網絡色情時代的父母經

It had been another long day for Eliza, a 41-year-old stay-at-home mother who lives in Los Angeles with her two sons. She had taken the boys, 10 and 13 at the time, to school, taken care of the house, and after putting them to bed, planned to relax in front of her computer.

對41歲的全職媽媽伊麗莎(Eliza)來說，這又是漫長的一天。她和兩個兒子住在洛杉磯。她把10歲和13歲的兩個兒子送去學校，然後開始整理房間，晚上打發他們上牀後，她打算在電腦前放鬆一會兒。

At least that’s what she was hoping to do. Eliza opened her computer and started to search for a document, but based on previous searches, the term “child porn” appeared on the screen.

至少，那是她的打算。伊麗莎打開電腦，開始尋找一份文件，但是基於以前的搜索，“兒童色情”這個詞出現在屏幕上。

“I went into a panic,” said Eliza, who was given anonymity to protect the identity of her children. Her mind started to race in a million different directions.

“我嚇了一跳，”伊麗莎說（爲了保護孩子的身份隱私，她決定隱去姓氏）。各種念頭涌進她的頭腦。

Two nights later, as they were going to bed, she asked the older son if he had searched for “child porn” and if so, why. “He said he was looking for porn made for children,” she told me. “He explained, embarrassed, that he just wanted to know what his body was supposed to look like at his age.”

兩天後，她在睡覺前問大兒子是否搜索了“兒童色情”，如果是的話，爲什麼要這樣做。“他說自己在找給孩子看的色情片，”她說，“他尷尬地解釋說，他只是想知道他這個年紀的身體應該是什麼樣子的。”

Welcome to the new teenage years. Not long ago, boys and girls nearing that curious age might sneak a peek at Playboy or scour the underwear section of a J. C. Penney circular.

歡迎來到新的青少年時代。不久前，男孩女孩們在這個好奇的年紀可能會偷看《花花公子》或者翻看傑西潘尼百貨公司宣傳單的內衣部分。

Today, teenagers have easy access to a seemingly endless supply of pornography, including things that even many adults don’t want to see, such as mock sexual violence, misogynistic videos and, in extreme cases, child pornography.

如今，青少年很容易接觸那些似乎無窮無盡的色情片，其中一些甚至連很多成年人都不想看，比如模擬性暴力和歧視女性的視頻，極端的例子包括兒童色情片。

“At first, I told my son the next time he wanted to look at things like this, to talk to me and we’d do it together,” Eliza said. “Yet as soon as the words left my mouth I realized, and said, ‘No, no, no, that would be a terrible idea.’ ”

“一開始，我對兒子說下次他想看這種東西時，告訴我，我們一起看，”伊麗莎說，“但是話一出口我就覺得不對，連忙說，‘不，不，不，這個主意很糟糕。’”

Parents I’ve spoken with who have young boys acknowledged that trying to stop them from seeing online pornography is all but impossible. One father, for example, said that he installed web filtering software on the home computer, only to learn that his son had watched a gross-out pornography clip at a friend’s house.

我採訪過一些有未成年兒子的父母們。他們承認，阻止孩子看網絡色情片幾乎是不可能的。比如，一位父親說，他給家裏的電腦安裝了網絡過濾軟件，但是發現兒子在一個朋友家裏看了一段令人作嘔的色情片段。

I spoke with researchers at the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, who walked me through a number of long-term studies that the group has been conducting since 2000 on children’s exposure to pornography. In one paper, the group found that 42 percent of online users ages 10 to 17 had seen pornography, and that 66 percent of those had seen it unwittingly, often as display ads on file-sharing sites.

我採訪了新罕布什爾大學涉童罪行研究中心(Crimes Against Children Research Center)的研究員們。他們給我簡要介紹了該機構從2000年起進行的一些關於兒童接觸色情內容的長期研究。其中一項研究發現，在10至17歲的上網者中，有42%看過色情片，其中66%的人是在無意中看到的，通常是在文件共享網站的醒目廣告中。

Another study by the same university found that 93 percent of boys and 62 percent of girls were exposed to online pornography during their adolescence. You don’t need to be a scientific researcher to realize that’s a lot of exposure for children.

這所大學的另一項研究發現，93%的男孩和62%的女孩在青春期看到過網絡色情內容。即使不是科學研究者，你也能感覺到，對孩子們來說，這也有點太多了。

For parents, this leaves two questions. First, is the pervasiveness of online pornography bad for today’s youth, potentially creating a society of sexual deviants? And second, what can parents do to help protect their children?

