Responding Effectively to Porn-Related Concerns – A 4-Step Process
This simple 4-step response process can help guide workplace consultations with young people presenting with porn-related concerns or experiences of harm.

Step 1: Validate and Normalise

Validating and normalising a young person’s experience helps open conversations and minimise any shame and stigma associated with porn (which can exacerbate harm and be a barrier to seeking care).

Validating can look like:

  • Reducing the young person’s shame.
  • Normalising their experience or concerns. For example, many youth describe feeling uncomfortable with what they see in porn – but still being aroused by it, resulting in confusion and/or shame. Normalising any response to porn (curious, uncomfortable, excited, aroused – or all of these at the same time) can help reduce shame and open conversations.
  • If appropriate – recognising any positive role a young person may feel porn is playing. For example, to help manage stress or anxiety, to explore sexuality, or to help with sleep.
  • Avoiding being shocked.

    Note: In cases of young people exhibiting harmful porn-related behaviours, ‘normalising’ these is not be appropriate, and validation should focus on the young person’s help seeking behaviours. 

Step 2: Assess

Assessing a young person’s unique experience of porn and their related concerns is important to identify potential harm, determine appropriate care, and establish whether referral is needed.

Assessments should always:

Step 3: Build Critical Thinking

Building critical thinking around porn is important to help form resilience to, or challenge, the problematic scripts in porn that can make some young people vulnerable to experiencing or causing harm.

Building critical thinking can best be achieved through open discussion, exploratory open questions, analysing the messages in porn, and psychoeducation, alongside shame-reduction techniques.

Tools to help build critical thinking, draw out young people’s ideas around porn and keep conversations open include: 2.2: Building Critical Thinking and The ‘Reflect, Reframe, Refer’ Tool.

Step 4: Support and Refer

Referral to wider support services, specialist services, self-directed tools, apps, and helplines may be needed to best support a young person.

A comprehensive list of support services in Aotearoa is found here: 3.5: Support and Referral Services and Apps.

For examples of the four-step process in practise, refer to 3.3: Case Studies