Curiosity cannot be forbidden

How effective and useful proof of age at cigarette vending machines or when buying alcohol is, if you look at it realistically, is open to debate. What is well-intentioned to protect children and young people from addictive substances such as tobacco and alcoholic drinks usually flops in practice.

Even in my day, before I came of age, there were always a few older friends in our clique who helped us get round the minimum age.

It's also not uncommon for adolescents to run to the nearest vending machine with a parent's driving licence to get new cigarettes. Even at the cinema box office, younger people are always meandering past and watching films with a release rating well above their actual age. In short, it has always been like this and always will be! Every obstacle can be circumvented and every hurdle overcome!

The same protection of minors has also been attempted for years with sexual media content. Clearly, violence, child pornography and pornography involving animals should be strictly prohibited. Even the production of such photos, writings and videos should be prosecuted.

Sexual curiosity, on the other hand, when physical and psychological sexual maturity progresses, the sexual organs change and the maturation process in the brain begins, is something completely normal.

When the adolescent's testicles begin to produce seminal fluid, young women get their first period, he is henceforth capable of procreation and she is ready to conceive, then interest in the opposite sex sets in. In this phase of self-discovery and body exploration, the internet is often used to quench the thirst for knowledge. Nude photos are searched for, genitals are looked at and often porn from the internet is a constant companion when masturbating.

Shaking my head, I read that our neighbour Germany wants to enforce mandatory age verification this year and thus make access to such content more difficult.

And the media regulators are serious. They are threatening to block porn sites that do not comply with the age check. Simply confirming that you are of legal age is not enough for the strict guardians of morality. They are calling for the introduction of proof that the person has already reached the age of 18. It may be true that porn is not produced to educate people. I also share the concern that content can have an alienating effect on sexual development. And yet it is a fact that many young people visit porn portals and sex sites.

The planned introduction of mandatory age verification will at best make access more difficult, but it will not effectively prevent it. People can simply "borrow" their passport from their older brother and the files they have downloaded are already doing the rounds. Disguising your own IP is also child's play. With a free VPN tool, you can watch the wild goings-on from anywhere else in the world in no time at all.

Everything that people want to ban has always had a special appeal. Even in my youth, when the World Wide Web didn't yet exist, porn magazines were secretly doing the rounds in the school playground. If you were caught by the teachers, you had a problem. Just like when the girls secretly spied on each other in the changing room after sports lessons. The later whipping at home was nothing compared to what we had seen.

Curiosity is the interest in gaining new information and quenching the thirst for knowledge. Itis an innate instinct that forms the basis of motivation and human success . The thirst for knowledge does not stop at sexuality and cannot be suppressed even before the age of 18.

In Australia, work is currently underway to ensure that porn sites can only be visited in future by means of facial recognition, which is intended to prove the age of the user.
In the UK, the plan to use personal data to prove age recently failed. The majority of Britons rejected the idea of linking name and date of birth to sexual preferences.
The Germans are now taking the protection of minors so seriously and are announcing a crackdown. It will prove to be a mistake to think that 16 or 17-year-olds in Germany can be completely sealed off from porn consumption.

I think it makes more sense to provide more information and finally realise that the increasingly early onset of sexual maturity requires a rethink.

It is the responsibility ofparents, educators and the state to protect children from content that is harmful to their development.
There is "parental control software" available for the Internet that warns of such dangers. This type of parental control software can often be downloaded for free and easily installed without any prior knowledge.