Turns out, teenagers are a lot more sceptical about porn than their parents and teachers likely assume. Emma Vitz digs into the research.

All this week on The Spinoff we’re talking about porn. Click here for more Porn Week stories. 

As a society, we often see young people who watch porn as unwitting victims, completely unaware of the potential harms it could cause them.

This was seen in some of the views shared as part of The Light Project which surveyed family, schools, youth organisations, therapists and faith based organisations about their perspectives on young people and porn. Many parents who were interviewed said young people do not see porn as harmful and do not have a critical view of it. Similarly, schools said young people see porn as a healthy way to learn about sex.

However, research that engages with young people in New Zealand shows something much more complex and nuanced.

In 2018, the Office of Film and Literature Classification surveyed over 2,000 14 to 17 year olds in New Zealand about their experiences with and perspectives on porn. The results show that young people are very exposed to porn, but they’re not completely uncritical consumers that are oblivious to its risks. It also shows that young people use porn for a wide range of reasons, and that for marginalised youth, it fills the gaps left when society fails to meet their needs.

Young people are very exposed to porn

One in four young people have seen porn by the age of 12, and three out of four by the age of 17. Exposure to porn tends to start young – the average age of first exposure (for those who could remember) is around 13 years old. Most young people did not seek it out themselves the first time they saw it.

On the whole, many young people do not look at porn very often, but about 15% see it at least once a month. Boys tend to watch porn more frequently than girls.

But they understand there are risks 

While most young people have seen porn at some point and a significant minority watch it regularly, they’re also aware of some of the harms this might cause.

A full 89% of young people think that porn can influence people’s thoughts and behaviours, and almost 50% believe this can include both positive and negative influences. Only 3% believe porn only has positive influences on behaviour and attitudes.

The most common potential negative influence that young people brought up was that porn could give people false expectations of sex and what is normal (20%), while the most common potential positive influence is that it can be educational or a learning tool (9%).

This speaks to the complex, nuanced and sometimes conflicting views that young people in New Zealand hold about porn. They recognise that it can lead to unrealistic ideas about sex, but also see it as a potential learning tool.

Similarly, most young people believe that porn is too easy to access, including those who watch it regularly. Of the young people surveyed, 71% believe young people’s access to pornography should be restricted in some way, including 51% of those who watch it at least once a month.

Porn is used to fill the gaps by marginalised young people

It’s easy to think that young people watch porn purely for sexual arousal, and that is certainly a big part of it. However, for some marginalised youth, porn is also used to meet other needs.

Non-heterosexual youth were nearly twice as likely to use porn for education than their straight counterparts, and more likely to try things they had seen in porn. This speaks to the fact that sex education does not always address the specific needs of queer youth, leaving them to fill in the gaps as best they can. In 2020, the Ministry of Health updated the national curriculum policy for sexuality education, with one of the major changes being an increased focus on gender and sexual diversity.

Similarly, youth with a disability or long term limiting health condition were more than twice as likely to use porn for stress relief or to help with sleep. They were also four times more likely to use it to help with sadness or depression. This points to porn being used as a way of managing additional stressors in these young people's lives.

Young people using porn is a complex topic. However, we often forget that those young people themselves are capable of recognising this and contributing to the conversation. Without their input, it’s difficult to see a way for us to create a healthy environment for children and teenagers to develop in New Zealand.