Pornography on the Internet

It is not unknown for men to access pornography on the Internet.

At the outset, let me make it very clear that it is not the aim of this article to discuss the pros and cons of this practice – nor even to direct readers of Suite 101 to pornographic sites on the internet.

If you accessed this site because you thought that it provided links to pornographic sites, I am sorry to disappoint you!

But if you wanted advice about how to do access such sites safely, then please read on.

Providing Non-Judgmental Advice

The aim of this article is to provide advice.

It is usual for a doctor (who may be a teetotaler) to take a non-judgmental view of a patient’s choice of lifestyle, and if that patient chooses to drink alcohol the doctor can provide advice to that patient about the idea of what constitutes a ‘standard drink’ and the effects of alcohol on the body – so that the patient can exercise his or her choice to drink alcohol in a safe and responsible manner that does not cause harm to him/herself or to others.

Safe Sex Practices

Likewise, it is a doctor’s role to advise his or her patients about safe sex practices so they can avoid sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies, giving them health advice without expressing a personal view about the rightness or wrongness of pre-marital sex or having sex with multiple partners.

In a similar manner, without going into the ethics of accessing pornography on the internet, I will aim in this article to provide some advice – so that if someone chooses to do so, they can indulge in this pastime without causing risk to either themselves or to their computer.

Have an Effecuve Anti-Virus Programme and Firewall

If one is accessing unknown sites on the internet, it is vital that one has an efficacious antivirus programme guarding one’s computer. It is far better to invest a couple of hundred dollars to purchase a reputed antivirus programme, rather than rely on a “free download’ that leaves your computer vulnerable tio virus attack and results in you having to pay more than a couple of hundred dollars to clean an infected computer – or worse still, results in the data on your computer getting completely wiped out!

Access Only Sites That Appear Genuine

If something looks like it is too good to be true, it probably is unlikely to be able to offer all that it promises! If one wants to access health information on the internet, one should only go to trusted sites – for example, the site called Medline Plus which is maintained by the US National Institute of Health and National Library of Medicine – rather than just type in a query into a search engine and then scroll through all the hits it produces to find one that looks interesting.

If you undertake a Google search for a phrase such as, for example, a non-pornographic topic such as Information about buying medicine for Erection Problems, a Google search will bring up over 675,000 hits. Trying to scroll through all these sites to find one that is unusual or exotic is not wise. Better to access the sites in the first couple of pages, because these are the sites that are most popular – and are likely to be the ones that people go to because they are good and safe for their computers.

Don’t Talk to Strangers

This is advice that little children are given – but it is amazing how many grown men forget this salutory bit of practical advice. If you don’t know someone and cannot see what they really look like, don’t part with your money or your credit card details, however enticing they may appear to be.

As is often said about certain practices, the best advice is to avoid it. If you cannot avoid it, then at least do it in a safe manner!