Family Friendly Shopping Week

(October 25 – November 1, 2009)

We’ve all been there…waiting in endless check-out lines with our children. Maybe we’re so worried about keeping them from grabbing gum and snickers bars that we’ve become complacent about the danger placed right at their eye level—the racy images and sexually-charged headlines that surround them as we wait to check out. More than one parent of an emerging reader has been asked, “What does S-E-X spell?” Each month the magazines get worse as the headlines become more illicit and the use of profanity increases.

Since silence equals acceptance, will you join other parents this week and let businesses know we will not patronize their stores at the expense of our children? During White Ribbon Against Pornography (WRAP) Week, please let your voice be heard. Support businesses that do not display material inappropriate for children to see. Let businesses who display these inappropriate materials know that you will not shop there this week. Respectfully ask them to follow the lead of thousands of other stores by covering inappropriate material, removing the material from sight, or creating a “family-friendly” check-out line. You could do this by calling the store manager, writing a note on the comment cards found at most customer service counters, emailing the corporate office for the chain, or visiting the store and speaking directly to the manager.

Please forward this on to others who may be tired of stores selling sex to kids. Let’s get it covered up or moved out this week! For more information, visit www.forevermoms.blogspot.org, a site sponsored by the Treasure Valley Idaho Chapter of American Mothers (a non-profit, non-political, inter-faith organization in support of the family). Learn about WRAP week, comment on your success, find links to great anti-pornography websites, and learn more about protecting children from the effects of pornography.

Join us in shopping “Family-Friendly!”

Alison Moulton
Elizabeth Neratko
Leslie Simmons
Valerie Christensen

Marketing to Children

(April 2009)

The April 2009 Cosmo cover features High School Musical and Disney Channel star Ashley Tisdale. This is an example of direct marketing to young people. How many little girls, tweens, and teens do you know who are obsessed with High School Musical and its stars? I’m sure this magazine made its way into more than one collection.

Sample Cosmopolitan Headlines

(April, May, June, July 2009)

Sorry to print them, but we need to be aware of the headlines that are placed at child eye-level in many store check-out lines. How would you like your kids sounding out these titles? They will continue to print and display such headlines as long as the public continues to accept them.

GET BUTT-NAKED! 50 FUN THINGS TO DO BARE-A##ED

SEX HE CRAVES: WE HELP YOU DISCOVER HIS MOST DIRTY-LISCIOUS FANTASIES—SO YOU CAN DELIVER THE NAUGHTY GOODS

BEST. SEX. EVER. OUR GUTSY NEW TIPS ARE GUARANTEED TO GIVE HIM THE MOST BADA## ORGASM IMAGINABLE. AND YOU TOO!

BE A LUCKY B####! THESE PROVEN MIND TRICKS BRING YOU WHAT YOU WANT

VIRGINS IN COSMO! (WE THOUGHT THIS DAY WOULD NEVER COME)

THESE HOT MOVES WILL START A BONFIRE IN HIS PANTS…AND HIS HEART

SAVE YOUR A## AT WORK

What Can I Do?

The only things necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

—Edmund Burke

• WRAP Week is from October 24 – November 1, 2009. During this time, choose at least one activity to help fight the influence of pornography on our communities.
• Have a Family Meeting to discuss this WRAP information from this blog. Distribute it elsewhere.
• Visit www.moralityinmedia.org to learn about wearing and ordering white ribbons, requesting anti-pornography proclamations from government leaders, providing clergy with information for sermons, requesting legal enforcement of obscenity laws, and making complaints about internet pornography.
• Visit www.strengthenthefamily.net for information on getting a child-friendly resolution passed by your local City Council and asking businesses to cover material not suitable for children.
• Join the Treasure Valley Chapter of American Mothers by participating in the WRAP week “Family-Friendly Shopping Week.” During the period of October 25 – November 1, 2009, shop only at stores that cover or remove material not suitable for children to see, such as Cosmopolitan magazines. In whatever way is most comfortable for you, respectfully let the store know why you won’t be shopping there during this week. You could visit the store manager in person, call on the phone, write a letter or email, or register a complaint on the corporate website. You can find the appropriate place to complain by searching online with “Contact us” and the name of the store. Be sure to also express gratitude to managers who are covering inappropriate material.
• Just do something—because our community’s kids are counting on us!

