Nowadays, internet pornography is as abundant and easy to gain access to as salt is in the ocean.
Although these porn websites may put up a sign saying "Please Don't Enter unless you're 18 or older", feeling good and giving themselves a pat on the back, these signs do nothing. Many teens have constant unfettered access to porn, and it's as if nobody cares.
The effects of porn on the human brain are anything but good. Overwhelming data in recent studies show that watching porn shrinks the reward center in your brain causing pleasure to become less frequent and unsatisfying. Eventually, porn perverts the viewer's idea of a healthy relationship and consent, while objectifying people, and glorifying sexual violence. This stuff isn't great for anybody, but it certainly isn't good for teens.
The issue of our youth having enfettered access to pornography is a huge one, one that very well may influence the psyche of the future generations to come. If we don't do something now, we know not how many more of our youth might be corrupted and perverted by this stuff.
If we force online pornography websites to ask for some kind of proof of age, then it might just help reduce the number of kids on porn. Of course, I'm not saying it's foolproof. Teens are intuitive. But whatever we can do to make it harder for them to access the stuff, the better.
