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did you ever find it hard to do science homework, with this just a mouse click away

I recently stopped by my old neighborhood to check out a vacant storefront that a friend of mine was planning to lease for his new personal training studio.

The location was in a well-traveled strip mall, sharing the parking lot with a pizza joint, The Patel’s dairy and a Size 16 plus store. Obviously my friend, who specializes in fat loss programs, did his market research when he chose this spot.

It wasn’t until I pulled up out front that I remembered what used to occupy this space. Until recently, it was the city’s first adults-only video store.

I can remember when it opened like it was yesterday. Back then it caused quite a stir in the neighborhood, and on any given summer evening you’d find my 14 year-old friends and I struggling to peer past the heavy window blinds at the forbidden videos on the shelves.

Names like Nina Hartley, Traci Lords, Peter North, Tom Byron, and the Hedgehog himself, Ron Jeremy adorned the bulky VHS boxes, each with timeless titles like “Bad Girls,” “Naughty Cheerleaders,” and my personal favorite, “Bimbo Bowlers from Buffalo.”

Even though I don’t think I ever actually set foot in the store, its presence dominated my hormone-surging teenage brain. But now it’s gone, rendered obsolete by the infinitely more powerful porn provider of today, the Internet.

Call me an alarmist or a prude even, but I miss the way porn used to be in the not so distant past: a subtle, almost nefarious industry, hidden off the beaten path in dingy old movie theaters and shaded-window video stores. A seedy enterprise far away from the big media spotlight and mainstream consumption. Away from home computers. Away from kids.

Memory Lane

If you’re old enough, think back to what porn was like for teenagers in the pre-Internet age: a few treasured Playboys, Penthouses, and Hustlers, carefully hidden from Mum within stacks of Sports Illustrated magazines and Beano comic books.

As for actual porn movies, the videos we had were hardly the DVD sextravaganzas available today. They were old VHS copies of the shot-on-film porn classics, the footage so worn from thousands of slow motion views it looked less like “Assablanca Part 4: Do Me Again, Sam” and more like the Zapruder film (OG JFK Tape).

But today, with a simple mouse click, you can access thousands of videos, a hundred times the number that old neighborhood XXX store had, all in breathtaking HD and each catering to every possible fascination, inclination, or deviation you can shake your veiny member at.

And that’s great—dare I say awesome, even—until you realize that the kids are being exposed to it as well.

Miley and Noah, Oh My!

If you’re thinking all of this “sexposure” isn’t having an effect on the development of the young mind, think again. Ask anyone who works in the school system and they’ll tell you that teenagers are exhibiting unprecedented sexuality today, a disturbing trend reflected not only in their fashions, but also in their attitudes towards sexuality and casual Jersey Shore-inspired “hook-up” relationships.

Fashion-wise, just compare the pop culture icons of today versus a generation ago. Twenty five years ago, preppy was in, kids flocked to John Hughes movies, and guys had posters of Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy on their locker doors.

Today, even “tween” stars like Miley Cyrus wear push-up bras and show off thong underwear, culminating in a look that’s essentially just a set of clear stilettos away from being that of awkward, young strippers.

Ironically, Cyrus’ equally precocious little sister, nine year-old Noah, recently signed a deal to help design a line of children’s lingerie with her eight year-old friend.

Yes, lingerie. For children.

In full damage control mode, a spokesperson for the clothing company responded that the clothing is not lingerie but in fact “tutu dresses.” Tutu dresses and tank tops attached to tutus, to be exact.

“We would never do anything inappropriate,” she said.

That’s a relief.

In her book The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What You Can Do About It, author MG Durham describes this phenomenon as “kids getting older younger,” a marketing construct blurring the lines between adults and children, especially in regard to sexuality.

The problem, according to Durham, is not with the children but with those who “knowingly sell products with powerful sexual overtones to young girls, and with adults who then interpret girls’ bodies as sexually available.”

If you can’t understand why on God’s green Earth anyone would knowingly advocate sexing up a child, the answer is to simply follow the money. Durham argues cosmetics and clothing designers are seeking ways to capture new customers at a younger age, and on the other hand, emphasize girlishness to help bolster the multi-billion dollar anti-aging market.

Chill Out Pop, It’s Just Clothes

Skeptics maintain that just because young people are dressing more provocatively doesn’t necessarily mean they’re more sexually active. But a recent study revealed that the trend crosses behavioral boundaries and is apparent in teens’ attitudes towards casual sex. The report, conducted by The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada, found that while teen pregnancy rates are falling, “the average age of first sexual intercourse has consistently but gradually declined.”

On the surface, that may not seem like a bad trade-off. OK, kids are becoming sexually active a bit younger; that’s okay, as obviously they’re becoming more responsible, right?

Not so fast.

According to a 2009 NZ District Health Board study, rates of the three most common sexually transmitted diseases, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea, and Syphilis, continue to rise, especially among teenagers. The fact that Syphilis, which was until recently considered as dead as Terry Clark, is now on the rebound makes these results even more concerning to researchers.

