The Department of Home Affairs has released alarming statistics about the wide availability of pornography among schoolchildren in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town.

A shocking 81 percent of our children have been exposed to pornography through films, the Internet, cellphone chat lines and magazines.

The research was prompted by the department's desire to inform itself about the need to regulate the exposure of children to undesirable material.

Naturally children are curious about themselves, their environment and their place in it. This is a healthy curiosity that should be nurtured to rear them to be well-rounded adults.

But porn is not what children should be watching. It is an obscene portrayal of nature.

Parents should inform themselves about the dangers openly available porn poses to their children.

We applaud the government's efforts to protect our children from the harmful practice. We hope pornography will be restricted to speciality shops and banned from the public domain.

While we plead for more openness in sex education, we must however eliminate the unhealthy interest in smut.

Removing the taboo about sex should be the objective, as should be demystifying it to move away from portraying it as a forbidden fruit.