對父母們來說，這引出了兩個問題。第一，網絡色情無處不在，這對如今的青少年有害嗎？會導致這個社會充滿性變態者嗎？第二，父母們能做些什麼來保護孩子？

There is no definitive answer to the first question, although it is a running debate in the nation’s culture wars. For example, the 2013 movie “Don Jon,” which starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a man hooked on pornography, prompted a new round of anti-pornography commentary, including one from a sex therapist arguing that online pornography is severely corrupting today’s youth. “I see a sexual and relational train wreck happening,” the therapist said.

第一個問題沒有確切答案，不過它是美國文化論戰中的一個長期論題。比如，在2013年的影片《唐璜》(Don Jon)中，約瑟夫·高登-李維(Joseph Gordon-Levitt)飾演一個癡迷色情片的人。該片引發了新一輪反色情評論，其中有一位性心理醫生認爲，網絡色情正在嚴重侵蝕如今的青少年。“我看到很多人難以維持正常的性關係和親密關係，”這位心理醫生說。

But other experts who monitor teenagers and sexuality say that there is plenty of evidence pointing in the opposite direction. Teenage pregnancy has dropped sharply in recent years; the number of sexual partners that teenagers have is down; and the number of ninth graders having sexual intercourse has fallen, to cite just three examples.

但是其他觀察青少年和性的專家說，有很多證據表明情況正相反。先舉三個例子：近些年，青少年懷孕案例急劇減少；青少年擁有性伴侶的人數減少了；發生性關係的九年級學生人數減少了。

“If you just look at the indicators of sexual responsibility, you don’t see a generation of kids looking like they are off the rails,” said David Finkelhor, an author of several books on child abuse and a director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire. But Dr. Finkelhor acknowledged that the long-term psychological effects of teenagers’ access to online pornography was still being determined.

“如果只看和性責任相關的某些指數，你就不會覺得這一代孩子好像都誤入歧途了，”大衛·芬克霍爾(David Finkelhor)說。他是新罕布什爾大學家庭研究實驗室的一位主管，寫過幾本關於虐待兒童的書。但是芬克霍爾承認，青少年接觸網絡色情對心理的長期影響仍有待確定。

Which leads to the second question. Dr. Finkelhor and other experts I spoke with said that today’s easy access to pornography, especially its violent and illegal forms, makes it imperative for parents to educate their children, not only about sex but specifically about online pornography, in all its flavors. And given how easy it is to find it online, it is important to inculcate them at an early age.

這就引出了第二個問題。芬克霍爾以及我採訪過的其他專家說，如今接觸色情內容變得太過容易，特別是暴力和非法的色情內容，所以父母們必須得教育孩子，不只是關於性，還要特別就各種類型的網絡色情對他們進行教育。考慮到現在很容易在網上找到色情內容，所以從很小就諄諄教誨很重要。

Here’s the new reality: Thanks to the Internet, children will see things that children probably shouldn’t. Teenagers with active hormones will get together with their friends and, when parents are out of sight, seek out and explore dark and salacious imagery.

新的現實情況就是這樣的：因爲有了互聯網，孩子們會看到他們不該看到的東西。父母不在身邊時，荷爾蒙分泌旺盛的青少年會和朋友們聚在一起，尋找陰暗淫蕩的畫面。

So as uncomfortable and embarrassing as it may be for both parents and teenagers, part of raising a child today means explaining that, like Hollywood movies, pornography is often a fantasy that can take things to extremes.

所以，雖然對父母和青少年來說，這讓人難受、尷尬，但是如今養育孩子的部分責任是向他們說明，色情片就像好萊塢電影，往往是一種幻想，有時會比較極端。

Also, children should be warned about the dark and dangerous material they may stumble across online. If parents don’t, that uncomfortable and embarrassing feeling could be replaced with something much worse.

另外，應該警告孩子們，他們在網上會碰到一些陰暗危險的內容。不警告的話，倒是可以避免難受、尷尬的感覺，但取而代之的是更糟糕的情況。

Take it from Eliza. The last thing you want to find on the home computer is a previous search for the term “child porn.”

伊麗莎就是個例子。你在家庭電腦上最不想看到的就是歷史搜素記錄裏有“兒童色情”的條目。