NSPCC: ‘Girls think they have to act like porn stars to be liked by boys’

Girls think they have to look and perform “like porn stars” to be liked and valued by boys, a landmark report by the children’s charity NSPCC shows.

 

By Louisa Peacock and Emma Barnett

7:00AM BST 03 Sep 2013

 

Almost a third of school pupils believe online pornography dictates how young people have to behave in a relationship, the study of 601 pupils aged 11 to 18 reveals.

The majority of pupils surveyed – 72 per cent – also said porn should be talked about in sex education classes, suggesting existing lessons are too focused on the mechanics of reproduction and lack meaningful discussion about the issues young people face online every day.

* Sign our petition to update the sex and relationships teaching guidance to bring it into the 21st century

Claire Lilley, policy advisor at NSPCC, said: “It’s natural for children to become curious about puberty and sex. If they are not learning what they need to at school or at home they will turn elsewhere, including to porn. What pornography teaches boys is that girls are for sexual gratification, whilst girls feel they have to look and perform like ‘porn stars’ to be liked and valued by boys. This makes children vulnerable to being forced or pressured into behaving sexually.”

The comprehensive study, commissioned by The Daily Telegraph, highlights the extent to which the growth of online porn is, in many cases, distorting school children’s ideas and real-life experiences about what a good relationship looks like.

 

Some 28 per cent of pupils think porn definitely “influences how young people have to behave in a relationship”, with a further third saying it “sometimes” affects how young people act when with their partner.

Ms Lilley said it was vital that sex education lessons reflected the digital era that we now live in, equipping teachers with the right tools to help pupils interpret what they see and come across online – from porn to the sexualisation of women and peer pressure on social media – and understand what a good relationship is.

“We can’t afford to be coy about sex education. Many children will have already been exposed to a vast amount of inappropriate, unrealistic and sometimes downright harmful pornography through the internet. This can warp their view of what is normal and acceptable sexual behaviour, how they treat others and how they expect to be treated.

“To protect children from these damaging messages they must be taught about sex in the context of healthy, caring relationships and how to protect and respect themselves and others.”

In England and Wales, sex and relationships education is currently taught within personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) lessons. But the statutory [check] sex and relationships guidance teachers use to plan lessons was last updated in 2000 and practically predates the internet, not least the rise of social media.

The NSPCC findings come as The Daily Telegraph launches a campaign for better sex education in secondary schools, starting with an update to the sex and relationships guidance to reflect the digital era.

The current guidance makes no mention of the internet or the challenges young people face regarding the ease and accessibility of online porn, the pressure to document their lives and relationships on social media, online bullying or sexting.

 

Claire Perry, Conservative MP and the Prime Minister’s advisor on children, said: “It is because of this brave new world we find ourselves in, that I welcome The Telegraph’s ‘better sex education’ campaign.

“The rise of sexting, online bullying, porn and young people documenting their entire lives on the web, needs to be a core tenet of how we teach sex and relationships to children in secondary schools.”

Many teachers feel they cannot stray from the official guidance on what to teach and don’t have the right tools to plan a meaningful lesson or know what to do when sensitive subjects come up.

Ms Perry said: “Rather than putting one more set of responsibilities on the shoulders of hard-working teachers, it should be possible to encourage schools to develop working relationships with the many excellent charities and organisations that used trained experts to deliver the right messages to young people in appropriate and high impact ways.”

A wave of reports in recent months have demonstrated the need for the Government to act to improve sex education in secondary school. A report by Ofsted, the education regulator, recently found that PSHE education in schools is “not good enough” in a significant number of schools and that this is leaving young people vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

Separate research by the Children’s Commissioner found a shocking number of young people don’t know what a good relationship looks like.

The current curriculum focuses on the mechanics of sex and the biology of getting pregnant, such as the reproductive system and foetal development, as well puberty. However, information about contraception and safe sex is discretionary and discussion about relationships is often neglected.

Telegraph Wonder Women is campaigning for better sex education, urging David Cameron to bring sex and relationships education into the 21st century. Sign our petition atchange.org/bettersexeducation or email us at bettersexeducation@telegraph.co.uk. Follow the campaign on Twitter #bettersexeducation, @TeleWonderWomen

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/sex/10282145/NSPCC-Girls-think-they-have-to-act-like-porn-stars-to-be-liked-by-boys.html

 

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What We Still Dont Know: Are We Real?

