Understanding and responding to young people's engagement with internet pornography

Postdoctoral researcher Dr Siobhán Healy-Cullen has published new research on porn literacy education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research, co-authored with colleagues at Massey University and University of Auckland, has been published in Culture, Health & Sexuality, The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Sexuality Education , Sexualities, Porn Studies, Sexuality Research and Social Policy and Sexuality and Culture.

Porn literacy education, as it is most commonly understood, seeks to teach youth how to engage critically with pornography so that they make 'healthy decisions' about sex and relationships.

Her research focuses on porn literacy from a critical perspective, through hearing from young people themselves, as well as those tasked with sexuality education. As part of her study, she surveyed and interviewed 16 to 18-year-olds, caregivers and teachers. The research shows how adult views of youth sexuality are different from young people’s views of themselves as sexual beings and viewers of pornography. This is an important insight for developing sexuality education initiatives that fit with young people’s lives, rather than adult perceptions of their realities.

Dr Healy-Cullen’s research shows that youth are viewing pornography with some level of criticality and are more adept at navigating pornography than typically assumed. A key finding is that young participants resisted adult positioning of youth as gullible, at-risk and ineligible consumers of pornography. There were also instances where participants expressed reservations about the basic assumptions of porn literacy education. Through her research, she found that porn literacy, as it is commonly envisaged, could potentially be considered out-of-touch by youth.

Dr Healy-Cullen says young participants showed complex and nuanced understandings of pornography, which aligns with findings from international research.

“They reported that they find it intriguing and arousing, but also had concerns about how it represents gender relations and objectifies various people and their bodies. This means that they are capable of separating pornography from the real-world, even while using it as a tool to learn about sex alongside other sources of information. So, it seems that many young people do know that pornography is fake and fantastical and are already able to criticise the problems with it.

“If that is the case, it’s not surprising that programmes focused on teaching what is ‘fake or unhealthy' versus ‘real or healthy' sex may be received as patronising or irrelevant by some youth. Sexuality education must go beyond ‘critically analysing’ pornography and deciphering what’s real or unreal.

“When there is a lot of excitement about a new idea, especially if that idea seems like common sense, it is important to reflect on whether this really is the best way forward. Porn literacy seems that it may not be all it is hyped up to be. It may actually be problematic in some ways.”

Her research offers a balanced critique of porn literacy education as it is most commonly understood. She cautions that porn literacy programmes that aim to protect young people from pornography­ simply by instructing them in a top-down way that porn is unrealistic, may be short-sighted and ineffective.

“Literacy programmes often aim to be youth-orientated and empowering, but these aims are thwarted by an approach that focuses on what adults think young people need. It also takes a deficit view of young people as hapless and helpless. Because of this, youth are not consulted or meaningfully involved but simply told to critically analyse pornography as ‘unrealistic’, ‘bad’ and ultimately reject it, which participants in my study said they didn’t find helpful or engaging.”

Educators rely on their own values and beliefs about sexuality and relationships when teaching about what is unhealthy or unrealistic. This isn’t surprising, she says, because these issues are deeply related to people’s beliefs, values and morals.

“Rather than trying to present teachers’ appraisals as objective, an alternative approach would be to discuss pornography as an issue that is associated with values and morals and help guide and equip young people to clarify how it relates to their own beliefs,” she adds.

Her findings show that young people are capable of this and hold valid knowledge on the topic.

She suggests an alternative educational approach: ethical sexual citizenship.

This approach is learner-centred, invites youth participation and recognises that many young people are already porn literate to some extent. It is a strengths-based perspective in which young people are seen as able to be critical consumers of pornography and, whether adults like it or not, sexual beings with their own needs and concerns. This contrasts with the deficit-based, adult-centric approach of porn literacy.

“In practice, ethical sexual citizenship is a social-justice orientated approach which promotes ethical integrity in sexual relations. Rather than narrowly demarcating the unacceptability or acceptability of desires, the idea is to dialogue with youth about the conditions for ethical exploration of desires. Such discussions of sexually ethical practices encourage care of the self and care of others.”

This approach makes it possible to discuss pornography in a way that acknowledges that it is associated with pleasure for many people, while at the same time reflecting on how it can also recreate problematic portrayals of people from certain (often marginalised) groups, appearances, or relationships.

Such approaches support youth in feeling equipped to negotiate broader issues regarding sexuality and feeling empowered to question, reflect and act upon sexualised media representations that support inequitable power relations.