Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Porn come-ons via Internet vex parents

Scott Dickensheets

Tuesday, Aug. 11, 1998 | 9:47 a.m.

"HI, I'M PAM," went the message. "Want to see me nude?" "We heard you liked Catholic schoolgirls," said another. "Sick and twisted hardcore," boasted a third. "Wow eeeeeeeeeeeee, take a peek," advised a fourth.

Welcome to the wide-open, peekaboo, money-shot world of my son's e-mail account.

Here you can find an avalanche of such prurience, most of it not so conservatively worded. Here you can find links to images of "girls so young their developing breasts are just showing through." Here you can click to explicit pictures of every imaginable gender pairing, body count and, shall we say, exotic port of entry. One site offers bestiality, another "extreme semi-legal water sports" -- and I don't think they mean jet skis. Then again, I wouldn't rule that out.

Did I mention that he's 11? Well, he's 11.

I find the above curious for this reason: My son doesn't have an independent e-mail account; his is like a sidecar appended to my wife's America Online account. And she hasn't received a single one of these mailings.

Most of these things are written in the laughable porn boilerplate pioneered by Penthouse Forum to describe the sexual adventures of students at small midwestern universities. But some emerge from their trench coats to drape a friendly arm around the recipient: "Here's the nude pics you ordered," one says, while another purrs, "You left chat before we could talk," employing a sense of familiarity and adult acceptance an 11-year-old might find enticing. For his part, my son assures us he hasn't been joyriding through the Internet's back alleys when we're not looking -- no chat rooms, no nude-pic ordering -- and, anyway, we're always looking.

Internet technology is all weird science and bad magic to me, but AOL's tech support people tell me the senders of this stuff can't single out minors, particularly since my son hasn't submitted a member profile listing his age. I wonder, though. Listen to this: One e-mailer offered nude pix but suggested "close your door first." That's not aimed at kids? Luckily, we've put parental controls in place to prevent our son from accessing this stuff; were he to click for the photos, the site would reject him (although some advise he check with his parents about modifying the restrictions).

I'm careful not to kick into hysterical parent overdrive here. This, after all, is the price we pay for that little thing we call free speech. Nor am I angry at AOL; it offers plenty of mail controls and is trying to tighten its grip on the junk e-mail that flows so prodigiously through its lines.

In fact, so far, I find the whole thing rather amusing because we've intercepted every one (we check his account before he sits down to the keyboard). Had my son gotten his eyes on one -- if I'd actually had to field the question, "Dad, what's bestiality?" -- I admittedly wouldn't be so blase.

This is all in step with pop culture's ongoing sexualization and consumer indoctrination of children. Being a parent in pop America is like playing goalie for a really bad hockey team: you have to block a lot of shots. No matter how good you are, though, inevitably some will get past you, giving your kids a glimpse of the great American combo platter of nude scenes, kill shots and playful vulgarity. And this is what they will think: Wow eeeeeeeeeee, take a peek!

Really, all you can do with kids is install Good Judgement 2.0 and hope you've done it correctly. Oh, and watch their e-mail.

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