Much of the above research centers on adults. But what about when it comes to porn consumption specifically in teenagers, or kids even younger than that, as Eilish was when she first started watching pornography?
There isn’t a ton of concrete data about the average age people are first exposed to porn, and studying the effects of porn on kids and adolescents can be understandably tricky territory. But what research has been done commonly estimates that boys tend to first be exposed to porn when they’re around 11 to 13 and girls when they’re around 13 to 17. Those numbers may be trending down since the internet’s evolution is making it increasingly easier to find pornography whether or not you’re looking for it. And since it’s just the average, it means there are people who first got exposed at ages higher or lower than that, like Eilish.
In any case, some research has found a potential association between boys first seeing porn at a younger age and being more likely to want power over women as men. Other research has found a possible association between girls being younger when they first see porn and having a higher likelihood of being sexually abused. Some research has even found that the younger a person is when they first see violent porn, no matter their sex, the more likely they may be to be either a perpetrator or victim of teen dating violence. But each of these studies has its own limitations, and more broadly, it’s in no way guaranteed that someone is destined for any of these outcomes because they watch porn, even of a violent nature, when they’re young.
There’s a whole movement to create ethical and even feminist porn to reduce its potential harms on viewers and those in the actual videos. (And, of course, there’s an accompanying debate over whether it’s possible for porn to ever be ethical and/or feminist.) But traditional porn is much, much more common than any made with these aims, and Eilish is far from the only person who’s had a terrible experience with it.
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Since porn is clearly here to stay (and for kids to find), some sex educators, psychologists, and public health experts are encouraging porn literacy in adolescent sex education, the APA says. One program, the Start Strong: Building Healthy Teen Relationships initiative at the Boston Public Health Commission, teaches young people about “the history of pornography and obscenity laws, sexual norms, and gendered double standards, and the research on pornography and compulsive use,” according to the APA. (Without showing the participants actual pornography.) It also examines how porn scripts are often unrealistic. But the program isn’t exclusively focused on porn, but rather giving teens tools for healthy relationships and reducing teen dating violence.
“I don’t know how you can ignore the fact that pornography really is available and easy to access and that so many teenagers have seen it,” Emily Rothman, Sc.D., a professor of community health sciences at Boston University who helped develop the Start Strong curriculum, told the APA. “To not address it in any way as part of sex education seems like a real oversight.”
Like so many other things, watching porn (especially at a young age) won’t be a good or healthy experience for everyone. Some people do just fine with it. Others don’t. If you feel like porn has warped your view of your body, sex life, or anything else in a way you’re really struggling with, that’s a great thing to talk about with a therapist, whether or not they specialize in sex therapy.
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Source: SELF
