How Porn Hurts Children

“The research demonstrates that exposure to pornography from an early age should be viewed as an ACE [adverse childhood experience] given its long-term effects, and hence requires a solution that harnesses the protocols of a public health approach to a social problem.”
Dr. Gail Dines, Culture Reframed¹

Although pornography isn’t intended for children, the reality is that – in the digital age, where porn has never been so accessible, affordable and anonymous– many find it hard to avoid. As the title of a report by the UK Children’s Commissioner sums it up: “Basically… porn is everywhere.”²

Porn shapes our culture, driving hypersexualiation, sexual objectification and sexual entitlement. It also influences our sexual norms, attitudes and behaviours. Research confirms that it’s having a particularly damaging impact on our children and young people.

Porn shapes children’s sexual scripts

The UK government estimates that online porn is accessed by 1.4 million UK children each and every month.³ Children are being regularly exposed not only to content that’s sexually explicit, but that also depicts sexual acts that are “coercive, abusive, violent, exploitative, degrading and potentially harmful or illegal….”⁴

A recent UK survey found that 44% of boys aged between 11 and 16 who regularly viewed porn reported that it gave them ideas about the type of sex they wanted to try.⁵ The UK’s Big Talk Education Report found that, for many boys, pornography is the main source of information about sex and sexual behaviour: “Questions like, ‘Is it ok for me to cum over my girlfriend’s face?’ are not unusual, as is the apparent normalisation of anal sex.”⁶

Porn makes children see sex as a commodity

Porn divorces sex from the context of a dynamic, multi-layered relationship and turns it instead into an impersonal, performative act largely centred on male sexual gratification at any cost. Research shows that if young people perceive the sex in online pornography as realistic, they are more likely to believe that casual / hedonistic sex is more normal than sex within the context of loving, stable relationships.⁷

But regardless of whether they see porn sex as realistic or not, adolescent porn consumption is associated with more permissive sexual attitudes, more sexual intercourse and more casual sex, along with stronger gender-stereotypical sexual beliefs, the tendency to support “rape myths” and the perception of women as sex objects (among both boys and girls)⁸

“Young people told us that exposure to 24-hour-a-day media has created new sexual attitudes – ‘sex with randoms is the norm’. It acts as a vehicle to spread sexual content, bullying and harassment and ‘reinstalls’ pornographic images on their brains daily without them even seeking them out.”
A.J. Bridges, R. Wosnitzer, E. Scharrer, C. Sun, and R. Liberman, Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis Update⁹ https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801210382866

Porn drives sexual aggression

“I didn’t like it because it came on by accident and I don’t want my parents to find out and the man looked like he was hurting her. He was holding her down and she was screaming and swearing.”
Girl, 11¹⁰

Much of today’s online porn sexualises violence and foregrounds men’s aggressive sexual domination over women.¹¹ A 2015 meta-analysis looking at the links between porn consumption and sexually-aggressive behaviour found that “exposure to non-violent and violent pornography results in increases in both attitudes supporting aggression and in actual aggression.”¹²

“Porn shuts down a boy’s natural feeling, as it places little value on intimacy, empathy or respect of partners in pornography material.”
Dr. Michael Flood, Sociologist¹³

Children’s consumption of online pornography has been associated with the dramatic increase in child-on-child sexual abuse over the past few years, which now constitutes around a third of all child sexual abuse.¹⁴ The consequences for both the perpetrator, who’s often ‘acting out’ what he has seen in porn, and to the victims of this abuse, are often serious and far-reaching.¹⁵

“One of my friends has started treating women like he sees on the videos – not major – just a slap here or there.”
Boy, 13¹⁶

Porn hinders children’s ability to form healthy, stable relationships

The consumption of porn has a corrosive effect on human empathy. Studies reveal that the more young people are exposed to porn, the harder it is for them to form intimate relationships as they move through adolescence into adulthood.¹⁷ Porn consumption correlates with reduced levels of sexual and relationship satisfaction, increases infidelity and relationship breakdown, and is associated with a lower likelihood of marriage.¹⁸

Porn leads to sexual harassment

A 2013 UK Children’s Commissioner study found that, “[f]or some young men, collecting ‘man points’ – rating from their peers – is dependent on persuading and often harassing young women to send ‘sexts’, and on sharing pornography with each other.”¹⁹

Porn leads to sexual coercion

Research suggests that many young women feel under pressure to play out the ‘scripts’ their male partners learned from porn and are badgered into having sex in uncomfortable positions, faking sexual pleasure and consenting to perform unpleasant or painful sex acts.E.Rothman., C.Kaczmarsky, N.Burke, E.Jansen, & A.Baughman. (2015).²⁰

“My friend wanted his girlfriend to dress like a porn star and do what a porn star would do.”
Tom, 17Parliament uk, 2016 Fixers Report

Melinda Tankard-Reist of the grassroots campaigns movement Collective Shout writes: “For many girls, naming and expressing emotional or physical pain is the new taboo because it transgresses the male porn script of a continually up-for-it girl who takes it with a smile. The message is that men and boys must be able to get sexual release whenever they need to, and that women should accept men’s need for porn.”²¹ A UK GirlGuiding attitudes survey found that 71% of girls aged 17-21 think pornography gives out confusing messages about sexual consent and that it makes aggressive behaviour towards women seem normal.²²

