FHE on Pornography

"As our children grow, they need information taught by parents more directly and plainly about what is and is not appropriate.  Parents need to teach children to avoid any pornographic photographs or stories.  Children and youth need to know from parents that pornography of any kind is a tool of the devil; and if anyone flirts with it, it has the power to addict, dull, and even destroy the human spirit." (M. Russell Ballard Like a Flame Unquenchable Ensign 1999, May)

We had our family home evening tonight on pornography.  I started out by reading the book The Trap by Karmel H. Newell.  I had purchased it a couple of months ago, but had just never gotten around to reading it to my children.  It is about a boy's discussion with his dad about pornography after being exposed to a graphic picture on the internet when he was at his friends house earlier that day.  This book is okay.  I wish it would have talked a bit more about what pornography is.  It talked about Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, and God making clothes for them out of animal skins.  It also talks about modesty and about the Savior and the atonement, which I liked. 

After we read the book I read to them from the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, in the sections on Dress and Appearance and Entertainment and the Media. 

I also, discussed with them that pornography isn't just on the internet or in bad magazines.  In our culture it is all over the place.  It can be seen on posters in stores, and on TV commercials and just about anywhere we look.  We need to constantly guard our thoughts and turn away whenever we see someone or something that isn't appropriate. 

I then asked everyone if we had anything in our home that we needed to get rid of.  My 11 year old son mentioned a movie that was downstairs in our family room.  We decided to all go and sort through our movies together.  I was surprised by how many movies didn't make the cut.  I suspected we would get rid of 2 or 3 but when we were done we had a whole grocery sack full.  We kept asking ourselves the question: "If the Savior was here with us, would we watch this?"  It really helped to keep that in mind as we decided which movies to keep and which to toss. 

I think next week we will have a follow up family home evening on the sacredness of our bodies.

Side Note:  In proving that pornography is all around us, I was watching AFV with my children last night when a segment came on entitled "Pole Vaulters vs. Pole Dancers."  Before I could reach the remote and get the channel changed a women appeared next to a pole in sexy lingerie.  I got the channel changed then but was so surprised that pornography is so accepted in our culture that we parade it on family shows and laugh at it.  I don't care that it was obviously going to be very bad examples of pole dancing, it was still pole dancing.  The purpose of pole dancing is to sexually arouse and is therefore pornography. 

I got on ABC's AFV website today and left a comment on their discussion board about how inappropriate it was and how disappointed I was.  I checked back later to see if anyone had responded  to my comment and they had removed it.  Why am I not surprised!

Oh, and don't even get me started on the commercials.