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Man up - save our children

By Warwick Marsh - posted Tuesday, 10 November 2009


Many would argue that he failed but again history proved him right. The grave could not hold him. The grave will never hold a man who stands for the truth.

In the end good will always triumph over evil but not without a fight, and not without a cost. Evil will always exact a price. In Hitler’s case it was 59 million lives worldwide. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing”.

Today, more than ever, our world needs men who will do more than nothing; men who will make a stand for what is right and for our children. Men like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who lived and died for the next generation.

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Evil has many permutations. You may have noticed that I included hypersexualism as one of the many “isms” that modern day men have to fight against in order to preserve our society and save our children. This is probably the hardest fight for any man because it is a very personal struggle. We are created as sexual beings, but it is a fight we must engage in if we are to enter into manhood.

Most women do not understand the struggle men go through because they do not live in a male body with a male mind. A man’s body has between 40-60 times more testosterone than a woman’s body. Dr Allan Meyer, author of Valiant Man says, “Women live in an oestrogen mist and men live in a testosterone fog”. The book’s subtitle tells it well, Sexual Integrity in a Sex Crazy World. The corporate pornographers and advertisers exploit a man’s susceptibility to the beauty of the naked female form and high levels of testosterone.

Many would argue that the fight against the disease of hypersexualism is an exercise in hyperbole and is a product of an overactive mind. My simple answer is, ask the children. “The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children”. The biggest losers in the hypersexualisation of our society are our children:

  • two thirds of sex crimes in Australia are committed against our children;
  • 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls have had exposure to internet pornography;
  • 73 per cent of boys and 11 per cent or girls have watched X-rated videos;
  • 18 per cent of women report being abused before the age of 16;
  • the risk of sexual violence doubles in adulthood for women who were abused as a child;
  • men in prison for sexual assault has doubled since 1988;
  • 95 per cent of child sex offenders escape conviction;
  • according to Dr Andrea Louis, director of the South Australian Sexual Offenders Treatment program, viewing child pornography could be a training ground for becoming an active child molester; and
  • the Australian Law Reform Commission has found that the number of children needing protection has tripled in ten years from 91,734 to 309,517.

(Facts taken from here and here.)

According to the above statistics our society is on a similar journey to the people in pre-war Germany and it is getting sicker and more depraved by the moment. Just like the proverbial frog slowly getting boiled in water we don’t realise until it is too late. The pornographication of our society, a phrase coined by Clive Hamilton, is producing a nation of pedophiles. The abused becomes the abuser and with each generation the cycle worsens.

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The good news is that there are some brave women who are making a stand against this attack of hypersexualism. Melinda Tankard Reist is author of Getting Real - Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls. Melinda is also one of the co-founders of Women’s Forum Australia which has brought together some of the best of the best on this subject such as Maggie Hamilton, author of What is Happening to our Girls? The subtitle on this book reads, Too much, Too soon, How our kids are overstimulated, oversold and oversexed.

Another heroine featured in Getting Real is stand up comedian and mother of two, Julie Gale. Julie founded Kids Free 2B Kids in 2007 because she was concerned about the increasing sexualisation of kids in the media, advertising and clothing industries. In 2008 Julie spearheaded the campaign to get extreme porn out of our petrol stations. Thankfully Shell/Coles Express and BP said “yes”. She is still waiting for others to follow their example.

At a recent forum at the High Court Cafeteria, these three women spoke passionately about the need to stop the sexualisation of our children.

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About the Author

Warwick Marsh is the founder of the Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation with his wife Alison. They have five children and two grandchildren and have been married for 34 years.

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