Porn is not the root of all evil – yes, even when it comes to your children watching it behind your back

As a sociology professor, I’ve studied and conducted my own research about the myths parents have accepted. Let me tell you, adult entertainment isn’t nearly as damaging as poor sex education

Research has shown several educational porn-related benefits for young people, including understanding sexual identity and exploring fantasies in a safe space (Getty)

A new British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) study has found that British teenagers regularly watch porn, and that parents are unaware or in denial about it. Surprising? No. But the results do reveal something interesting about how readily we accept so many misconceptions about porn.

The survey, conducted as part of the BBFC and the government’s now scrapped age verification "porn block" rollout, found that while porn is increasingly a source of education about sex, young people also discuss viewing material they found disturbing. As such, most parents support stricter online policing of porn to stop young children accidentally watching such material.

The fears that parents have about their children viewing porn are understandable. Conversations between parents and children about sex are awkward and the issue of online porn combines this difficulty with concerns about the damaging effects porn has on young people. Yet the risks of porn are exaggerated, and responding by censoring it through technology will not address the underlying issues for young people or their parents.

As media reports on the study indicates, young people are watching porn without their parents knowing. My own research found that young people chose to watch porn and found ways around their parents’ strategies to stop them. The problems they encountered related to their parents’ punishments and not their porn consumption.

The theory of why porn is harmful is that consumers will start to adopt troubling aspects of it in their attitudes and behaviours. If porn objectifies women, is violent or contains rape myths, the theory is that these things will develop in the people that watch it. Young people, then, will start to objectify women more because of the availability of porn. Or, if porn is violent, they will believe violence is a standard part of sex.

But that’s a limited and simplistic perspective of how people watch porn. It is a “monkey see, monkey do” theory of consumption where people are passive consumers of a script that they entirely accept and then act out themselves. It is far easier to blame porn for young people’s sexual interests than to recognize that young people are interested in sex.

The other key factor is that there is scant evidence for porn having this damaging impact. Exposure to online porn does not lead to risky sexual behaviours among young people. A systematic review of the impact of internet pornography on adolescents found that the evidence for correlations between porn consumption and a range of social and health outcomes were inconclusive, with little replicability across studies.

We are now almost inundated with research that counters the harmful porn narrative. Avid porn consumers who attend porn “expos” have more gender egalitarian views than the general population; porn addiction does not exist; online porn has not been getting more violent and people do not prefer violent porn in general. When young people seek out porn to watch, they tend to enjoy it and do not find it harmful.

Research is also now focusing on the potential benefits of watching porn. Just as the BBFC study reportedly finds young people watching porn as a form of sex education, research documents several educational benefits for young people: helping them understand their sexual identities, explore sexual fantasies in a safe environment, and educate themselves about sexual health.

That young people may be watching porn they feel disturbed by or being sent sexual images without their consent is far more troubling. Importantly, there is a lack of evidence for long-term harm caused by unintentionally watching porn or seeing porn that is disturbing. There is no evidence that young people who watch porn and dislike it continue to watch it.

The sharing of sexual images without consent requires a serious policy response, but given that it occurs mostly through messaging apps on smartphones, age verification systems aren’t an appropriate response to that problem. What we need instead, is a sophisticated approach to educating young people about the risks of and responsibilities in sexting. It is wrong to conflate inappropriate sexting with the availability of online porn.

This is not to argue away the importance of talking about porn. If porn is now serving as the primary form of sex education for young people, that is an indictment of sex education in schools and how we speak to young people about sex more generally. The BBFC report identifies a chasm of understanding and practice between children and their parents, and that demands attention. Porn consumption can still be problematic, and the unwanted sharing of sexually explicit material requires educational and legal action.

But the response to these issues must be one that fosters communication and knowledge between young people and adults and improves sex education in schools that is currently failing young people. An age-verification system that has already proven to be unworkable will not stop young people watching porn and it will not educate them about sexual consent and safety online. We do not need a technological fix to the “problem” of porn, but an educational response to the reality that when it comes to talking openly and honestly about sex and sexuality, we have a serious problem, especially with young people.

Mark McCormack is a professor of Sociology in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Roehampton