I’ve been questioning about this since I was very very little. When I was with myself talking to my favourite bunny toy, I would suddenly felt lost of “self,” I would ask myself why I existed, why my family existed, my friends, anyone else in this world existed, and then I’d ask my bunny why it existed but couldn’t have soul and life like me. And when I reached these unanswerable questions, the “self” of me became impalpable. And then I would start to tear silently. I wept for the fact that I’d die one day and the “me” would never exist again, but my bunny toy would never die and it’d continuously exist. Who would take care of my bunny toy after I died? I loved my bunny toy so much, and I wanted to bring it with me “after” I died, but how could it “get to me” when I didn’t exist anymore?

 

I love someone’s (madogmgd)  comment: If God is matter, then you might as well be an Atheist and dismiss the concept altogether. There’s no evidence to support God. Science is based on evidence. Therefore we cannot assume that God did it without proper evidence. If God is matter, then you might as well be an Atheist and dismiss the concept altogether.”

I always claim myself to be an Atheist because I question the existence of God. But this person (madogmgd) is so right. If I can’t confirm the existence of God, then why does God theory matter to me when I say I believe in Atheism? Maybe I should rename myself, “Science-ist” and “Scientism”.

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Derren Brown – The Experiments: The Gameshow (Full)

 

Spoiler and critical review: The girl near the end of this documentary shouted, “Why are you still filming? You shouldn’t keep filming . . .” actually make herself even worse. In a way, she was not wrong to tell the cameraman to stop filming, but what people didn’t notice was she was trying to turn the guilt to the TV crew. This is human natural behaviour. When people realise they have done something wrong, they tend to make excuses or try to get someone involved so that they can shift the attention of their faults. In this way, they make themselves less guilty. If they really admit their own wrongnesses, they shall never say, “Because . . .” , “I apologise, but . . .” , “It’s not just only me, blah blah blah also . . .” , etc. If they acknowledge their own faults, they shall accept and apologise for what they have done and say they will improve themselves instead of getting someone involved.

 

Let’s think about it in this way, if Derren weren’t doing an experiment, the accident were real, how the audience and people who didn’t attend the live show would criticise Derren, the TV crew and the company? Would they pay “more” attention to blame that Derren and the crew shouldn’t have created this programme or the attendant audience who made the choices and controlled and affected the subject’s life? Would Derren and the TV crew become the hateful target or should the attendant audience if the accident were not faked?

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Here’s a question: why do pub quizzes turn me into a raging monster?

By MELISSA KITE

PUBLISHED: 22:47 GMT, 28 February 2013 | UPDATED: 22:47 GMT, 28 February 2013

 

Who said: ‘I think therefore I am’? Is The Great Wall of China visible from space? What sort of vegetable is a red thumb? And can you survive a pub quiz where you are constantly arguing with the quizmaster who, in your view, is always getting things wrong?

Every week, I turn up to my local pub quiz hoping for an entertaining night out, and every time it descends into a trivia-hurling scrum as the quizmaster and I lock horns.

The problem is we are both pedantic nerds, obsessed with pointless facts and figures, and in the genteel surrounds of a Surrey gastro-pub we slug it out to see who can pick the most holes in the other’s useless knowledge.

 

For the truth is that while we all go to pub quizzes, social club quizzes or school parents’ quizzes pretending we just want a couple of drinks and a laugh, really we’re dying to show off our knowledge, to feel we have proved ourselves intellectually.

We live in a world in which money talks very loudly, where expensive cars and big houses are a marker of social status, yet part of us all still craves this social cachet no millionaire can buy.

Perhaps it’s a subliminal hangover from those days at school when we — or some of us, at least — strained a hand into the air hoping to catch the teacher’s eye and answer a particularly obscure question.

What I do know is that when you take these things seriously, being told an answer you know to be correct is wrong is utterly infuriating.

 

Our pub quizmaster thinks he’s smart, of course. He has horn-rimmed spectacles and a smug grin which he can barely contain as he reads out his questions. I have no doubt he has spent many hours at his laptop researching obscure types of fruit and vegetables, unheard of capital cities and U.S. states that begin with M.

He was insufferably pleased with himself when we all thought The Great Wall of China was visible from space, when, in fact, it’s visible only from Earth’s orbit at a relatively modest height. He was overjoyed that no one knew Popeye’s nephews were called Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye and Poopeye.

He does enjoy his petty torments.

But just because he thinks he knows the answer — because he’s looked it up on the internet — doesn’t mean he’s going to escape my pedantry.

 

At Halloween, for example, we had a terrible row after he asked: ‘What animal would you turn into if you were suffering from lycanthropy?’

I wrote down ‘wolf’ and assured my team that we were on firm ground as I happened to be an avid reader of period horror stories.

