Moral Panic and Youthful Pleasure

In my last post, I noted that young boys watch porn—a nearly universal male adolescent and young adult experience. It frequently begins around pubertal onset, if not before, and increases during adolescence and young adulthood. The data I summarized indicated that young girls also start viewing porn around pubertal onset—perhaps not as frequently as guys, but it is, nevertheless, pervasive. In his review of the pornography literature, Professor of Family Life Brian Willoughby noted, “The average age that children begin watching porn on a regular basis is often between the ages of 10 and 12. By 18, over 90% of all teenagers have watched or seen pornography.” This is generally true across all social classes, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and races.

Many of the young men and women I interviewed used pornography for two primary purposes: as a source of information about sexual mechanics—what is possible to do and how to do it—and, most frequently, as a source of sexual pleasure. Whether the frequency changes when a youth is in a stable sexual or romantic relationship is unknown. Regardless, these two reasons are frequently ignored by adults who may be concerned with the harm done to youths if they engage pornography.

Do Parents Know?

One question occasionally raised but seldom investigated is whether parents know their child is watching porn, regardless of the youth’s purpose in viewing porn. A study published last year partially addressed this issue. Paul Wright et al. explored parent-adolescent dyads (mean adolescent age = 16) to assess the parents’ estimation of their child’s use of pornography. Regardless of the format of the pornography and the sex of the child, parents consistently underestimated their children’s exposure to pornography and its socialization effects on them. If parents are asked the age at which their children began watching porn, most parents cite an older age than the youth reports. Thus, parents underestimate the child’s exposure to porn and overestimate the age when it begins—if they even acknowledge their child watches porn. Also unknown is whether the format of the pornography or how it is delivered—videos, streaming, magazines—matters in terms of effects on youths.

Parents Should Talk About Porn Use

Nearly every treatise I have read over the past several years expresses a strong affirmative to the question of whether parents should have a conversation with their child—usually in advance of their child accessing porn. Discussing porn just once is considered inadequate because it should be an ongoing topic as the child is increasingly affected by sex hormones and peers. Yet, as Wright and colleagues noted, even a singular talk seldom occurs. Youths rarely tell their parent or guardian they are watching porn. In their study, about 20% did so, with more boys (26%) than girls (14%) having done so. Parents agreed with them that these exchanges infrequently occurred.

What is less clear from the research is:

1. Who initiated the conversation—I am guessing it is far more probable parents will than youths because the latter will likely fear that parents believe porn is a “bad habit.”
2. Why the issue was raised in the first place—I am guessing it is because parents discovered it directly by catching their child watching porn or indirectly by viewing the child’s web history.
3. What was the outcome—I am guessing it ranges from a bombastic tirade to a stern reprimand to a reasoning process with reference to the parents’ perception that watching porn is bad for the youth.

Among many primary fears of parents include their child will become addicted to porn, will be subjected to predators who will target their child, and will be presented with a distorted image of sexual and romantic relationships.

Reasons Parents Do Not Talk To Their Child About Porn

Psychologist Kate Dawson and colleagues asked 409 parents of teenagers (ages 13-18 years) the question of why they don't talk to their child about porn. The primary barrier was practical. Some parents prompted the discussion with their child but encountered immediate resistance from their adolescent that closed further exploration. Parents were also concerned with the impact of having such conversations on parent-child interactions and that they might inadvertently encourage the child to pursue such matters. Others believed it was not an appropriate conversation to have with their child and others professed lack of knowledge about how to address pornography issues. Some parents were embarrassed to even talk about pornography in a generic manner, in part because they lacked open communication with their child. This was amplified when the topic included explicit sexual behavior and sexual pleasure. Parents struggled with how to best protect the child from perceived pornography-related harm.

Moral Panic

This last issue, “protect the child from perceived pornography-related harm,” is the basis of the moral panic pervading the nonscientific world in our culture—the context most readily accessible to parents. The moral panic elicited can easily provoke or hijack many would-be parent-child conversations. For example, those on the side of moral panic, such as Kristen Jenson, founder of Defend Young Minds and author of Good Pictures Bad Pictures, emphasize the negative impacts and suggest “things you can do to protect your children from the dangers of pornography and increase the likelihood that when they come across porn, they toss it aside and never come back to it.”

It is far more difficult to find advocates praising the benefits of watching porn. Perhaps most commonly, defenders of pornography for adolescents and young adults accentuate the sexual education (including the mechanics of sex) of pornography. In part, this benefit might well be the primary reason youths engage pornography. Yet, there may be other benefits also not discussed by parents or schools. These two issues likely supersede the perceived negatives of porn—a topic for my next post.