ve long argued that doing it in cyberspace can be a very safe way of figuring out who you are sexually, without ever touching anyone. Sherrie Turkle suggested as much 15 years ago, when she quoted one girl saying something like, “In person, it’s all gropey. On the Net, you have to talk more.”

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 23:22:20 +0000

Hey there. This information is so important. Thanks for sharing it. Lyn and I got slammed by an Amazon.com reviewer for poopoo-ing the MySpace panic and even suggesting that MySpace and Facebook can be wonderful sites for girls.

I wonder too about all these moral panics, from the early CSA panics that you wrote about, to the online predators, and quite possibly to the new panics about “prostitots” etc that the Sexualization of Girls Task Force Report might be creating. What I wonder about is how do we do good prevention work without making the public “aware” and how do we make the public aware without a whole lot of journalists preying on parental fears.

Blogger editor’s note: Sharon Lamb’s new (co-authored) book “Packaging Girlhood” is wonderful — it’s about how corporate consumerism reinforces patriarchal gender roles in the guise of “liberating” girls to buy, buy, buy. Very smart and very readable! I highly recommend it, especially to parents who are trying to deal with Bratz, pink, and those bikes that come with purses. See the authors’ website at http://www.packaginggirlhood. com.