The Age of Pornography: New Study Shows Still Younger Exposure
By Movieguide® Contributor
Today, explicit sexual material on the internet has become so accessible that a recent survey indicates it is likely that a young person has suffered exposure to pornography.
As Tre Goins-Phillips writes in a Jan. 10 article for Faithwire:
A newly released survey … found 54% of teenagers reported having seen internet pornography before 13 years old, with 12 being the average age of first exposure. Additionally, 15% of youth respondents said they saw pornographic content as young as 10 years old.
In total, 73% of teens under the age of 17 admitted they had seen pornography.
The survey’s, findings include:
This new report explores how a demographically representative sample of teens in the United States engaged with or experienced pornography online, from how old they were when they first encountered it, to how it impacts their views on sex and sexual relationships. The report confirms that the majority of teen respondents age 13–17 have watched pornography online—and some have seen it by age 10 or younger. And while some have discovered it accidentally, a significant number of teens said they were viewing online pornography intentionally on a regular basis.
As Rochelle Gurstein has written, in her book, The Repeal of Reticence: America’s Cultural and Legal Struggles over Free Speech, Obscenity, Sexual Liberation, and Modern Art, “The Psychic Devastation of Exposure” to such things as pornography is clear (pp. 36-55).
Movieguide® founder and publisher Dr. Ted Baehr has written extensively on this subject.
In the Movieguide® article How the Mass Media’s Abuse of Children, after noting the headline grabbing story of a babysitter who exposed children to sexually explicit material, he went on to say: “There is one babysitter who’s constantly abusing millions of our children. That babysitter is mass media of entertainment: television, streaming, video games, movies, and much more. No one fires this babysitter or brings criminal charges against it.”
Dr. Baehr writes further of “the ‘modeling effect’ or ‘imitative learning’ effect that even non-violent pornography has on human behavior” and that a growing number of those exposed to such material want to copy it. In keeping with the findings of Common Sense Media’s recent survey, Dr. Baehr concludes: “Internet pornography is pervasive….Such imagery can have a strong demonic appeal”, and therefore, “trying to protect children” from this visual sexual assault is paramount.
Certainly, as Dr. Baehr makes clear, it is important that families become “media wise families” in order to combat the threat posed by the disturbing results of this important survey.
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