When Dr Claire Meehan began research for her book about young people and porn, her university worried that no-one would want to talk about something so private. Instead rangatahi had so many questions that she jokes she barely made it out of discussion sessions alive.

Recently I published a book about porn and how young people in Aotearoa navigated it as part of their lives. When I got the book contract, one of the first things I did was tell my mum in Ireland. She told me she was very proud of me, but she didn’t want a copy of it. Why? Because young people’s use of porn is political. It’s politicised through age, gender, sexuality, media, censorship, risk of harm and society’s attitudes more broadly. 

Who watches porn?

The advent and evolution of the internet has led to massive consumption of online porn worldwide. In 2020, the four largest online porn sites – Pornhub, xVideos, xnxx and xHamster – received nearly 11 billion visitors each month. To put this in context, this is more than the number of visitors to Amazon, LinkedIn, Netflix, Zoom and eBay combined over the same period). Porn has arguably become ubiquitous to the extent that government reports and media coverage have suggested that ‘porn is everywhere’.

In New Zealand, the Office of Film and Literature Classification surveyed more than 2,000 teenagers aged 14–17 to investigate the prevalence and frequency of young people’s porn use. They found that one in four young people in their sample had seen porn by the age of 12 and three out of four had seen it by age 17.

Tricky beginnings

I set out to work with young people in New Zealand to see how they understood and experienced porn as part of their digital sexual lives. Conducting the study was no mean feat. First, ethics approval was a long and protracted process with many, many iterations. One of the key concerns was that young people would simply not want to talk with me about something so private. 

Next, getting schools and youth organisations on board was equally tricky. I spent a lot of time explaining that while I was a criminologist, I had no interest in criminalising young people. Interestingly, my background as a high school teacher in Northern Ireland really helped here – I was considered a safer pair of hands. 

Finally, I had to recruit the young participants themselves. This entailed getting both informed consent from their parent or caregiver and informed assent from them. After all that we were good to go! In total I interviewed over 200 young people aged 12-18 years old across the motu over various studies.

Young people want to talk about porn

One of the most interesting things about doing this research was that it was very hard to stick to our allotted time. I often joked that I barely made it out of these sessions alive! The rangatahi had so many questions that it was difficult to wrap things up. I started the groups explaining my interest in working with them as a partnership – after all, they are the experts in their own lives – as well as my interest in how they encountered and understood porn. 

I explained that I was a researcher, I was there to facilitate discussion, not to teach them about porn or report back to schools or parents. I was transparent about where I stood – some porn can be harmful and some porn can be useful, as was the case for many participants who were questioning their sexuality. I also believe porn can be a resource but isn’t always the best resource, and that our discourse about porn – that watching it will make you addicted, lead you to treat all women badly, prevent you being a feminist, be unable to enjoy a healthy sex life etc – has the potential to be more harmful than the porn itself. Most of these claims have been largely debunked or at least heavily critiqued. 

After lots of discussions, several key issues emerged: what was ‘normal’, the impact of gender and sexuality, double standards, religion, shame, consent, pleasure, pressure, body image, concerns about the type of porn or treatment of performers and partners, resisting porn, bonding and where to seek information or support. Most of the young people who watched porn considered themselves to be critical consumers, recognising the difference between fantasy and reality, though they sometimes experienced the tensions involved with the blurring of this boundary. 

One thing that the overwhelming majority of rangatahi, regardless of whether they were routinely watching porn or not, called for was more balanced, nuanced and inclusive sexuality education, and safe spaces to discuss porn in a meaningful way. 

Sexuality education goes beyond sex and shame

Sexuality education has long been a contentious topic in Aotearoa. Sexuality education, not just sex education, is a required component of the New Zealand Curriculum and Te Marautanga o Aotearoa. Sexuality education goes beyond the physical aspects of sexual and reproductive health, and moves away from a risk-based model underpinned by shame. My findings, alongside research from the Classification Office, highlight that young people are less likely to discuss issues or ask for help when they feel judged.

The latest evolution of relationships and sexuality education (RSE) emphasises that sex and relationships occur between people, not bodies, by emphasising the importance of relationships in the title. While no approach is perfect, this version of RSE goes further in the provision of in-depth and wide-ranging learning delivered in an open and inclusive way which acknowledges the diversity of gender, sexuality and experiences. 

Calls to scrap RSE guidelines from the curriculum have been made as part of the coalition deal between National, Act and New Zealand First. This approach been criticised as repressive and backwards by experts. 

So what about porn?

We know that shutting down discussions about porn to protect young people from the harms of porn may fail to appropriately connect with the gendered and heteronormative aspects of young people’s sexual cultures. In a similar vein, failing to critically deconstruct issues related to pleasure, consent and intimacy via porn may be a missed opportunity for schools to engage with their students. 

For schools and teachers it’s no easy task to include porn in the curriculum in a valuable way. Walking the fine line between not upsetting parents yet equipping students with tools to navigate porn requires a lot of thought and planning in terms of development, content, delivery and evaluation – some of the things the guidelines can assist with. 

It is universally agreed by experts that high-quality relationships and sexuality education is critical to children and young people’s development and wellbeing. By removing these guidelines, we are doing our young people a disservice. 

We know that our tamariki and rangatahi learn from the world around them – from family, community and education to, in the past few years, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and, yes, sites like PornHub. The onus is on us as part of their community to be having open and honest conversations that include porn, but also go beyond it to embrace sex, pleasure, bodily autonomy, consent and healthy relationships. 

So, perhaps a resolution for 2024 should be to open up conversations about porn instead of shutting them down.