Please Understand, You Are Not Welcome Here

One of the most exciting things about blogging is being able to track where in the world your writing is read, which countries show the most interest and how many hits one gets on a monthly, weekly or even hourly basis.  I have been tracking this via the blogging platform I use, Google's Blogger, but more recently, thanks to a wonderful friend of mine (check out her amazing new venture OurFri), I have now discovered (a little slow on my part admittedly), Google Analytics.  This stuff is a statisticians dream.

Another interesting feature which is attached to these tracker sites, is the page which displays where traffic is coming from in the form of a web address.  Of course all the usual sites are there - twitter, Facebook, Instagram, my webpage itself, etc.  However, there is one source which puzzles and concerns me gravely - a site which features and promotes pornography.

How and why is this site attached to a blogpage about fatherhood?

What I find horribly disturbing, and rather uncomfortable, is that someone in the cyber world seems to think that there is a link between a blogsite written by a dedicated, doting father and the world of pornography.  There is obviously a programmer out there who has built an algorithm to allow this porn site to search for certain keywords which mimic keywords used by myself and many other parenting blogs.  My guess is that when searching for men, fathers, daughters, etc. indicators are sent out and link to sites which have no place in a virtual world which celebrates the trials and tribulations of parenting.  Those on the site then pick up a link to my blog (somehow) and click on it.

It is probably worth pointing out at this stage that the videos and pictures which these “readers” have just got off on,  are visuals of someone's daughter and/or son.

This is not the first time I have written about this, but of late, it seems to have happened rather more frequently that I would like.  In the past I sent out a request for help from a community of like-minded fathers.  None of them were able to offer any insight into how I could avoid such sites redirecting my work.  Some of those in this online community were of the opinion that traffic to my webpage and blogs was a good thing, irrespective of where that traffic has been redirected from.

Do I want readers?  Yes.
Do I care where these readers are being redirected from?  Of course. 

I like to think that I am an extremely open-minded individual, but pornography plays no part in my life and I certainly do not want it tainting and poisoning the message which I am trying to promote through my blogs.  It is not something I have ever particularly enjoyed nor have I even found any interest in it.  I would be lying if I said that I had never seen porn before, but I count myself lucky when I say that on first viewing, I felt so physically nauseous that I never bothered venturing there again; Game of Thrones or Orange is the New Black is about as raunchy as it gets for me and I am more than satisfied with that. 

Porn is out there; a billion dollar market which dominates so many aspects of our world – seemingly on a relentless scale.  That is all good and well for those who enjoy it, but I do take offense when what I am trying to relay in my writing is the exact opposite of what pornography promotes - exploitation, the robbing of individuals and their personalities, and a world which ignores the beauty of men and women beyond the flesh.  Call me fuddy-duddy, call me old-skool, but I am not willing to allow the parasites of the internet world to plague the tales of a father and his beautiful young daughter.

This is not a post about the dangers of porn, nor is it about whether or not people should be watching / looking at it.  It is simply me saying:  I did not come knocking at your door, so do not come knocking at mine!  You are not welcome here!