Troy Talks: Episode 23 • Kids today and the sex, pornography, drugs, and violence we’ve normalized for them

I worry about kids growing up today. A couple of recent crime reports appear to show very young teens having sexual relationships with men in their 30s, some running away or planning to run away with the comparatively old men. It’s not like this hasn’t been happening since I was a teenager and likely for decades before that in contemporary Guam. It’s the ease and access by and with which kids these days have to all sorts of depravity that has me fearing for the next generation.

If you don’t already know, you may be surprised by the hundreds of Guam youth who have posted on Twitter – now called X – about their sexual escapades. Guamanians boys unabashedly expressing desire for sexual violence on girls. Girls sexualizing themselves and bullying other girls who choose to act more modestly. Teens posting their glee – and the glee of hundreds of others – about fights and riots.

This is just a glimpse into the collective character of a generation growing up watching people “in love” beating on each other, parents constantly high and drunk, adults having sexually explicit conversations, and themselves having open access to pornography on the internet.

All of these provide portals, gateways to meth use, alcoholism, and the qualification and even normalization of violence and pedophilia.

We dont really talk about these things because they’re shameful and they also speak to our own depravity as young adults or otherwise adults chasing our youth. I mean, isn’t that what’s really going on when we shower our lives with vices we hypocritically don’t want children to do? Aren’t we just vainly chasing our youth and all the depravity we remember engaging in, ironically?

I first understood filth when I was 13 and my high school vice principal and music teacher began to rape me. He taught me the word “cum,” and in a way I don’t see value in explaining here. Let’s just say it was the worst way for a young boy to learn the word. I was relatively innocent. I didn’t know about porn. I had questions about sex, sure, but before the rapes, depraved behavior wasn’t part of my life.

Sometimes I wonder whether the depraved life I lived from the onset of the rapes to my late 30s would have been less depraved. Would I have used meth? And without meth, would I have cared about porn or led such a promiscuous lifestyle? Would I care at all about alcohol binge drinking. Could I have done more or been more courageous in advocating against sexual and family violence?

I am certain, though, that had I not become sexually active against my will at age 13, it would have been a while before I would know about, care for, or act upon depraved behavior. We grew up on the lower end of the middle class, and there was cussing and a bit of alcoholism in my family, but the adults were strict arbiters of moral behavior. My grandma prayed on her knees every morning and went to Mass every Sunday. My grandpa served my grandma like she was a queen. My dad and my uncles had great work ethic and weren’t hesitant to discipline me for acting out.

There was no porn. There was no talk of sex. One of my family members, I’d learn later in life, was a drug addict; but he never exposed me to anything like that.

Today these are everywhere. Right out in the open. Right there for curious and confused pre-teens and young teenagers to absorb and to mimic before their brains and hormones have had a chance to process and reconcile things themselves and with proper and appropriate learning tools and guides.

It’s on X, Snapchat, even Tinder and Grindr. And of course, it’s all over X-rated websites. All of these platforms are so easily accessible. I grew up at a time when none of these were available, so I really have no idea how a parent these days goes about controlling these environments.

All I know is that it appears a collective moral compass has been demagnetized. And if we think the problem of violence and drug abuse is bad now, I’m afraid for what the problem may be when this desensitized generation comes of age.