While glancing at the latest edition of Focus on the Family’s Citizen Magazine, I was pleased to notice that Dobson’s folks were focusing on young porn expert VBen Shapiro. So, I think that we should take a look at some passages from this very informative Afterschool Special called Talkin’ Bout His Generation , as I’m sure we’ll find it edifying.
In one way, most of us are all too aware of pornography in our culture; we can’t turn on the TV or walk through a mall without being assaulted by it in one form or another. Yet in another way, most of us aren’t nearly aware enough.
And that’s the Dobson challenge for today: Be more aware of porn.
That’s because most of us aren’t teenagers. And even if we’re parents of teenagers, we likely don’t understand just how pervasive porn has become in the world they (and even younger kids) live in every day.
Ben Shapiro knows, though, because he does live in that world. And he doesn’t like what’s happening one bit.
So, Ben doesn’t like the world that other young people live in. Why am I not surprised?
Porn Generation is a wake-up call, pure and simple. Anyone who’s tempted to minimize the problem–to regret that kids are “sexually active” but to imagine that they’re otherwise pretty much all right–will have a hard time maintaining their illusions after reading Shapiro. Let’s start with some numbers:
According to a survey of college students conducted by Details magazine and Random House, 46 percent had had a one-night stand, 43 percent had cheated on a steady partner, 21 percent had tried to get someone drunk or high to get them into bed, and 32 percent had slept with somebody knowing they would never call again. … 36 percent of respondents had had sex with someone they didn’t like, and 28 percent had used pot during sex.
There’s a lot that’s appalling in those numbers. The worst part, though, is not that so many young people do such things; it’s that so many admit it. They’re not only immoral; they’re shameless.
Yes, the worst thing is that today’s college students don’t have the decency to lie to pollsters. Damn kids! Hell in a handbasket, I tell ya!
But that, Shapiro stresses, is what you get when you subject an entire generation to porn via every media outlet. You get his desensitized classmates, who when they’re not having sex or looking at depictions of sex, spend hours at a time talking about sex.
Obviously, Ben’s Harvard classmates are all going to hell.
(We note that Ben may not actually have sex, but he makes up for that by spending even more time than his desensitized classmates do looking at depictions of sex and talking about sex.)
You begin to understand what Dr. Marsha Levy-Warren (quoted by Shapiro) calls “body-part sex.” “The kids don’t even look at each other,” she says. “It’s mechanical, dehumanizing.” And it leaves them unable to form lasting relationships later in life, she adds, because “they’re jaded.”
Not every young person’s that jaded, of course. Shapiro, for one, isn’t.
Yes, Ben is a perfect young gentleman, and you should all be more like him, especially that young hellion Brad. (At this point in the article, can anybody else imagine Ben saying in an Eddie Haskell voice, “You’re looking espcially lovely today, Mrs. Focus on the Family”?)
Unlike a lot of timid older folk who fear sounding “judgmental” lest they alienate the youths, Shapiro’s not inclined to let his peers off the hook: He’s revolted by their behavior and he says so.
I’m guessing that the feeling is mutual.
Anyway, you can read the rest of the piece if you’re so inclined, but as for me, I would like to instead waste my time with a little imaginary encounter between Ben and Dr. James Dobson:
Ben: It is a great pleasure to meet you again, Dr. Dobson, sir. I learned a great deal about focusing from you.
Dobson: And I am always delighted to associate with fine, young, strapping, Christian men like yourself.
Ben: Um, I’m actually Jewish. But I like to think of myself as a Jewish Christian fundamentalist.
Dobson: Likewise. And I think we can both agree that what today’s society needs is more Old Testament values. I believe that things started to go wrong when that bleeding heart liberal stopped that woman caught in the act of adultery from getting the bloody death she so richly deserved.
Ben: I totally agree, sir. And I’m sure that porn was somehow behind the ineffective response to her sinning. After all, it’s just like your son Ryan said in his brilliant book: Be Judgmental: Because Some People Just Deserve Stoning.
Dobson: Ben, I appreciate the thought, but you don’t need to pretend that Ryan is anything but a doofus. We at the institute all stopped focusing on him a long time ago.
But Ben, I wanted to talk to you about something else. Son, you’re a bright, talented boy, and I think it’s great that you are guarding your purity and aren’t associating with those Harvard strumpets and Jezebels who would steal your precious essence. But I can’t help but noticing that you are unathletic, somewhat passive, unaggressive and uninterested in rough-and-tumble play. These characteristics set you apart from your male peers and could contribute to a distortion in the development of your normal gender identity.
So, as somebody who considers himself a father-figure to you, I believe that it is my duty to mirror and affirm your maleness, in order to keep you from turning gay. I think we should play rough-and-tumble games together, in ways that are decidedly different from the games we would play with girls. I will help you learn to throw and catch a ball. I can teach you to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard, if you get my drift. I can even take you with me into the shower, where you cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like yours, only bigger.
Ben: He asked me, he asked me!
Okay, maybe we should stop there. But hey, try to be more aware of pornography next time you go to the mall. And if you go to Harvard, punch Ben in the arm for me. It’s for his own good.