Leftys are quick to blame the setback on failed abstinence-based sex education policies left over from the Jim Bolger years, saying they “haven’t been promoting the full message on STI prevention,” a fancy way of admitting “that in spite of the onslaught of sexualized media today’s teens are exposed to, we didn’t think we needed to get into why you should practice other forms of safe sex because we actually thought horny teenagers would find something like oral sex utterly unappealing.”

Oops.

Not to sound overly partisan, but as far as misguided George Bush administration calls go, that particular gem rates somewhere between “Iraq has WMD’s” and “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job with this Katrina thing.”

The bottom line is, kids are getting their freak on earlier — and in more riskier ways — than ever.

Rainbow Country

Mention the phrase “rainbow party” in the presence of your stereotypical helicopter-parenting soccer mum and you’ll likely never get an invite over for dinner again.

The expression comes form the controversial novel Rainbow Party by Paul Ruditis, which is described as a “cautionary tale about a group of teens faced with the prospect of attending an oral sex party.”

For those sheltered souls who’ve never attended an “oral sex party,” Ruditis says it’s not your typical teen’s basement shin-dig with Pizza Pizza and video games; rather, it’s a get-together where the girls each wear a different shade of lipstick while the boys try to end the evening with their prepubescent peckers sporting more colors than a United Colors of Benetton ad.

Although many angst-ridden parents were up in arms and questioned whether these parties existed or not, Ruditis was apparently inspired by numerous news reports about the prevalence and attitudes among teens towards certain types of sexual behavior.

Similarly, the Auckland media reported of similar parties taking place amongst suburban North hHore teens, with the premise being a contest where the girls compete to see who could make a boy ejaculate fastest, the most skilled being able to accomplish this in the time less then it took David Tua to KO Shane Cameron.

As vulgar as these alleged parties are, for me one question in particular stands out:

Where the hell were these parties when I was in school?

When I was in school, it seemed that for every successful oral sex experience you heard about, there was often another one involving a nervous girl, a few too many wine coolers, and a frustrated young man heading home with a lap-full of regurgitated Fettuccine Alfredo.

The average 15 year old was dorky, awkward, and usually only got laid over summer vacation when, despite living for 6 weeks with Auntie Beth in Taupo, they managed somehow to score with dozens of nameless, faceless women, but failed to get so much as a single photograph of any of them. Each would mysteriously be back to batting zero once March rolled around.

But now, it seems typical 15 year-old kids are having more partners than Tiger Woods on an Ambien bender and then posting their sordid conquests on Twitter: just had a 3some w/ Becky n Kate- Woot!1!!

The Big Incongruity

My biggest problem with this hyper-sexualizing of young people is the incongruity with other societal markers. On the one hand, we’re told that we’re living longer and aging slower. Fifty is the new 40, 40 the new 30, and according to Jay-Z, 30 is the new 20. Adolescence, once defined as the period between 14 and 18, has been stretched to 25, 30, even 35 according to some experts.

It’s not uncommon today for “young” people to live at home well into their 30′s, slowly finishing up PhDs in such in-demand fields as Post Modernist Art History, ostensibly prolonging entry into adulthood; a disturbing trend that’s giving way to a society of basement-dwelling 30 year-olds who brag about their Call of Duty scores but only work part-time, blaming it on “the damn economy, man.”

But on the other hand, either willingly or unwillingly, young people are being exposed to the most intimate thoughts, behaviors, and compulsions of adulthood at a progressively younger age.

I just wonder if the juvenile mind can handle this?

For (most) adults, porn is a distraction, an escape to an imaginary place where an ordinary schlep can one minute be checking the water meter at a Malibu address and the next be swept up into a wild sex scene featuring three German women in lederhosen and a plate of wiener schnitzel.

Porn never includes real-life downers like STD’s, pregnancy, or even small talk, and that’s great for adults who deal with the banality of real life every day of their lives. Most realize that real-life women aren’t like the ones in the videos — many of the women in the videos aren’t as they appear in the videos — but does a kid who’s never experienced real women understand that?

Maybe society needs to check its GPS to make sure it’s heading in the right direction. Perhaps we should try sheltering kids a bit again? Here’s an idea: start by ceasing to market sex to them. Who’s interests are we serving if we have nine year-olds concerned if their butts are too flat?

Maybe we could make sex education something a little more informative than a half hour demonstration of how to slip a condom over a banana? Why not explain all the realities of sex: pregnancy and STD’s, sure, how about responsibility, commitment, and respect?

Or maybe all us old married men should just quit pissing and moaning and let the little bastards have their fun. It’s their time. If we were 14, what would we say to some dumb-ass adult trying to tell us not to get lucky?

I suppose that’s just the way of the world: men will always look at the next generation coming up and think, “Man, chicks are way hotter than when I was young, and it sure as shit was harder to get laid back in my day.”

So go on, young Padawan. Be safe, be smart, but don’t be afraid to have a little fun for me while you’re at it.

Just refrain from posting your conquests on Twitter or Facebook, will ya?

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