Kayaking & Porn
My family and I went up north for Labor Day weekend. We stayed in a friends cabin on the Platt River. There were a couple of Kayak’s at the cabin so my daughter and I thought we’d give it a try. I’d canoed several times when I was a kid but never kayaked. I realized I was in for a totally different experience when I went to get in the Kayak. You don’t really get in one, you wear it and it’s a tight fit.
As we shoved off I was ready for a great adventure down the river. It was a little tricky trying to get the hang of how to maneuver but I started to get somewhat comfortable. I got through a tricky part of the river and ended up ahead of my daughter. I thought I should wait for her and make sure she got through the area all right so I pulled up next to a log, held onto it and waited. Suddenly the current grabbed my Kayak and turned it sideways against the log. The current pulled at my Kayak and made it start to roll under. Panic gripped me as I thought of being pulled underwater upside down in my Kayak while being shoved underneath the logjam by the current. I tried frantically to push myself off the logs as I was tipping further and water started to pour in. My push was successful but in the process I dropped my paddle and was now going backwards down the river. Talk about a helpless feeling, without a paddle I had no way to maneuver. I was headed towards several large tree limbs from a fallen tree that were lying across part of the river. The kayak had enough room to go under them but my body was going to slam into the limbs and my kayak wasn’t going slow. I knew it was going to hurt but there was nothing I could do. As the tree limbs approached I turned around as far as I could and reached out with my arms in hopes of trying to deflect the coming blow, hoping I wouldn’t break an arm. As I hit the limbs I absorbed the impact with my arms and pushed off. This sent the kayak spinning sideways but I wasn’t hurt - yet. I knew I couldn’t continue down the river this way as I’d just keep crashing into things and eventually the result would be a puncture or break and I liked my skin and bones just as they were. I knew I had to get out of the kayak but, as I mentioned before, you wear a Kayak and it’s a tight fit. Getting out of one when you’re docked is hard let alone trying to get out as you’re going out of control down a river. As I was trying to wiggle my way out the kayak started to tip over. As it flipped I got my hips out and as it went completely over I got my legs out also. It was at this time my daughter came around the bend and saw me falling into the water. She thought it was quite funny and asked if I was Ok. As I hung onto the Kayak I recounted the story making sure she knew I was a very capable Kayaker and that it was all her fault. We had a good laugh at that as I emptied the water out of my Kayak in a shallow part of the river, retrieved my paddle and set off for more adventures down the river.
So what in the world does this story have to do with porn? Many kids start their Internet adventures with the best of intentions. They’re not looking for porn and it could be the furthest thing from their mind. They’re crusin’ down the river of the Internet but then they misspell a web address or stumble across a MySpace page and end up with porn. As they’re exploring it just a bit further they’re suddenly slammed up against the logjam of porn and start to go under. Fighting to break free they find themselves racing out of control down the Internet with nothing to guide them - no Internet filters, no Internet rules laid out by their parents. The porn is stronger than they can handle and they crash into harder and more deviant porn as they race down the Internet. Some know the pain that comes with every crash but they feel there is nothing they can do to stop it. Some try to get out of it but feel stuck by their shame and remorse. Many want to get out of the raging rapids of porn and are rescued by ministries like XXXChurch.com. The only chance some have for rescue is their parents. But many parents are ill equipped for the task. Parents here is some basic equipment to get you started:
- Keep your computer in a high traffic area of
your home (like your kitchen)
- If your kids run into trouble someone will be around to help
- Get Internet Filtering software like SafeEyes
- It’ll help your kids avoid those porn logjams
- Set rules for appropriate Internet usage
- It’s like giving them
a river guide
I've been setting up parents and businesses with opendns.org. It's free and works amazingly well. It covers your entire network, so you don't have to worry about installing it on each computer. People won't stumble into porn. They'll actually have to try and defeat the filters, which is always possible. But the idea is to keep from stumbling.
