Parasite porn, are your kids at risk?

What is parasite porn, and are your kids at risk?

Imagine your 15-year-old daughter comes home from school one day mortified because the guys at school passed around a link to a porn site with HER FACE in the pictures! 

She swears that this isn’t her. 

You know that she is right. You believe her, but how did this happen? 

It’s called parasite porn. 

Parasite porn mostly comes in two forms. Photoshopped images from google photos or from pirated sexually explicit selfies that were supposed to be safe. 

Parasite Porn – Photoshopped Images

In the example above, the young lady innocently uploaded images to google photos, then with digital technology, the images were superimposed (like photoshop) onto the real porn actress’s body. The images are so real that they look as if the person’s head is actually the same as the person’s body! 

These photos can be created by someone who is upset with the person (old boyfriend, disgruntled classmate, etc) and uses the software to superimpose the face on the body or by porn producers who hack and harvest photos of attractive young people to make what appear to be new videos. 

The horrible truth is that once these images are on the internet they are nearly impossible to remove! 

Why Selfies of Children/Teenagers are Very Dangerous

Unfortunately, self-images of sexually explicit situations or selfies, are the most common. Young boys and girls often today will text sexually explicit images to their significant others. These images are shared, and it is soon on the internet where they can be harvested for public view. 

A study by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) reveals that 88% of self-made sexual or suggestive images and videos posted by young people, often on social networking sites, are taken from their original online location and uploaded on to other websites.

Reams of sexually explicit images and videos are being uploaded by children and young people, the study found. During 47 hours, over a four-week period, a total of 12,224 images and videos were analyzed and logged. The majority of these were then mined by “parasite websites” created for the sole purpose of displaying sexually explicit images and videos of young people. 

The original pictures and videos were uploaded by young people onto commonplace websites but then stolen by porn sites for display. Of the 12,224 images and videos monitored on 68 different websites, 10,776 were later found on parasite websites.

A recent study shows that 27% of teens receive unsolicited sexts (text of a sexual nature). Also, a high percentage of these tex recipients forward them to others without permission.

What Should Parents Do to Protect Their Children from Parasite Porn?

If this has already happened to your child, stay calm. Most likely the youth had no idea that the innocent photos or even sexually explicit images could be spread this way. Here is one article that offers some suggestions of what you can do. Understand that while some of the suggestions in this article are valid, it does not take into account Christian morality. 

As the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The best actions to take are as follows:

1. Make sure your child is properly educated on the truths and dangers of the internet. 
2. Educate them from a young age on Catholic teaching on sexuality and Theology of the Body.  Here are two good resources from Dann Aungst, The founder of Road to Purity:
   1. How safe are your kids on the internet?
   2. How and when to talk to your kids about porn.
3. Get educated yourself. Plain and simple, just google “what is parasite porn” and millions of results will come up. Be vigilant about what you are clicking on though to make sure you are not entering a website that will actually show you porn. 

Overall, the best solution is to simply stay off social media. 

Yes, that comes with its own challenges. Being the only kid without a Facebook and Instagram account or that doesn’t post on TicTok, can be in and of itself a traumatic event. Focus on leading strong, affirmed and self-confident kids, and that will make it much easier.