But when it came to the marking, the pub quiz compere said the answer was ‘werewolf’ and that we couldn’t have a point for writing ‘wolf’.

‘Look here,’ I argued, ‘if you are suffering from the mythical disease of werewolfism, you don’t change into a werewolf. You are a werewolf. A werewolf is a man who changes into a wolf, ergo the answer is wolf. Not werewolf.’

There is always trouble, and usually it peaks at the Food And Drink round.

Take what happened when the quizmaster asked us to identify sauces for which he named the ingredients. ‘Basil, pine nuts, parmesan, olive oil.’

I wrote down ‘Pesto’, and my team mates nodded their approval.

 

‘Chick peas, tahini . . .’ I scribbled ‘Hummus’ and my team mates nodded again.

‘Egg yolk, English mustard, white wine vinegar, oil, salt and pepper.’

I looked at my friend, Ingrid, and shrugged. Ingrid shrugged back. My boyfriend Will tried to look interested but failed.

‘I think he might mean Hollandaise,’ I whispered.

‘What about Béarnaise?’ whispered Ingrid.

‘Yes, unless . . . you don’t think he means mayonnaise?’

‘Mayonnaise doesn’t have mustard in it,’ said Ingrid incredulously. Even a woman who set fire to her kitchen while trying to boil an egg, and whose only attempt to make soup ended in the soup being on the ceiling, was outraged at the suggestion that mayonnaise had mustard in it.

‘I could put “mustard mayonnaise”, but you know what he’s like. He won’t allow it.’

When Food And Drink ended, I took the pub quiz compere aside.

‘I’m not happy with these sauces,’ I said, trying to avoid a bloodbath by being at least a bit diplomatic.

‘What’s the matter with them?’ he snapped.

‘There is no sauce consisting of egg yolk, white wine vinegar and mustard, unless you’re talking about Béarnaise, and then you’re missing some ingredients. If you’re trying to describe mayonnaise, that wouldn’t make mayonnaise, it would make mustard mayonnaise. But I assume the answer is simpler than that. So you must mean Béarnaise or Hollandaise with the butter missing.’

The pub quiz compere curled his lip. His right fist clenched on the bar next to his bowl of nibbles, as if he wanted to grab a cocktail olive stick and poke it in my eye.

He leaned forward and between gritted teeth, in a very husky Clint Eastwood voice, said: ‘The answer is mayonnaise.’

The pub quiz compere then started typing into the internet on an iPad.

Perhaps he thinks you can find the store of all accurate knowledge with one click on Google or Wikipedia.

Then he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and read out so loudly that the entire pub could hear: ‘Egg yolk, English mustard, white wine vinegar, oil, salt and pepper. Not my words, the words of the BBC website to describe the recipe for . . . MAYONNAISE!’

 

‘Oh hilarious!’ I shouted back, as my team-mates begged me to be quiet. ‘You actually think the BBC is an impartial source of information about mayonnaise? That isn’t a straightforward recipe for mayonnaise, it’s a la-di-dah, woolly liberal . . .’

But the entire pub was now shouting at me to shut up.

The spelling questions are also problematic. However distasteful it might be, the word ‘diarrhea’ sparked a minor riot. I wrote that spelling of it down confidently, but when we came to the marking, the quizmaster insisted there was an ‘o’ in it. When I challenged his ‘o’ as outdated, he yelled ‘Right!’ and started fiddling with his iPad again. He then declared that diarrhea, or should I say diarrhoea, was spelled with an ‘o’ on the NHS website.

‘That proves it,’ I cried, as the rest of the pub booed. ‘This is a Socialist pub quiz!’

I get so worked up about all this that I do wonder if I’m taking it all a bit too seriously.

One evening, I realised I was driving behind the quizmaster after we had all left the pub to go home.

Before I knew it, I was entertaining the idea of tailing him to his home so I could continue a discussion about the number of bones in a giraffe’s neck on his driveway.

 

I told myself to get a grip. Nothing is that important.

But there is something about pub trivia that brings out the worst in people.

When we swap papers and tot up the other teams’ scores, I howl at the answers I should have known, or that I had answered correctly at first then crossed out and changed.

The time I wrote down ‘True’ to a slug’s blood being green then panicked and, incorrectly, wrote ‘False’ was a low point.

A pub quiz can test friendships, too.

Like the time Ingrid told me to write down Sunset Boulevard in answer to the question: ‘From which movie is the quote: “I am big, it’s the pictures that got small”?’

While we were deliberating, the quizmaster asked the next question, we got stuck into arguing about that, and I forgot to go back and fill in Sunset Boulevard.

