We need to deal with the dangers of internet porn

HAVING worked as a sex addiction clinician for the best part of 25 years, I was not surprised to learn of the new findings from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

Its recent research has found that the use of online pornography is highly gendered with 64% of young men using same and just 13% of young women reporting use of online pornography.

I have found that the vast preponderance of males (especially young men) who are addicted to pornography appear to be less satisfied with their lives.

They are more prone to being aggressive along with having an extremely poor sense of selfworth. It’s really sad when we learn that poor wellbeing is often found among pornography users.

It’s seems to me that porn today has become the de facto form of sex education for many young men and boys.

Sadly they have unfettered access to the most degrading, violent and abusive content imaginable at the click of a button. One has to ask what the individual and societal implications will be for a generation of young people who are groomed by exposure to hardcore porn.

Parents have told me that sometimes they feel uncomfortable about discussing this issue with their children. This is not because of the sexualised nature of the topic, but due in fact to their children knowing more about technology than they do. I especially think that is the case for all those mums, dads and carers who grew up without smartphones.

I believe this whole world must feel bewildering for them. It’s important to note that children do want to talk to their parents and carers about this emotive subject. We know this because children have said they would like to have this conversation.

One must accept that porn is not going away and so society, especially our young people, will need to learn how to deal with it in their own ways in a manner that doesn’t distort lives.

I believe that it’s important that our society does not allow pornography to change our views on what sexuality is to something that is completely absurd.

JOHN O’BRIEN, clinical psychotherapist,

Clonmel, Co. Tipperary.

Political scheming

IN politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. PAT O’CALLAGHAN, Mallow, Co. Cork.

Art lessons

LAST year I retired after 45 years as a professional artist, so I do feel qualified to offer this opinion. The whole world could do with an art lesson.

Our understanding of colours is laughable. We call some people black, when in fact they are shades of brown.

We refer to pinkish-coloured people as white, when they are a complex mix of burnt sienna, yellow ochre, cerulean blue, white, alizarin crimson and a touch of olive green. We even refer to some folks as yellow when they are clearly not, and Red Indians were neither red nor Indian.

We refer to wines as red or white, when in fact milk is white and ‘white’ wine is transparent, with a hint of yellow ochre. So whoever creates these labels must be colour-blind. It is also rather ironic that ‘white’ people are far more multi-coloured than ‘people of colour’ are. Not only are our labels illiterate and ill-informed but their creators insist on changing them every ten minutes, then become incensed if we mistakenly use last year’s word.

And to complicate things even more, any artist will tell you that, technically, black and white aren’t colours at all. Instead of all this bickering and wokery, we should all have an art lesson and get a sense of humour. GEOFF TRISTRAM,

by email.