“My view of being a woman was so warped, I kind of felt like I just had to accept it and give men what they want.”
Kera, 25²³

Sexual objectification harms girls’ mental health and wellbeing

Pornography creates a distorted impression of what’s physically normal, and its influence on the wider culture means that the ‘perfect’, surgically-enhanced body becomes not just an ideal, but also a norm that many boys expect and to which many girls aspire. Such sexual objectification encourages us to judge girls and women according to their physical attractiveness and sex appeal. Research has long shown that internalising these messages results in lower self-esteem and a greater incidence of depression, anxiety, eating disorders and risky sexual behaviour.²⁴

Porn makes girls more vulnerable to sexual violence

Research has demonstrated that women exposed to pornography as children are more likely to accept rape myths and to have sexual fantasies that involved rape.²⁵ What’s more, as Dr Gail Dines writes, “girls are more at risk for rape, battery, and being trafficked in a society where pornography is normalized.”²⁶

Porn inspires risky sexual practices

Porn consumption is associated with an earlier age of sexual initiation, which is a well-recognised marker for other kinds of risk, alongside binge drinking and having multiple sexual partners.²⁷ Studies show a correlation between exposure to sexually-explicit website and the likelihood of young people engaging in casual, promiscuous and paid-for sex, and in risky sexual behaviour such as anal sex, group sex and sex without a condom.²⁸ There’s also a link between pornography consumption and delinquent / criminal adolescent behaviour, including sexual offenses.²⁹

“I saw a lot of lad garage magazines just as I became 14. I was pressured into sex and my friend wanted to impress her boyfriend by having sex. You are pushed to do sex, drugs, skipping school, alcohol. It’s all related.”
Sophie, 17³⁰

Online porn has contributed significantly to the high and rising level of STDs among young people, which can cause long-term health problems (particularly in young women) such as pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility and cervical cancer.³¹

Porn Drives Risky Online Behaviour

“One of my friends, when she was 16, she sent a picture to a guy and he then sent it to everyone in the school. She was bullied for ages. It got so bad she even contemplated suicide.”
Keira, 25³²

The trend for teenagers to send naked selfies and sexts is driven by a media-saturated, pornified culture.³³ Self-generated explicit images are often shared beyond the intended recipient, leaving the sender at risk of victimisation and exploitation through ‘sextortion’, sexual harassment and online grooming.³⁴ Sexting amongst young people also correlates with having had sexual intercourse, recent sexual activity, alcohol and other drug use before sexual intercourse, and multiple sexual partners.³⁵

“I think sexting is about peer pressure. Nobody wants to send a photo of themselves. They feel they should. They’re seeking love, not thinking about how unprotected you are when you send sexting pictures. They’re trying to fit in.”
Martina, 25³⁶

Watching porn as a kid can lead to addiction

Watching pornography is a key way that adolescent boys feel they can ‘prove their manliness’ and gain peer acceptance and status.³⁷ Pop-up porn ads appear even on sites designed for children and once they click, sophisticated algorithms are designed to turn children from ‘curious clicker’ into ‘member clicker’³⁸

“Free porn is the same as the tobacco industry handing out free cigarettes to kids to get them hooked, without fear of prosecution.”
Dr Gail Dines

Porn exposes users to ‘supernormal stimuli’, where exaggerated, endlessly-novel depictions of sex release torrents of dopamine, which manipulates their brain’s reward circuitry, which in turn can lead to addiction.³⁹ The effect of this is especially serious in adolescents’ developing brains, which are primed for novelty and risk-taking.⁴⁰Research shows that people who watch pornography when they’re young are more likely to be heavy, lifelong consumers. The compulsive use of porn can also lead to visual desensitisation so that, in order to maintain sexual arousal, users seek out material that’s increasingly extreme and violent.⁴¹

Porn risks children’s mental health

Research shows that children are more susceptible than adults to mental health problems associated with compulsive porn use, such as anxiety, depression, loneliness and low self-esteem.⁴² Heavy porn use also interferes with working memory and concentration, as well as increasing risk-taking and impulsive behaviour.⁴³ Unsurprisingly, this often has a profound negative impact on children’s academic performance.⁴⁴“ Such problems are exacerbated by the fact that heavy porn consumption correlates with young people reporting a poor emotional bond with their caregivers.⁴⁵

“We are in the midst of a massive social experiment that is having a seismic impact on the sexual templates, behaviours, emotional wellbeing, and attitudes of youth. Never before have we brought up a generation of boys who are a click away from viewing free hardcore mainstream pornography or girls who are growing up in this pornified culture.”
Dr Gail Dines

Porn has serious short-term effects on children. It nurtures sexist attitudes, supports rape myths, inspires risky sexual practices, creates compulsive behaviours, reduces self-esteem and confidence, causes a host of mental health problems, and can lead to sexual bullying, coercion and aggression.

But porn also leaves children with a lasting personal legacy. By hurting children’s physical, mental and emotional well-being and impacting their self-worth, porn is blighting their chances of forming and maintaining healthy, stable relationships in the future.

Our next generation is being exploited by a powerful, virtually unregulated industry. If we don’t recognise the multifaceted harm that porn is doing to our children and young people, we’ll be living with the consequences for years to come.