When the quizmaster eventually called out the answer, Ingrid shrieked ‘Hooray!’ and I had to tell her. ‘I’ve done a terrible thing,’ I said, bowing my head. ‘I daren’t tell you.’

‘You didn’t write it down did you?’

‘I’m sorry. I was just worried that . . . I thought Joan Crawford said . . .’

‘NO!’ she yelled. ‘How could you?’

To paraphrase former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, getting quiz answers right is not a matter of life and death — it’s much more important than that.

Also, call me paranoid, but I sometimes I feel I get no credit for providing really clever answers while my team-mates all slap each other on the back for knowing silly things.

For example, Ingrid knew that Hass was a type of avocado. Everyone, including my boyfriend, went berserk congratulating her.

Whereas when I came up with Descartes as the answer to: ‘Who said: “I think therefore I am”?’, no one complimented me at all.

‘Is it? said Will, nonchalantly. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Oh,’ said Ingrid, ‘well, if you’re sure.’

‘Yes, I am sure. I know my Cartesian philosophy,’ I said, haughtily. ‘You what?’ said Will. ‘Oh forget it.’
Then, when the quizmaster read out that Descartes was the answer, no one shouted out: ‘Yes! Well done, Melissa.’ I had to congratulate myself. ‘See,’ I said, pathetically, ‘I told you so.’

To make matters even worse, the quizmaster pronounced the philosopher ‘Dez Cartez’, which made him sound like a second-rate club singer.

‘Day Carrrrrr!’ I shouted out, rolling my guttural Rs as I corrected him.

‘Well, that’s the French pronunciation,’ he said, facetiously.

‘Is there any other way to pronounce a French name?’ I said, taunting him. We argued about it until the manager called last orders. I know, it’s so trivial.

(Oh, and a red thumb is a potato. But then you probably knew that . . . didn’t you?)

A version of this article appears in The Spectator.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2286242/Heres-question-pub-quizzes-turn-raging-monster.html#ixzz2MIBsZYml
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

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Self-help books DO relieve depression – and prevent it from returning (Wrong!)

Read: Self-help books DO relieve depression – and prevent it from returning

Wrong! When you’re depressed, you don’t want to read any books because you can’t focus. Your brain is completely occupied with your depressing thoughts. Talk with a helpful person can truly help. Books only help after you feel better.

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Arguing parents can give a child teenage depression

That’s why every time when I needed to have a serious “talk” with the kids’ mother in England, I always kept the kids away. I mean this is a common sense, is it not? Why do the kids need to hear loud arguments to leave them emotional traumas for the rest of their life? Arguing in front of children is very damaging their childhood, and then towards their adulthood!!!

And also, if you have very young children with your husband who is cheating on you, DO NOT bring your children to treat your husband!!! The problem and fight are between the adults, NOT the children!!! If you think they are too young to understand, then you are absolutely WRONG!!! They might not be able to understand what you two are fighting, but they have already developed their feelings on what make them scared!!! If you adults have issues, DO NOT GET YOUR CHILDREN INVOLVED!!!

 

Arguing parents can give a child teenage depression

• Children and teenagers who saw arguments were significantly likelier to have mental health problems
• Researchers have now devised a test to identify those at risk of depression so children can be helped earlier

By NICHOLAS MCDERMOTT

PUBLISHED: 22:11 GMT, 28 November 2012 | UPDATED: 00:38 GMT, 29 November 2012

Children who often see their parents having rows are at risk of depression, experts have warned.

Teenagers who witnessed lots of arguments in early childhood were more likely to suffer from the illness than others, said a Cambridge University team.

‘Violent arguments in front of the children contribute to the likelihood of depression,’ said Professor Barbara Sahakian, of the university’s psychiatry department and co-author of the report.

Research has found those who witnessed frequent arguments during childhood and possessed a gene making them more sensitive to emotions, were significantly likelier to become depressed

‘If you are staying together for the sake of the family, then fighting and arguing in front of the kids is not good. It would be better for them not to have that kind of environment.’

The team identified a gene that made some children more sensitive to emotions and also more likely to develop depression.

Researchers came up with a simple test, that can be carried out at school, to identify those at risk of depression, allowing youngsters to get help before they suffer with the disease.

Researchers found that teenagers who struggled to process emotional information were more likely to develop mental health problems.

In the study of 238 children, aged between 15 and 18, those who did worst at the test were up to four times more likely to develop depression within a year.

Previous research has found one in 10 British children aged between five and 16 years old have had mental health problems

Those who did badly had a gene – present in one in five people – that made them less emotionally resilient.

