General > General Technical Chat
UK internet censoring
Nominal Animal:
One aspect of Finnish culture I really like is the concept of Sauna.
It is a scrupulously clean place; like a surgery. Just like in pre-teen kids' lives, there is no room in there for sex.
Even though families and friends typically bathe together nude, it's just nudity, explicitly non-sexual.
And it's perfectly okay to say that I am too shy to bathe nude in a mixed crowd: it just leads to a common decision whether to bathe by gender or not, and a friendly reminder that it's always okay to wrap yourself in a towel in sauna if you're shy. At least in my circles!
It is very common for teens and young adults to be shy and picky about it, with small kids and older adults having more relaxed attitudes. Hormones, perhaps?
I think this cultural aspect teaches kids at the emotional level that there is perfectly ordinary non-sexual nudity.
This gives a natural path to give kids the general outline of human biology, including procreation, while leaving the sexual activity aspects out of it, until they're old enough to understand.
Infraviolet:
Is this an example of Young's law appearing?
"A culture which becomes more open about sexual topics becomes more censorious of everything else", after Toby Young, journalist at the Daily Sceptic?
To be quite honest I've always been a Victorian level prude when it comes to consideration of sex/nudity/... but I respect the importance of the rights of others to discuss them openly because I know that censorship is too damaging a tool to be acceptable even if I were to want the kind of things censors propose to censor to be censored.
The particularly weird thing about the Uk is that there are insane politicians*, both on the "progressive" and "reactionary" sides of the typical social debate, both pushing ahead for these horrific plans.
The answer must be open defiance by the public. And also a highlightingof the fact that the youth are cunning, and however much censorship is enacted someone will find a way past, and then tell all their mates, and if their mates can't understand how to bypass it for themselves they would end up with a sneaker-net of USB sticks with verboten content on them being passed around.
*either unaware of the damage censorship causes to society, especially the damage to the trustworthines of infrastructure itself when that censorship involves tampering with the technical underpinnings of the internet, or completely aware of it and desperate to censor nonetheless
james_s:
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on July 12, 2023, 04:41:31 am ---One aspect of Finnish culture I really like is the concept of Sauna.
It is a scrupulously clean place; like a surgery. Just like in pre-teen kids' lives, there is no room in there for sex.
Even though families and friends typically bathe together nude, it's just nudity, explicitly non-sexual.
And it's perfectly okay to say that I am too shy to bathe nude in a mixed crowd: it just leads to a common decision whether to bathe by gender or not, and a friendly reminder that it's always okay to wrap yourself in a towel in sauna if you're shy. At least in my circles!
It is very common for teens and young adults to be shy and picky about it, with small kids and older adults having more relaxed attitudes. Hormones, perhaps?
I think this cultural aspect teaches kids at the emotional level that there is perfectly ordinary non-sexual nudity.
This gives a natural path to give kids the general outline of human biology, including procreation, while leaving the sexual activity aspects out of it, until they're old enough to understand.
--- End quote ---
I have no issue at all with non-sexual nudity, personally I prefer not to be nude around anyone that is not a romantic partner but I don't have an issue with whatever other people want to do. To me plain old nudity and sexual nudity are completely different things. Everybody has a set of naughty bits and there are only two varieties so there is no great secret there.
Ranayna:
--- Quote from: NiHaoMike on July 10, 2023, 04:02:47 am ---This reminds me of how at the high school I went to, one of the biology books in the library has pictures of male and female private parts. (That's photographs, in addition to cross section drawings which are standard for such books.) I just kept it to myself and continued reading. In fairness, there are truly lots of books in any good sized library and it would be impractical to check each one for such "bad" pictures and words.
Looking back, it would have been fun to anonymously mention that such a book exists in the school library, then see how long it takes for it to be found. (That was before social media was a thing.) At the least, the librarian would be confused why there's suddenly a lot of students interested in books.
--- End quote ---
Heh... my biology textbook from around 1990 might actually get someone thrown in jail today. It had images of pre- and post puberty kids in it, to show the development.
tggzzz:
--- Quote from: james_s on July 12, 2023, 03:20:13 am ---
--- Quote from: tggzzz on July 11, 2023, 09:41:01 pm ---Oh riiiight.
Teach her not to be curious.
Teach her not to find answers by reading.
Teach her to deviously hide things from me.
Teach her that sex is a disgusting subject.
Teach her to be ashamed of asking questions and having independent thoughts.
Teach her that I'm not interested in what she is thinking.
Teach her that "might is right" rather than "right because reason X".
Good parenting... Not!
It was a good book. I was delighted she had found it and was fascinated by the subject. That's why I bought it for her so she could continue reading it at her leisure.
It paid dividends. Three years later she wanted chickens as pets. I didn't, and raised all sorts of objections. She went and did the research online, and countered every one of my objections with solid arguments. That delighted me, and I agreed we could have them. She specified what was needed in a coop and enclosure, and we built one together. Over the next six years she used her chickens as a spring board for learning all sorts of skills that we never anticipated.
More recently she has used those attitudes and skills to successfully start her own business. She's even been invited to demonstrate to others that how it is possible to start their own business.
But I suppose you think that, because I didn't want something, I should have been "a good parent" by stomping on her interests and ambitions.
If letting her read that book was a parenting failure, IMNSHO the world would be a better place if more parents failed.
--- End quote ---
You are free to decide for yourself at what age it is appropriate to teach your child about various topics, that isn't really the issue. Personally I think 7 is too young to be taught about sex, they shouldn't be taught that it's dirty and disgusting, they simply don't really need to know about it at all,
--- End quote ---
You sound like an HR-droid that treats employees as resources rather than people.
Or a boss that thinks his minions should just obey commands and "don't need to know why".
Or maybe as someone who believes in strong religious doctrines.
She decided when it was appropriate for her. I was going to leave it another year or two, but she took the initiative. That was fine, and the alternative would have been far far worse for the reasons I outlined above.
Things don't happen according to a fixed schedule. Everybody is individual, and that should be understood, accepted, and accomodated.
Many people thought 3yo was too young to learn to read. I didn't have any such preconceptions (of course), so asked my father to teach me and he did. Family lore is that I was reading the daily newspaper before I went to school. Some people thought that was wrong and that I should "just be a normal kid", which I presume means "be like I was".
--- Quote ---when I was 7 I only vaguely knew what sex was and I didn't care, I was busy being a kid.
--- End quote ---
The same with me, but that's irrelevant.
My daughter is not me. She is an independent individual, and should be treated as such.
--- Quote ---But like I said that isn't really the issue, the parenting failure here (which does not necessarily mean that you have failed overall as a parent) is succumbing to the demands of a 7 year old after failing to direct them to something else. As a parent part of your job is to set reasonable and consistent rules and boundaries and stick to them, you can simply say "no" and that's that. You're the child's parent, not their friend.
--- End quote ---
Do you have children?
It sounds like you have read how to interact with young people from a textbook or newspaper.
Children are not - or should not be - submissive to their parents. They are young people and should be treated as you would treat other inexperienced people. That means
* explaining and guiding, not forcing
* allowing them to jump in at the deep end, but being there to make sure they don't sink. Including, depending on the child's personality, encouraging them to jump in at the deep end
* giving information that is appropriate to their level of experience
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