Why do I Need to Protect My Children From Pornography

As seen previously, children are especially vulnerable to the effects of pornography exposure. Children often form ideas about relationships and sex by images they see in their childhood. It becomes part of them. Here are some ways to help keep children safe from these negative images:

• Keep all inappropriate material out of your home. Children can become desensitized easily.
• Install effective internet filters. There is still a chance of pornography ads or pop-ups making it through, but without a filter, it will certainly show up on your computer.
• Teach children to “Crash and Tell” (from www.strenghtenthefamily.net Role-play with children what to do if inappropriate images appear on their computer or TV screen. Teach children that even though they may be curious about what they see, they need to immediately turn off the screen (crash) and tell an adult. Make sure they know they are not in trouble and they are not to blame.
• Make sure children know that the pornography industry is actively trying to expose them through pop-ups, spam emails, and chat rooms. They know pornography is addictive and they want to bring more people in and to get more money.
  
• Never allow children to have internet access in their bedrooms. Keep computers in a public area.
  
• Periodically check the History on your computer to see all sites accessed.
  
• Don’t give children and teens cell phones with internet access. “Sexting” (sending sexual images by cell phone text messages) is rampant among youth.
  
• Become involved in encouraging businesses to remove materials with sexual images and messages away from children’s view.
  
• Fight pornography in your community. Remember, even if you protect your children from pornography in your own home, other children may expose them, and the adults they interact with may victimize them. We need to address this as a community-wide problem in order to protect our families.
  
• Go to the website: http://www.cp80.org/flash/training/ english07.html for a 5-minute parent training program that helps parents set up safeguards against pornography.

What are the Affects of Pornography?

Pornography is addictive. "The brain processes all images ... as real. These images trigger a chemical secretion of the body's sex hormones while shutting down the left hemisphere's cognition, logic and speech. Erotic images physically restructure, imprint and physically damage the human brain (especially the undeveloped juvenile brain)." (John L. Harmer, president of Lighted Candle Society).

An addict said, “In my eyes cocaine doesn’t hold a candle to this. I have done both. … Quitting even the hardest drugs was nothing compared to [trying to quit pornography].”

According to Charles Keating of Citizens for Decency Through Law, 77 percent of child molesters of boys and 87 percent of child molesters of girls admitted imitating the sexual behavior they had seen modeled in pornography.

Dr. Dolf Zimmerman and Dr. Jennings Bryant showed that continued exposure to pornography led to negative beliefs about sexuality and women and a more accepting attitude towards rape.

The Society of Divorce Lawyers reports that pornography addiction has replaced financial problems as the number one cause of divorce in America. Pornography can destroy the trust in a marriage, and set up a false and unrealistic expectation for a sexual relationship.

For children, the effects reported by Dr. Jill Manning confirm that the harm to mental filters is one of seven primary negative effects of children exposed to pornography. The other six are: Emotional trauma, Having sex earlier, Desiring and pursuing sex apart from emotional attachments, Antagonism toward being married or having a family, Higher risk for sexual compulsions and addictions, and Believing that deviant sex practices are normal and common.

Why Worry About Pornography

According to Family Safe Media, pornography is a $12 billion dollar industry in the United States alone. According to their statistics, pornography revenue exceeds the combined revenues of all professional baseball, football, and basketball franchises and the combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC. Sex is the number one search on the internet. We live in a society where many of the people we interact with have recently been viewing pornography. It affects us all.

WRAP

WRAP stands for White Ribbons Against Pornography. The next few posts are going to be information about WRAP and why it is so important. They will answer these questions: Why worry about pornography? What are the effects of pornography? Why do I need to protect children against pornography? and What can I do?