Youth and Porn Resource KitPrinciple 1: Knowledge
Staying up to date on the current porn landscape will benefit any porn-related conversations. The more porn insight you have, the more prepared you will be to navigate porn-related conversations and questions.
It’s also helpful to have some knowledge of the common porn-related issues young people can struggle with, which may be raised during a conversation. These can include feeling:
- Uncomfortable with what they have seen in porn.
- Ashamed and confused about their arousal by porn generally, or to specific content.
- Concerned that porn is affecting their sexual expectations and ideas around body, gender, and sex.
- Pressured to watch porn or try out something seen in porn.
- Confused or distressed about trying something seen in porn. For example, a group sex, rough sex or choking experience.
- Triggered by porn content due to trauma history or using porn to process sexual trauma.
- Worried their porn use is out of control.
- Anxious that they are seeking increasingly violent or extreme porn.
Tools to help: Resource 1.1: Youth and Porn Facts and Resource 1.2: Potential Porn Impacts
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“For many children and young people in Aotearoa, porn is as close as the nearest phone. That simple fact fundamentally changes everything we knew, or thought we knew, about porn and young people. Porn is now a fact of life for young people.”
Classifaction Office, NZ Youth and Porn 2018.