Youth and Porn Resource KitPorn as a sex-education tool
- Young people may go to porn for sexual pleasure – but ‘sex education’ is what they get from it, and this ‘education’ can begin before high school.
- Young people want porn to be part of sexuality education in schools, as they think it’s the most effective measure to prevent possible harm
- Porn is particularly likely to be used to learn about sex and consent by Rainbow young people because of the current gaps in available sexuality education (73).
- Some reseach also suggests young people may be more vulnerable to learning about sex from porn because watching porn provides the ideal elements for learning: images, arousal, reinforcement, the example of others, and reward (61).
%
73% of regular porn-users, use porn as a learning tool.
of young people think porn can influence attitudes and behaviours (positively and negatively).
1 in 5
recent users have tried something they’ve seen in porn
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“Young people generally know that it (porn) is a very poor guide to what real sex is like. Despite this, for many, it is a primary reference for finding out about sex – they simply don’t feel that they have any better source of information. Young people worry about what this means for their own expectations about sex, and the expectations others may have of them.”
NZ Youth and Porn, 2020