Children using the Internet to access porn (and also their "friends" who are 40 year old pedophiles) definitely falls under the category "WTF? Where are the Parents?" Admittedly, I haven't encountered this particular problem yet (other than with ex-boyfriends) as my kids only get close enough to my computer to occasionally push the "Tab" key.
So the recent study that shows 1 in 3 rural boys are heavy-users of porn shouldn't come as any surprise, especially if you've kept up with the deluge of recent MySpace/Internet abuse stories. But these findings are particularly disturbing because the Internet is only part of the problem. Apparently, kids are also finding stashes of porn magazines and DVDs and viewing them without their parents' knowledge.
The rural boys in the study also reported much less frequent conversations with their parents about sex. This seems like a disastrous combination. With no real information about sex, they are learning about it by watching porn. And everyone knows it doesn't go down like that in real life. But the real issue here is parental involvement: Parents need to educate their kids about sex so that they won't be prey to the misinformation that is increasingly only one inattentive parent and one mouse-click away.
