Online porn does not influence teen sexual behaviour?

In my FRESH courses I make a point of discussing porn and the impact on teen brains and behaviour. All of the information I have used for this - and in fact have passed on indicatres that there are some destructive forces at work  regarding the links between viewing porn and teen behaviour. Well...

Researchers have found that viewing sexually explicit content on the internet or in magazines as a teenager does not influence sexual behavior as much as people think, according to a new study published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

It was believed by many that viewing sexually explicit content could have a negative impact on the sexual behaviors of teenagers. However, not enough research was carried out to come to any concrete conclusions.

GO HERE to read more. I would welcome your comments.
You can also go here to here a recording of Dr Sven Axel manson talking at the Kinsey Institute re young people and pornopgraphy.

young people and pornography

Listen to Dr Sven Axel-Manson discuss his research on young men and women ( 14 -19) and thier access/viewing of pornography. CLICK HERE

Youth Gender and Pornography

Finding out what young people think of pornography, what they have viewed as pornography, how often the view pornography has been difficult. This of course means that we make assumptions about how young people are responding to the easily accessablre pornography of today. Perhaps our assumptions are wrong. Below is some interesting information from 'The Nordic Gender Institute NIKK

"Pornography turned out to be a well-known and actively debated phenomenon among Nordic young people, who cooperated willingly with the team of researchers concerning their own relationship to and attitudes toward pornography. Young people consume pornography in varying degrees, are familiar with various genres, and reveal themselves to be fairly reflective and critical in relation to what they see. At the same time, they point out that the consumption of pornography has become more standard, but that it continues to be viewed as more "normal" for boys than for girls. This is explained by saying, among other things, that pornography is after all produced by men and for men. In spite of the tendency toward normalisation, many things indicate that young people's approach to pornography is rather ambivalent. Among boys in particular, pornography works on the one hand as sexual inspiration in more private contexts, while at the same time it functions as a social rallying point, ridiculed and dismissed as containing exaggerated images of what sexuality really is in daily life. This ambivalence is not as marked among the study's girls, who, even when they are somewhat positively inclined toward pornography, express a critical stance toward it. "

Go here to read a bit more about thier research:

Web Porn+young people

I have been thinking about this alot lately: Its a hard subject to consider objectively. In the past after reading 'The Porn Report' I started feeling okay about porn, how people use it and see it. However..... I think I am reconsidering my position. 'The Porn report ' was as a study of adult users who were happy to admit using porn - also much of the research was pre easy internet access.

I would dearly love to see some qualitative research about young people ( from the age that they start accessing computers), what they think about the imagry they see, how do they see this as fitting into 'media' how do they discern what is real and acceptable or not real and unaccepptable? Does it bother them? Does it make any difference or not??? I have my own ideas after talking with my children and thier friends. - but of course research and ethics makes it very difficult to 'do' research on young people.
Anyway - I am not saying Porn is good or Bad. I would just like to know its impact on our young people.
You may want to have a look at this site for some information re research.

Help with a question

Hi everyone.

I have been working with a group over the last few weeks and each week we do question time - kids write a question for the box which we answer the following week. I wouldn't mind some help with this one;
Is it OK for year 7's to watch porn?

I still haven't read the Porn Report yet Lud but I will have to get it, it seems like a really balanced report on an inportant topic compared to a lot of the emotional conversation flying around. I have had a look at the report's website to seek some views on findings concerning minors watching porn but the info here is limited.

I am grateful that I have the opportunity to discuss this topic and here are some of my thoughts;
Obviously there is the law perspective - being 18 or over to view explicit materials.
It's highly likely that kids under 18 will view porn so I don't want to close the conversation by saying NO.
I would like students to feel OK about talking in the classroom forum (or in other ways) about porn which they may have found to be disturbing to them.
I would like to recognise that porn that is viewed which portrays violence, non-consensual sex, sex with children, "unhappy scenes", sex with animals etc is not OK - that sex is something we do with people - not TO people.

It's been quite clear to me that some in the the class have already viewed porn so I think the question warrants a rigorous response.

How do I make my reponse age appropriate?? Can it be age appropriate? They are 12!

I would love to receive some feedback, have others discussed the topic of porn with groups???