LOS ANGELES — ABC News in general and Nightline in particular are taking a look at "Porn Before Puberty," an alliterative headline that neatly sensationalizes what turns out to be a somewhat balanced look at youngsters who are exposed to pornography through the myriad of devices and networks available to them throughout the day. The nightly news program covered the issue last night, and the network posted an article to its site with an accompanying video that looks mostly at 12-year-old Winnifred and her friend, Danielle, who is also 12. Winnifred's progressive-minded parents also are interviewed. Winnifred, who is now 15, is the subject of a documentary titled Sexy Baby that followed her from age 12 to 15. The doc screened at the Tribeca Film festival.
The attempt of the piece (and the documentary) is ostensibly to raise awareness about the ease with which anyone can access adult content these days, but the producers can't help but err on the side of alarmism. Indeed, the opening words out of the mouth of JuJu Chang, the ABC News reporter hosting the segment, is, "It's a distressing thought, but internet porn may be replacing sex ed for kids in the digital age. A shocking percentage of pre-adolescent children are being exposed to cyber-porn long before they are mature enough to process its graphic sexuality. It fills parents of pre-teens, like me, with dread. And add to that those explicit lyrics in hip-hop and the elixir of social media, and suddenly the facts of life are x-rated."
Not terribly balanced, to say the least, but at least Winnifred is allowed to express herself with apparent abandon, and in doing so she either supports or upends the sense of terror that parents like Chang are feeling. The girl is nothing if not precocious, able to articulate her opinions confidently, and certainly projects an awareness of herself and the world around her that supports her mother's stated goal of raising an independent and self-sufficient woman. That she is not a "woman" yet is, of course, the fulcrum of the issue.
Though "Porn Before Puberty" and Pretty Baby feel late to the game, they do at least seem to realize that the genie is long-since out of the bottle. The breathless alarmism feels similar to the sensationalism with which the U.K. Daily Mail has been touting ISP level censorship in order to "save the children," but the U.S. media has thus far stopped short of calling for solutions that most American's would find... well, un-American.
Perhaps that is because of all the people profiled in the ABC video, Winnifred, who refers to her generation as "the pioneers," seems by far the most confident about her ability to manage the digital landscape unfettered, especially the ease with which she is able to upload more salacious photos to her Facebook account and make them available only to the boys at school.
In the face of such self-assured technical confidence, what exactly is a parent to do but work hard to make their child as together as Winnifred appears to be?