They also lived in households where they had been exposed before the age of six to intermittent arguments for longer than six months. One in three children live like this, said the team.

Professor Ian Goodyer, principal investigator on the study, said: ‘Whether we succumb to anxiety and depression depends in part on our tendencies to think well or poorly of ourselves at troubled times.

How it comes about that some people see the glass half full and think positively, whereas others see the glass half empty and think negatively about themselves at times of stress is not known.

The evidence is that our genes and early childhood experiences contribute.’

Previous research has found that one in ten British children aged between five and 16 years old have had mental health problems.

In any given year, one in four people will suffer a mental health disorder, with most having a form of depression and anxiety.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2239897/Arguing-parents-child-teenage-depression.html#ixzz2DbpcAgkJ

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You Are What You Believe

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-flux/201211/you-are-what-you-believe

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Why having a wide range of Facebook ‘friends’ can make you more stressed

I’ve deactivated my facebook account quite a while, and I realise I feel free without being mentally controlled by constantly checking the facebook. Social networks may be benefit on finding and gathering old friends together, but at the same time they cause mental health issues! We should spend more time on reading good books than friends’ or even strangers’ privacy.

 

• Adding employers or parents resulted in the greatest increase in anxiety
• Fears of causing offence with posts and pictures adds to the worry

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

PUBLISHED: 12:42 GMT, 26 November 2012 | UPDATED: 12:42 GMT, 26 November 2012

 

Having a large number of Facebook ‘friends’ may boost a person’s ego, but it can also make them more stressed, research suggests.

This is because ‘friending’ people who aren’t that close, such as professional acquaintances, leads to increased worry about posting inappropriate comments and pictures.

A study by Scots academics found that the wider and more diverse a person’s ‘friends’ on the social networking site are, the more stress the site will create.

The research, led by Ben Marder, from Edinburgh University’s business school, found the more friend groups a person has, there is a greater potential to cause offence.

In particular, adding employers or parents resulted in the greatest increase in anxiety.

People presenting a version of themselves that is unacceptable to some of their online ‘friends’, such as posts displaying behaviour such as swearing, recklessness, drinking and smoking, is the largest cause of anxiety.

The added stress becomes more of a problem with older people joining the a site, as their expectations may be very different from those of younger users.

Some 55 per cent of parents follow their children on Facebook.

 

More than half of employers claimed they have not hired someone based on their Facebook page.

The study also found more people have exes as ‘friends’ than people who are friends with their current partner.

Only 56 per cent of users were friends with their boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse online, compared with 64 per cent of exes.

Although the research found that while most people have an ex as a Facebokk friend, not all people on Facebook have a partner.

Researchers found that on average people are Facebook friends with seven different social circles.

The most common group was friends known offline, 97 per cent added them as friends online, followed by extended family, 81 per cent, siblings, 80 per cent, friends of friends, 69 per cent, and colleagues, 65 per cent.

The report surveyed more than 300 people on Facebook, mostly students, with an average age of 21.

It also discovered that only one third use the listing privacy setting on their Facebook profile, which can be used to control the information seen by different types of friends.

Mr Marder, author of the report and early career fellow in marketing at the Business School, said: ‘Facebook used to be like a great party for all your friends where you can dance, drink and flirt.

‘But now with your Mum, Dad and boss there the party becomes an anxious event full of potential social landmines.

‘If you have partners, parents, family and employers the more stressful it is as they all have different expectations.

‘People will try and manage themselves and regulate how they appear on the site, so they will try and avoid saying things they think, as they are worried how it will appear.

‘I have seen how people will delete photo’s of themself, and even regulate their offline behaviour for their online presence.

‘If people are at parties and they see a camera they then think my boss, or my girlfriend might see this.

‘So they might be smoking or drinking and when a camera comes around they will change their actions so people don’t see it on Facebook.

‘People will try and present a duller version of themself to please every audience as they are so concerned what other will think.

‘You even hear people on nights out saying to each other “don’t put that on Facebook”.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2238543/Why-having-wide-range-Facebook-friends-make-users-stressed.html#ixzz2DLF5qaKF

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Mind Control

http://vimeo.com/19842007

I think I do behaviour observation, or it’s not just me, everyone does. 😉

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Keith Barry Does Brain Magic

This guy does mind control and mind reading, not magic. There’s another film called Deception with Keith Barry that he cooperated with Discovery Channel revealing the secret behind the magic – Mind Control. I’ll try uploading this video and posting it here later.
Really want to learn this skill though. 😉

More information here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/keith_barry_does_brain_magic.html

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