A vast social experiment?
This
Wired story seriously considers the problems that grotesque spam (you know, the "Zoo Farm Orgies" you sometimes get in your
hotmail account) can cause. But on a background note, I've often mentioned to friends how at 25 years old, my experience with pornography was very different in my adolescence than someone even five years younger than me. I was 18 in 1995, when the internet was just getting off the ground and penetration levels were rather low. Today my 10 year old brother is getting "Zoo Farm" e-mails in his yahoo account.
Back in the early 90s, we were the last generation of young males who had to
search and
procure porn via surreptitious means. You know, finding the friend of the friend who had a dad who was a little lax with monitoring his porno tapes. Maybe once in a while someone would make a copy, and the straight vanilla
Vivid film would be passed around. In many ways, it was the hunt that created the excitement. Viewing the porn itself was often an ... anti-climax so to speak.
Today, the situation is very different. Any kid with an IQ above 70 could find porn. If they don't have home access, they can always go the library (where, judging from the homeless guys and teenagers I see at my local library on the internet terminals crowding the screen, the blocking software is pretty clumsy). In fact, the most depraved sort of pornography finds its way to their personal e-mail box
unless they maintain some vigilance. Needless to say, this is a far different situation than past generations.
I am curious as to what behavioral differences (if any) sociologists will find in the post-1995 adolescent generation of males. If social conservatives are right, we are on the brink of utter chaos and moral depravity. If Leftist feminists are right, the seeds of violent patriarchy have been sown.