Pornography
Pornography (porn) is sexually explicit material that aims to arouse (turn on) people who are looking at it. It is very easy to come across porn accidentally online through pop-ups and links.
If you come across sexual images or videos that are surprising or shocking, you don’t have to view them! Stop watching, close the page and tell an adult. Don’t show others.
As you get older you may be interested in knowing what sex actually looks like and may go looking for sexual images or videos online out of curiosity.
A lot of young people also look at porn because they find it exciting, and a way of turning them and their partners on!
While you may be curious, or porn might seem exciting or turn you on, porn is not reality. Porn can negatively impact things like – your expectations around what sex should be like, what kind of things turn you on and the ways in which you think men and women should act. Even if you know porn is fake, watching it can shape what you like or want. This can be a problem as porn shows a lot of violent sexual behaviours, particularly towards women.
There is nothing wrong with sexual interest and sexual feelings, but it is important to know a few things about
sex and porn.
- Porn sex is not safe sex. Most people in porn do not use condoms and perform unsafe acts that are a risk to their health.
- Porn is meant for (some) adults. Some adults enjoy watching it. Some don’t.
- Porn commonly portrays and reinforces harmful racial and gender stereotypes
- Porn doesn’t show you what real sex and relationships are like.
- Sex should be a mutually pleasurable and consensual experience – something shared together rather than a thing ‘done to’ someone.
- Just like all movies, porn is a performance with people who are paid to look and act in certain ways.
- Real and respectful sex involves consensual touching, kissing and other intimacies that everyone enjoys.
- Most porn is violent, and violence is never OK.
- Porn rarely shows what real bodies look like – they use lighting, filming techniques and surgery to enhance
the actors’ bodies.
So what now? It’s very common for people to use porn. However remember that you don’t have to view it if you don’t want. Don’t let what you see in porn shape your choices about what you are/aren’t into. Make those decisions for yourself and remember to always be safe!
