New Report Finds Most Teens Watch Online Pornography

Anybody who cares about the healthy sexual and character development of children should read the report, "Teens and Pornography," issued earlier this year by Common Sense Media.

The report was based on a representative national survey of 1,300 teenagers ages 13 to 17. Some of its findings:

• Seventy-three percent of the respondents (75 percent of boys and 70 percent of girls) said they had watched online pornography. The average age they started was 12. Many began younger.
• Seven in 10 who admitted they had watched porn intentionally said they had done so in the past week.
• Four in 10 said they had watched pornography, including nudity and sexual acts, during the school day. Almost half said they had done so on school-owned devices.
• Of those who watched the past week, 80 percent said they had seen “what appears to be rape, choking, or someone in pain.”
• Fewer than half (43 percent) said they had discussed pornography with a trusted adult. (Robb and Mann, 2023).

Common Sense Media founder and CEO James Steyer, in his introduction to the Teens and Pornography report, said:

We need to consider conversations with teens about pornography the same way we think of conversations about sex, social media, drug and alcohol use, and more.

The finding that teens said they had viewed “what appears to be rape, choking, or someone in pain” won’t surprise anyone who has read the book Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality by Gail Dines, a Wheelock College sociology and women's studies professor.

In more than two decades of speaking and writing about pornography, Dines finds that most women and some men, including parents, have no clue how violent and misogynist hard-core online pornography has become.

A 2007 content analysis, "Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography," examined 50 of the most-rented Internet videos. It found an average of 12 abusive acts inflicted on female performers per scene. Gang rape was common. The number of sexual partners ranged from one to 19.

Until now, any child in America has been able to access the most extreme pornography by simply answering “yes” to the question, “Are you 18?” Some states are currently considering age-verification laws that would protect minors.

The Common Sense Media survey found that 50 percent of teenage respondents said they felt “guilty or ashamed” after they watched pornography. But half did not. Nearly eight in 10 (79 percent) said viewing pornography helped them “learn how to have sex.”

"Teens and Pornography" (Robb and Mann, 2023) cites recent research (Rothman et al., 2021; Wright et al., 2021) showing that youth consumption of pornography is associated with:

• Increased sexual aggression
• Anxiety and depression
• Interpersonal relationship problems
• Dangerous sexual behaviors such as choking someone during sex

In England, a 2016 Middlesex University study of 11- to 16-year-olds found that:

• More than half of the boys (53 percent) thought Internet pornography is a “realistic depiction of sex.”
• Four out of 10 girls thought Internet pornography is a “realistic depiction of sex.”
• By the time they were 13, 40 percent of the boys said they wanted to copy behaviors they had seen on porn sites (Sellgren, 2016).

Unfortunately, sexually explicit content is no longer limited to pornography websites. That means parents need to look for tech that blocks porn on smartphones, tablets, and computers. Fortunately, it is now available.

Even more important than external controls, however, is developing a child's internal control: their conscience. That's what they will carry within them into the wider world. Through calm, clear explanations, parents and schools can help kids understand the reasons why they should not watch pornography. (For suggestions regarding conscience formation, see my November 18, 2019 post, "Should We Teach Kids about Porn's Harms?")